Viewing topic: IE7 has killed my computer

Just a warning to anyone out there running XP on an older computer - IE7 invaded my laptop in the form of a Windows Update. It cost me two days' work - that was the time it took to fix the problems it caused.

There are still some (completely unrelated) programs that won't work, including Photoshop, so it looks like I'll have to do the dreaded reformat.

The previous version of IE that was installed now also does not work (the address bar has irretrievably disappeared, meaning the only way to go to a website is to use file > open...).

I'm now using Firefox, which in any case is a better idea. It's safer, less prone to spyware, viruses and other nasty things (pretty important if you're using your computer in Russia). Plus, it's actually much more convenient and less demanding on stone-age 950MHz machines like mine.

Since quite a few people have had problems using computers over here, I'm going to make a page dedicated to various useful little downloadable tools for removing some of the crap that installs itself when you're browsing the 'net.

If you know and have used any safe and effective programs for stopping/removing spyware, etc. feel free to post information about them here.

Here's a site with an excellent program that bocks spyware and also has a great feature that alerts you any time an attempt is made to alter the registry:

http://www.spybot.info/en/index.html

You can get Firefox with the Google Toolbar here:

Did you have any user errors pop up?

It could also have been an ID-10-T error.

All the same, sooner or later much of the workings of internet technology will require IE7 or above.
I'm sure there's a way to make it work.

I beta'ed IE7 and never really had any problems...just had to get used to tabs which are also on Opera, Safari, and my lovely Firefox.

I know 2 people who have updated to IE7 and both say that they are inundated with pop ups now. I run Mozilla and IE7 always prompts me to update and I refuse. I just wish that I could get rid the annoying promts evey time I start my computer.

I use Avast for virus protection and it is free. The geeks seem to like it. I also use Spybot for spyware.

ID10T is always an option with me and computers, but until I had removed as many traces of IE7 as possible, the damn computer just wasn't cooperating.

Windows updates aren't supposed to need configuration! I don't recall any popups, just constant freezing and crashing (other programs too - notepad even crashed when I had IE7 running!)

I guess it's just not for older machines. Firefox runs sweetly though, and I can have *dozens* of open tabs - there's no way my calculator, er, computer would handle that many IE windows being open.

I have Norton Symantec corporate version - it cost about $1 here )

As I said...I did the beta thing for IE7.

I had very few problems and I'm pretty hard on my machine.

Actually, plug-ins were rough at first, but since release I haven't had a problem.

OK...so my old machine is still Vista capable...guess that says something too.

Anyway, I generally prefer Mozilla now because I can get it to go the speed of light and have too many tabs.

My major problem with both is that I open so many tabs that they eat resources like crazy!
Worse yet, I got an add-on called "CoolIris"...it's definitely cool and you don't notice too much when your Mozilla is eating extra new resources to open window views on top of windows and tabs...it seems to work like that Vista windows do in all but Vista-Basic.

[No, I haven't gotten Vista...it's too expensive and I prefer to keep my machine in English, which means it's cheaper to buy a new computer with it already installed. It's also not worth the hassle since not everything seems to work with it yet.]

Good news though...no more XP updates now that Vista is released.