I killed so many instances of svchost.exe back in the day! Never ran into anything bad that a reboot wouldn't fix. I remember figuring out by trial-and-error which instances were safe to kill by looking at their memory usage.

There was something exciting about stripping Windows XP to its bare essentials, and also it seemed necessary at the time, if you wanted to run it smoothly on an ageing laptop that was basically obsolete when it was new. Especially if you wanted to run such RAM and CPU hogs like The Sims 2! (Not to mention the 40 GiB disk space that just filled up so fast with save games and expansion packs.)

I wonder if Windows 10 still lets you use an alternative to explorer.exe for its desktop shell? I used to write my own little launchers and spotlight-esque programs.

Oh...my...god...

That CD key. I remember that one as well. Good times :) Thanks for bringing up these memories.

RHQQ2. Wow. I was not ready for this throwback.

> Wtf is svchost.exe doing? I don't want it! Wireless Zero Config? I don't have Wi-Fi, too flaky and slow (remember, it's 2003). Distributed Link Tracker? Sounds cool, but what distributed links am I tracking? I don't think this is part of Napster or KaZaa.. DCOM Sockets.. <disable>, and so on, until the eventual: Oops, the network is messed up. What was this originally set to? Haha. Oh well, time to refresh and start anew..

ARE YOU ME?! I did all of that stuff! Friggin' svchost.exe man...

> FCKGW-RHQQ2-YXKRT-8TG6W-2B7Q8

I still have a burnt disc somewhere with that key written on the jacket so I didn’t have to look it up every time.

Haven’t used the key in 15+ years but when I saw it in your post I knew exactly what it was. Funny how memory works.

As soon as the parent mentioned memorizing keys, the FCKGW key came to mind!

Very close to the key I had memorised, but now forgotten; although mine had RQ2D3 in the second part and something else at the last part (I think. But am positive about RQ2D3)