well i think i have it activated, today i had 1 day to activate, my activation wizard was not working for some reason, i called microsoft and got some indian woman who wanted my instalation number, which i did not have, i told her my wizard was not working, so i was given the tech help number and told to phone mon-fri, great i have 1 day left and could get up tomorrow to a blocked xp, so i found info on the microsoft xp activation forum, i read a post suggesting downloading the latest activation wizard, WindowsXP-KB905474-ENU-x86-Standalone.exe , so i installed this and bingo my wizard was working and i managed to activate windows.
so for some reason when i shut down i get a box on the bottom right saying windows is not activate, if i run the wizard it tells me i am, this is a feekin joke but i downloaded the updates ok so i must be activated now.