administrator abandoned us

Hi,
My wife, a school teacher, has a computer that was given to her by the schoool district about 5 years ago. The school was given a grant that year for the computers. since then, the district has pretty much abandoned the computers, with regards to maitanence. They are protected and adminstered by their firewall software and I think it is blocking windows updates. the computer is running very slow and seems to beworking extra hard (fan is always running and very hot). My wife relys on this computer as her primary but I am getting worried that it may be at the end of it's life and maybe potentialy vulnerable to spyware,malware, viruses without updates. she has talked to the district about it and they say they have no resources to maintain these computers.

What do you think?

 

My wife also is a teacher,,and if the computer was given to her to take home the district was supposed to disable thier software,,because it is school district property. A school district "tech" should be able to help you!!!! If the computer is still in school,,call main office and request that a "tech" come check into it. I was told this answer by a school assistant superintendent. Good luck!!!!

 

The computer is at home. My understanding is that a weathy local guy gave a grant to the district to spend on the teachers for for technogy. The teachers were required to take a certain amount of technology credits and then the computer were theirs, which sounded like a great deal. I think about 100 teachers recieved computers. my wife talked to the district and I guess they have been overwhelmed with similar maintaniece issues with this batch of computers and have decided that they will not do any more. I guess there is a tech that works for the district that will clean up the computer and disable it from their network for a couple hundred bucks.

 

All good points made kasey,,especially plodr. Your wife is lucky she was given anything without giving blood for it. But ,,if the computer was given on an "as is",,then it makes it your burden,(sorry).Check like Tim says ,for malware and then check system info,,and all programs running. Also check Services to see if you can stop what may be blocking you. See if you are running on the built-in firewall or an independant one.