Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Question from Larry V.: Rick, I have a Dell Dimension 3100 (Windows XP) that’s served me quite well over the years, but when I turned it on yesterday morning it wouldn’t connect to the Internet.
When I plug in the cable from the router it recognizes it and says it’s connected at 100 Mbs, but I can’t access any websites, check for system updates, or do anything else that requires an Internet connection. Do you think it might be a hardware problem?
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
It’s been a long time coming, but Microsoft has announced that they will no longer support or release security updates for Windows XP after April 8, 2014, a move that will effectively kill off what has been arguably the most popular version of Windows ever released.
The company had originally planned to end support for XP years ago, but for various reasons they pushed back the “kill” date several times. It appears that the April 2014 date is set in stone however. [Read more…]
Question from Jennifer K.: Hi Rick! I have an older Dell desktop PC running Windows XP that I absolutely love, but due to a virus I had to re-install Windows from scratch. Now when I try to use Windows Update it fails and I get this error message:
“The website has encountered a problem and cannot display the page you are trying to view.”
I’m stuck at Service Pack 2 and I get any updates to download at all. I can’t even get Bitdefender to install because it says I need Service Pack 3, so the computer is currently running without anti-virus protection. Can I fix this or should I just recycle the computer and use my laptop for everything (NOT my first choice!)? [Read more…]