Time to format the boot partition of my hard drive and start from scratch. It's been a good install of XP Pro - nearly two years with no problems - but it's starting to develop those nagging little annoyances that come with a Windows OS over time, as hardware is replaced and upgraded.

Never again will a home use install of mine be so faithful - once went 83 days without a reboot, and even that was only because of an Nvidia Detonator upgrade.

I suspect I'll prolly do it New Year's day, using the downtime from whatever hangover I have to do it. Tis a dark day in the history of Cobra for sure...