Game won't start

Hi!
I just reactivated my account. Sadly I'm not able to play since the game won't start. Everything works fine until the loading screen (the little picture with LOADING...) shows up because after that nothing happens. I'm totally clueless why this happens. I checked the file integrity with the updater and tried to shut down the firewall.
Are there any other options? I'd really hate to reinstall the whole game.
If this helps, I'm using XP however the game worked just fine before...

Thanks in advance.

Ps: I used the search but couldn't really find anything that helped. Maybe I overlooked something.

When you say you've tried to shut down your firewall, do you mean you managed to or not?

Yup I shut it down. I also played with admission for internet access to test if the firewall might be messed up. But it worked just fine. However I doubt that it's a firewall problem since the updater works perfectly. The game just won't start.

Thanks for the quick answer.

When it gest stuck at the "loading" message, does it lock up your whole computer?

Nope. Everything keeps working.

Are you running any OS skinning programs like WindowsBlinds? This is one of the observed behaviours with that program and you'll need to disable it for the game to work properly.

If not, post back with your full system spec and video driver version and I'll see if I can help.