sorry long one, but help please!

stewart borland · 09-22-2004, 10:29 AM

I've spent over 10 hours over the last 3 weeks with the AOL Broadband help line. Eventually they gave up and sia it was my PC not AOL.

I've ended up trying various things -
-restore points wouldn't work!?!
-repair XP didn't work!?!
-so reloaded windows XP & have since spent a day reloading all the programs it didn't 'see' anymore

-Encarta World Atlas will now no longer run

-the issues I had before are still there - Norton Anti- Virus sometimes switches off auto-protect & a script error comes up when I try and enable it (although the next time I reboot it may well be back on)
-AOL won't play film clips - the sound is fine but the video is a mess. If I got to the web site I can watch it perfectly there??
AOL doesn't seem to know I have broadband (sometimes) as at random when I click for Broadband content it offers an advert and a subscribe button

(but next sign-on will/could be fine - apart from choppy video) sound & radio is fine.
-I've un-installed service pack 2 (as everyone says it's hell) but updated everything else via Windows Update Page

All I've achieved by reloading XP is a lot of work and both my disappeared drives (both my DVD & CD drives disappeared from the 'My Computer' window and stopped working, to be replaced by a ! in the devices window. Oh, and I've deleted Norton Firewall as AOL said it might be that.

Sorry to go on so long, and I bet there's something I've forgotten to tell you guys, but any help appreciated, I'm sinking here :b

Kyle McKnight · 09-22-2004, 11:22 AM

Have you done a complete format/reinstall? If it seems like armageddon, that will usually do the trick.

stewart borland · 09-22-2004, 04:37 PM

No, I didn't reformat the hard drive because I don't know how to do it, or what settings to pick. I just reinstalled XP. I had a day off today and it's taken most of it to get everything back on (plus all the updates etc.)

What's the view here about service pack 2 - was that what started all this or is it not as bad as some say?

Mike Fassler · 09-22-2004, 08:17 PM

put your winXP cd into drive and boot from cdrom follow the prompts, format that puppy and reinstall. be ready with your cd key and activation info. its very easy it basically does everything for you. oh yeah tell it to format with ntfs and dont do a quick format do a full format

good luck feel free to message me if you need more help.

SethH · 09-22-2004, 09:48 PM

This should go without saying, but make sure you back up EVERYTHING before formatting. Formatting, by definition, erases everything on the HD.

About SP2. I've installed it on 6 computers and have had only one problem. It didn't get along with Norton SystemWorks2003. I uninstalled Norton SW2003 and everything was happy. SP2 probably has fewer flaws than any Windows update released. All the flaws that do exist are documented by Microsoft and most of them were semi-planned problems. I say this because many of the programs that SP2 "breaks" are older programs which use antiquated features in XP. Microsoft removed some of the antiquated features for security reasons, thus causing the programs to no longer work. Also, I'm not a Microsoft fan at all. If my classes didn't require me to run Windows (for things like programming in VB), I would be running Linux on all my computers. I hate Microsoft, but they've actually done OK with SP2.

**HTF Ads**

Mike Fassler · 09-22-2004, 10:05 PM

all norton products are incompatible with SP2 at this point in time.

Alf S · 09-22-2004, 10:09 PM

Quote:

all norton products are incompatible with SP2 at this point in time.

If that's the case, why is my Norton Anti-Virus 2003 working flawlessly with my XP SP2?? Fluke?

SethH · 09-23-2004, 06:30 PM

To say all Norton products are incompatible is going a little too far. While I did have to uninstall SystemWorks my Norton AV runs perfectly. Granted, SP2's Security Center doesn't know how to monitor Norton AV as it does other AV programs, but I just told the Security Center to not monitor my AV and everything's fine.

EricWilliam · 09-23-2004, 11:21 PM

all norton products incompatible with sp2?? huh?? hmmmm...you might want to check your facts first..