Win XP issues

Hey geeks, been awhile since I visited here, kinda of drifted away from the computer repair gig.

But, just dd a reinstall/reset to factory on a desktop Dell running XP. All well, it came preloaded with McAffee which I uninstalled right off.

Anyway, it won't do updates from MS website, don't have it here and don't remember the exact language, but something about MS unable to find or open correct website for updates. (Figure I should upgrade to SP3, though I know it is no longer supported.

EVEN odder, I can't go to this website (majorgeeks), comes up, then says website no longer found or some such. Side by side, my lappy is on the MG site. I know I ran into this problem b/4, and specifically with MG's site?? But I don't remember if I ever solved it, but I think not. All this with a fresh install!!!??:confused

Hope someone can help with this, I'll be visiting the computer again tomorrow, (it was donated to a non-profit group I volunteer for.)

 

Yes do download and install it. It is still being supported until sometime in April of next year. Without SP3, you won't be able to download the rest of the updates. This is at least part of your current problem with updates:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=24

Unless you installed some other a-v program, I'm not making any sense of not being able to see the Major Geeks site. If you have added a-v, you might try adding the Major Geeks url to the whitelist of the program. Could be your a-v (if you have one) is trying to steer users away from the downloads section here at MG, although I have no idea why they anyone would go that route...

 

Thank you, that's the odd part. I was actually going to MG to get an AV program. Could it be remnants of McAfee blocking this?
And I'll try the link you posted from MS as well.
I know MG has a clean out Mcafee program, but I can't get here. Would you know what that link may be as well?

 

Greetings, BP - good to see you.

Try this: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/mcafee-consumer-products-removal-tool/

 

Okay, so I started over again, resetting the Dell to factory, Dell uses a symantec ghost program on this machine to do so. I come up with the welcome stuff to Dell, with all their pitches and hyperbole about congrats on your new Dell, so it is the original.
SP 2 is on the install, but still when I go to the MS site to install SP3, it hangs. Site sort of loads, but stops with a MS blank screen, site is http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2497281.
When I search this on that computer, it links to a site, again on MS, and again it hangs, no help. (Seems once I saw a reference to a registry edit, but no sure).
Also, on MG's site and google search, it opens the page then says "Cannot open the website" then "operation aborted". Using IE 6, but cannot upgrade that either because all MS sites just hangs.
This is crazy, this is a reset to original factory, have never seen this before!
It is preloaded with Mcafee, the first time I removed all that, no help, so I reinstalled everything without messing with any of the original Dell setting, same results!
ANY suggestions?? Any one else run into this???
My next step would be to install XP from my own install disks, but this would also wipe out any factory installs from Dell and if that doesn't work, I'd be really screwed, so I'd at least like to keep the factory install on that drive.
But that shouldn't be necessary anyway as I am merely going back to the original install...right??? :confused

 

Very strange indeed. My first thought is that something's being carried over by the Ghost image, but that makes no sense unless it's embedded in the Dell trashware. Weird.

Can you boot into Safe Mode w/ Networking to see if any symptoms change? Can you install a different browser (Firefox portable, maybe) to see if you can d/l the SP3 package, then install it (or for that matter d/l the package on a different machine and transfer via flash drive)? Just random thoughts.

Agreed with AtlBo - got a feeling that if you can somehow get SP3 up and running the available updates might then take care of some issues.

I don't have a viable WinXP machine available at the moment - sorry.

 

Thanks, will try these things next. Also found an article on the wups2.dll file that looks promising....http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943144

 

Oooo - it's even got a Fix it - cool. Good luck.

 

Thanks again, this WAS in fact the issue. But, thanks to your suggestion, I installed the chrome browser in order to download it, IE just would keep kicking me off most websites.
So, after installing the wups2.dll, I was finally able to install all the necessary updates thru SP3!
A hell of a lot of screwing around for yet another of MS's glitches, although I do understand it's a very old OS. I always thought XP was a quite decent OS but also one that required quite a bit of tweaking knowledge, it really is what helped me become somewhat of an expert, (at least among a very small group of people, most of who barely knew how to turn on a machine, :-D ).
But this would be an item to keep in mind for anyone who also may be involved in working on an XP system. :wave

 

Glad you got it sorted.

Yeah, I liked XP a lot - thought it was a solid OS. It's been kinda fun watching the Microsoft roller coaster ride - 3.1 innovative, 95/98 good, ME bad, XP good, Vista bad, 7 good, 8 who knows?