Recently I had an explorer.exe problem I could not fix. It resulted in me having to wipe the hard drive and reinstall Windows Xp with my legal cd that came with the computer. The installation went great, no hithes. Obviously the first thing you should do after a fresh install is get all of the recent updates to protect your computer. To my surprise when I tried to run windows update I got an error that my copy of XP could not be validated and it must not be genuine. How can that be? It was purchased with the computer from Dell. After talking to Microsoft support I was instructed to contact Dell. Dell was very helpful and told me I needed to download a patch and that there was an error with windows genuine software validation. After running the patch I was able to run windows update just fine.

The following is instructions from Dell on how to fix the problem.

1. Stop the Background Intelligent Transfer Service and the Automatic Updates service. To do this, follow these steps:

a. Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.
b. At the command prompt, type the following commands, and then press ENTER after each command.
net stop wuauserv
net stop bits
exit
2. Delete the SoftwareDistribution folder:
a. Click Start, click Run, type %systemroot%, and then click OK.
b. Locate the SoftwareDistribution folder, and then press Delete on keyboard. Click Yes to confirm deletion.
c. Click Start, click Run, type %systemroot%system32 and then click OK.
d. Locate the SoftwareDistribution folder, and then press Delete on keyboard. Click Yes to confirm deletion.

3. Download and save the update on affected system from the following links.

1. http://snipurl.com/rh9j
2. http://snipurl.com/WGADELL
3. http://tinyurl.com/o3cpu
4. http://www.download.windowsupdate.com/msdownload/update/v3-19990518/cabpool/windowsxp-kb905474-enu-x86_4bafa8793e8cdcaf4ba4ffc494df32d496154544.exe

4. Run the update from saved location.

5. Restart system

6. Start the Background Intelligent Transfer Service, the Automatic Updates service, and the Event Log service. To do this, follow these steps:
a. Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.
b. At the command prompt, type the following commands, and then press ENTER after each command.
net start wuauserv
net start bits
exit

7. Browse to www.windowsupdate.com and try doing an update.

If you are able to see the updates to be downloaded, the issue is resolved. You may also download a verification tool or visit Microsoft genuine page to verify the fix.

Microsoft page to validate windows: www.microsoft.com/genuine . Click on Validate Windows.