Problem 1: I am using Windows XP Professional. When I tried installing Service Pack 1 (Express) from the Windows Update website, it all installed fine, but once the computer rebooted afterwards, all my USB ports had been disabled. Since, I have uninstalled SP1 and all works fine. Is there any way I can install it without having this problem? Problem 2: Exactly the same as above, but with SP2 as well Problem 3: I am on Windows XP Professional. My brother is on Windows XP Home Edition. We have a Cat5 Ethernet crossover network cable connecting the two PCs. We are not using a hub or switch. The two green lights light up on both ends of the network cable when connected to both our onboard network cards, but we can not do anything network-related. We have tried the network connection wizard many times and the network has never worked. Any help please? Thanks

Problems 1 & 2 the Service Packs may have overwritten the USB controller driver with one that is imcompatible. Check in Device manager, update as necessary. Problem 3 May sound stupid but did you actually enable the network connections? Did you give each computer a unique name? Remembeer using two PC's with a crossover cable is Peer to Peer: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/deploy/p2pintro.mspx

Thank you for your help, but for problem 3: 1. Yes, the connections are enabled 2. Each PC has a unique name, yes 3. erm ... does that change anything? 4. I tried to install the download which was linked to on that page and it complained that Service Pack 1 was not installed and wouldn't install. The rest of the article didn't really tell me anything.