"new hardware found" & "unsigned" with every USB device. XP SP3

My laptop recently started to pop-up "new hardware found" and unsigned pop up messages every time I attach a new USB device, such as a flash drive belonging to someone else, or existing devices to a new port.

I have to click buttons many times as each device causes a ton of pop ups. When I connect a mouse, I get a pair of those pop-ups for "USB composite device ", another set for "HID compliant device ", another for "human interface device" and so on.

I've read these two threads, however I wasn't able to reply to them as they are "over 30 days old "
http://www.windowsbbs.com/windows-xp/68912-usb-mouse-calls-found-new-hardware-wizard.html

I'm getting the exact same pops as this guy
http://www.windowsbbs.com/windows-x...w-hardware-wizard-popup-unsigned-drivers.html

I already searched the web and tried changing driver signing notification to "ignore" and it did not fix the problem.

So, I contacted Microsoft chat and at their advise, I renamed these two files in system32 folder to .old.

usbport.sys
usbehci.sys

This did prevent the pop ups from showing up, but it also disabled USB ports entirely.

The guy had me restart the computer a bunch of times, tried to have me get "USB driver" from HP, etc.

After two hours on chat, the problem was not resolved.

How do I fix this for good, without having to redo the entire OS install?

 

It's definitely not normal. It didn't used to do it and it's not the "found hardware" pop up that shows up at the taskbar near the clock.

The first part of the pair is always this:
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/6656/windowserror2sc0.png

I leave the box at "install software automatically" then click "next "
and I ALWAYS get this

Second part is always this.
http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/6928/windowserror1dm1.png I click "continue anyways"

With some devices, I have to loop through click "next" -> wait-> click "continue anyways" dozens of times before they're finally installed.