WWQP Bulletin Board Chat

computer woes and technical issues

I've been trying to get my computer running for what seems like weeks. I've been able to read enough to keep up, but posting was out of the question. I'm describing the situation for those who might be interested in case it happens to them. Scroll past otherwise.
For the last week, my computer (windows xp) has operated only in safe mode. It seems that the latest security patch, automatically downloaded and installed, totally confused my computers display software. We'd get nothing but static or a black screen. We were sure that the video card had gone out, but a tech friend suggested trying safe mode before buying a new computer, and it worked. Obviously, at that point we knew it was software, and not hardware, so we started checking options. "Restore system" was an option, but not a good one, because either the new security patch had to be blocked, or we were back in difficulties. We ended up copying everything off this computer (which we've had since 2001) and re-formatting the drive. I've been reinstalling software all day, and I'm not even close to finished. I would not recommend trying this unless you are at least moderately skilled with locating the files you need to copy, and have kept copies of all the software that you have installed on your machine. Eventually, I'm going to have to buy a more recent copy of XP Professional; I hope I can get one used. I had to download more than 150 security patches to bring my 2001 XP back up to date, and it made things very unstable while all of that was going on. I think a more recent version of XP will be the way to go if my problems recur. It seem to be stable now, but I'm not sure I have all the updates yet!

Kitty was always very kind to me when I first discovered the board. Pass my good wishes and prayers on for me please.
Anna, it's great to see you finally made it, and great that your life seems to have improved. Welcome to any new folks I've missed.

Laura in (hot!) Alabama

Labels: computer

posted by Laura in Alabama @ 4:47 PM