I tried it and it didn't work. I then tried the solution in the thread here at MATY and that didn't work. Format C and reinstall of Windows did work

If you're a with, just choose "fly to - community lot" and there "magical world". You can visit the evil and the good witch, and the one that's on your side will sell you reagents and potions. The other won't, though

I don't intend to set up an internet connection on my XP just to activate Spore. So I'm either not getting it I'll wait for a pirate version or a crack that will allow playing without spying.

You can buy reagents when you visit the high witch (or whatever she's called). Fly to her, click on her and choose the things you want to buy, I think there's options to buy 1, 3, 5 or 10 pieces of each reagent.

I followed the removal instructions a while ago and re-tried. I can use my burner again, so that's an improvement, but every time I use that drive (for reading as well as for writing) my computer almost freezes. And the drive is slllloowww.... (max. read at 6 times when it used to handle 30 x).
I'm pretty sure it's still related to SecuRom because it used to work properly before that pest came onto my computer. Any ideas what else I could do? I can't find any of the files on my hard drives but something seems to be there after all.

It's definitely not a US problem, I had the thing from the German version of BV and FT. You can't normally see the Securom folders as they're hidden, you have to make them visible.

TwoJeffs has a fix for the gypsy problem at "Bug Fixes"
http://www.simbology.com/smf/index.php/topic,16.0.html

It's malware. I don't like rootkits on my computer so I removed it when I realized it had been installed on my system (to which I never agreed, another thing that makes me dislike it intensely).

Jfade, I really like the hack and for me it seems to be working as intended. Nice extra money for my sim teens!

The problem I see about removing the money they earn at uni is that I'd hardly ever get my sims to move out of their parents' house. I use the no20khandout mod and if newly graduated sims started out with some hundred bucks, they'd have to earn loads to ever buy their own home - after all, you can't go to a sim bank for money, and there aren't any places to rent and live in (yet.....).

Thank you so much for removing those features of the computer that I always found annoying Can't wait to get my online shopping back, it was annoying to buy clothes for all sims at the store.

Oh, I'd be so grateful for that! I love the computer but no surfing for hobbies, no blogging...