Reinstalled Windows XP pro... everything not working

[Pedersen]

Not necessarily true. I have seen macs infected with Windows viruses. Didn't do anything for the Mac, but would certainly hurt a Windows machine.

Wow, I've not seen those yet. Thank you for that warning, I will be on the lookout for them. Any recommendations on how to find/prevent them?

The most important thing to remember is humility. If you don't know how to do something, tell them.

I have to take issue with saying people need to remember humility. Too often, humility is associated with shame. I agree with the second part, in every word.

Basically, I prefer to say "admit you don't know something. Computing is a huge field. I've been doing something with it for 20+ years, and I don't know everything. I doubt I ever will. It's okay not to know it all."

And it really is, for anybody out there reading. I can make computers and programs do things their designers never intended. And I still don't know even a major fraction of the totality of the computing industry/field. I'll be surprised if it's even 10%.

[Shabo]

Wow, I've not seen those yet. Thank you for that warning, I will be on the lookout for them. Any recommendations on how to find/prevent them?

Um, good luck. Most mac users are smart enough to not click on every single link that comes through their email, but for a while we had a virus that was being transmitted through an email attachment named joke.insertfileextensionhere. (I can't remember what the exact file extension was though). It was one of those classic *I'm gonna use your address book to spread myself to all your friends* viruses, hence how it made it on to the mac. I had seen it on numerous other PCs, too, but that was the only mac I saw it on. So your only real way of preventing them is preventing stupid people from being stupid. So again, good luck.

I have to take issue with saying people need to remember humility. Too often, humility is associated with shame. I agree with the second part, in every word.

Basically, I prefer to say "admit you don't know something. Computing is a huge field. I've been doing something with it for 20+ years, and I don't know everything. I doubt I ever will. It's okay not to know it all."

Ok, maybe not humility, but be humble. Don't be a vain ass. And no, no one will ever know everything there is to know about computers. Even if you think you do, there's some technology or programming language that is out there being developed right now that you know nothing about. So admitting to not knowing something is part of the territory, even for the most experienced techs.

[Pedersen]

but for a while we had a virus that was being transmitted through an email attachment named joke.insertfileextensionhere.

Ah, those types. Yeah, they can work on a Mac, too. I was referring to the type that does active network scanning and infects a computer automatically. Those types can't run on OSX (though a Mac running Windows can run them), and those are the types I was more worried about when taking an unprotected computer into another network.

[MadMike]

I just had a thought -- you didn't happen to click on links from popups that told you your registry was corrupted, did you?

I know you're supposed to burn SP2 to a disc and upgrade your XP installation before allowing it to connect to the internet, but I don't always do that, and I haven't had a problem, other than the annoying Messenger spam I mentioned above.

Granted, the one time was with my wife's computer, and all of ours are behind a router, but I also did an upgrade for my friends recently, using a pre-SP2 copy of XP, and they were not behind a router.

I know, it probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but nothing bad happened. Maybe I just got lucky.

[Horsetuna]

Never clicked on a one.

[Horsetuna]

Well, so far, so good. For some reason though Comodo will not install. I keep getting errors when I try.

As well, I can't seem to change my background (though that's not as important).. the 'properties' thing keeps freezing.

[Pedersen]

What errors for Comodo?

And for the background, try downloading a slightly older driver. They're usually available.

[Horsetuna]

a slightly older driver for the desktop picture?

I'll try to get the error message.

[Pedersen]

Sorry, meant to say download a slightly older version of you video driver (as I'm assuming you have the newest version already).

If you don't have the newest version, then consider this to be an official, certified, grade A hint to try it out