Perhaps XP will always be a lesser or forgotten OS for XXHE.
Of course not. If that were so I wouldn't have spent all this time on Kernel Streaming (which I created for one reason only : XP).
If you are going to setup a clean PC that would be perfect, because I'm sure something is wrong. Another indication for that is your corrupted config file, which by itself can be - or will have been caused by a sudden reboot. So if you sit back and think, you may well come to the conclusion that indeed your PC reboots regularly, and maybe something indeed is very wrong with it.
The demo mode shouldn't matter much, but of course you must be able to undemo it. I'll send you a PM about this.
Peter