MyNameIsRaGe

Yes..

I usually set the priority level of explorer.exe, to low.. That's the only way I can get games to run without skipping.

I've got nothing loading with Windows at startup, and as little as possible in services. This isn't a software issue, because I've reformatted my system, and explorer still takes up lots of CPU power, and lots of RAM.. At first, just around 10mb, but it grows as you have windows on your drive. Maybe it's a memory leak?

Theelviscerator: Like I'd really pay $500 for an inferior processor.. pmistry: I've got the patch, but sadly it doesn't help my problem

I've upgraded all my hardware drivers, to no avail..

Is anyone else having this problem? Explorer.exe takes up, on average, 20% CPU usage.. This makes all my games skip every few seconds, and other programs run crappy as well.. I know it's explorer, because if I end task on it, and run a game without explorer running, the games don't skip, and I get, on average, 20fps more then usual. I've got Windows XP Professional.. An Athlon 1.1GHz, running at 1.3GHz, 384MB of PC133 RAM, an Abit KT7E motherboard, and a PNY GeForce 4 ti4400.. Any advice would be appreciated..

Omg.. My specs in my sig are totally outdated..

Is anyone else having this problem? Explorer.exe takes up, on average, 20% CPU usage.. This makes all my games skip every few seconds, and other programs run crappy as well.. I know it's explorer, because if I end task on it, and run a game without explorer running, the games don't skip, and I get, on average, 20fps more then usual. I've got Windows XP Professional.. An Athlon 1.1GHz, running at 1.3GHz, 384MB of PC133 RAM, an Abit KT7E motherboard, and a PNY GeForce 4 ti4400.. Any advice would be appreciated..

$1.79? Lucky ba5tard.. Around here, it's around $2.50..

Well, after a game has been out long enough, not many people are going to pirate it..

Yep. It's not exactly like people who pirate XP will be able to complain either, lol

Microsoft is going to wanna cover thier ***.. So to speak.. Like I said in my previous post, most game developers have small 1-2 man teams that get cracks, analyze them, and then add fixes to the latest patch that defeats them. No reason why Microsoft, one of the worlds richest companies, can't, and won't afford to do something similar.

Please keep in mind, I'm not against war3z (Honestly, you don't have to censor us from the horrible word, lol) , in fact, I haven't paid for an MS OS since Windows 95. I'm just stating what will probably happen, and why I'll actually buy Windows XP Professional, instead of cracking it.

I'm willing to bet, that even if you do crack your installation of XP Final, which you probably will 2 days after it's released, chances are, Microsoft is going to try to make it a pain in the *** to run a cracked install. Windows Update, one of the better features of Windows, will probably have some part in checking up on installations.. You never know what could really be in that "Critical Update" do you? Just as Game Developers release patches to prevent cracks and trainers, is it not unthinkable that maybe Microsoft might just be planning something similar? After all, they may have a team, ready and will to find, and defeat all known cracks for XP. Then, quietly slipping those fixes in with updates via Windows Update. From my point of view, it looks like a perfectly good idea, and chances are, they will do something like this. Just think, you spent hours downloading you final copy of XP off some guy via IRC.. You burn it, install it, crack it. Simple, right? You then goto Windows Update, like many people do after a format, you download that latest Critical Update, reboot, and upon re-loading Windows, your suddenly shown a screen telling you, in simple detail, that you copy of XP has been de-activated.