Help Newbie!

[willdao3]

Hi, hope you can help, advise:

I'm running XP Home. I grabbed Illustrator 10 from Verified Downloads. It unzipped to Owner\Docs and Settings\Local Settings\Temp. I ran the setup using the supplied S/N, which didn't work. I found a Keygen and tried it. About the20th S/N worked, and the Keygen author said to reset my clock to May 21, 2001 before install, which I did

Several Probs (dumb me&#33 :

1) When I reset the clock, Illustrator wouldn't run. (Only works until 12-21-2001).
2) I uninstalled.
3) a few days later I reinstalled, after having deleted all the temp files in this directory, which disk cleanup said should be fine (I didn't think having multiple pre-install files around was good).
4) Now I get "serious system error warnings" after boot. Reinstall/remove does not help. There are two temp files beginning "JET*.tmp" OKB in the temp file that can't be removed.

WHAT TO DO? A) to fix system w/out reformatting HD (My OS is OEM, compressed on proprietary Cds along w/other HP software, laptop utilities, etc. B) to get Illustrator to work once I get OS fixed. Should I have burned a CD, or what? How to replace missing files, edit registry, or what (and how&#33 Curse all newbies, right?

Also, understand that I'm now only beginning to understand what iso files are, but don't know how to use them effectively, and lots of other stuff--don't know what UU hashes are, etc. Is there a good general tutorial for me to read so I know what the heck I'm doing?

Dumb me: other programs worked fine (Acrobat 5.0. After Effects 5.5, Sound Forge, Madden 2002, etc. Just lucky, I guess, until now.
Thanks in advance for good detailed advice and resource links!

BTW: I like the friendly and helpful tone of this forum; hope to learn a lot about a lot of things (not just filesharing) here!

[McGee]

For a start, boot up in safe mode and delete the files you need deleted. (Press f8? when computer is starting.)

Then if you have Norton Systemworks, do Windoctor.. Not sure what else to do.

[Wizzandabe]

i didnt need torestart my clock on my vertion, maybe thats becasue it was a copy from an orignal.