Not sure what to tell you guy. I've done it in the past so unless XP SP2 has broken it, it does work.

Unlikely maybe, but could also maybe be that your OS is not native English as MS often does not fully port everything to other languages (but that is a long shot which I doubt is the real issue).

And you're 100% certain that you've checked/modified the launch / execute rights for the systems involved?

Have you tried running from another 2000 workstation to the XP boxes?

Why not just run it from an XP box if XP can talk to 2000 and XP - then just don't run it from a 2000 box.