Hi, OMD.

Are you sure (is she sure?) that it says "Register"?

Many people confuse "register" with "activate". Activation is mandatory and
must be done within 30 days of installation or WinXP will refuse to run.
Registration is purely voluntary and failure to register certainly won't
shut down her computer. Registration gives Microsoft information about the
USER (name, address, etc.); activation gives only information about the
computer (CPU, hard drives, etc.).

Of course, a registration request may be coming from someone other than
Microsoft: Dell? Her college or its network? Was this copy of WinXP Home
pre-installed on the computer when it was new?

Of course there's always the possibility that the registration request is
coming from some form of malware. :>( Not a virus, necessarily, but some
of the many spyware, adware and other non-virus malware prowling the
Internet. Antivirus software won't stop this. Has she run a program like
Ad-Aware or SpyBot Search & Destroy recently? These (and many others) are
free and effective.

But she should never receive a demand from Microsoft to register Windows!
It sounds bogus to me..

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP

"OMD" <OMD@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:B6BA590B-7DDB-42A6-B52A-F3C37490CD7C@microsoft.com...
> My daughter's pc at college is now telling her that she needs to register
> windows. It is a 3 year old DELL running Windows XP Home edition. She is
> connected to her schools network. She was getting very slow response
> times
> and tried to shut down and reboot. The pc "froze" on her and she powered
> it
> off. It will let her power up in SAFE MODE.
>
> Did she clobber her user profile? What else could cause this. She has
> Norton Antivirus and runs Zone Alarm firewall software.
>
> Any help would be apprecaited as I attemp to help her this weekend.