Here's my sob story. Got a nasty virus masquerading as an antivirus program.
It overpowered my AVP software and prevented me from doing anything
executable. I could copy some personal files to a memory stick and then
reformatted my hard drive and reloaded XP. Went through all the updates
(hours of time!). Not sure if Messenger loaded automatically or I asked for
it. Anyway, the Windows Live Messenger display is different (I may have had
an outdated version) but I don't get any E-mail notification alerts anymore.
Can't find any place to ask for this. Also, my Hotmail seems to "lock-up" a
lot of the time in Firefox. It doesn't work at all in IE-8; just loads the
Inbox and sits there dead. Another curiosity is that if I manually log off,
I get the Welcome page log-in (as per my setting choice). If I let the
computer time-out, I get the Classic log-in box instead. Now one possible
issue was that during the update installation, I was somewhat impatient. Is
it possible for an earlier update to overwrite a newer one causing problems
if I somehow managed to do this? Any comments other than suck it up type of
replies appreciated?

Did you do a Repair Install or a clean install?

Was IE7 or IE8 installed before you reinstalled Windows?

How to perform a repair installation of Windows XP if a later version of
Internet Explorer is installed:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/917964

--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-IE, Mail, Security, Windows Client - since 2002
www.banthecheck.com


POTO wrote:
> Here's my sob story. Got a nasty virus masquerading as an antivirus
> program. It overpowered my AVP software and prevented me from doing
> anything
> executable. I could copy some personal files to a memory stick and then
> reformatted my hard drive and reloaded XP. Went through all the updates
> (hours of time!). Not sure if Messenger loaded automatically or I asked
> for
> it. Anyway, the Windows Live Messenger display is different (I may have
> had
> an outdated version) but I don't get any E-mail notification alerts
> anymore.
> Can't find any place to ask for this. Also, my Hotmail seems to "lock-up"
> a
> lot of the time in Firefox. It doesn't work at all in IE-8; just loads
> the
> Inbox and sits there dead. Another curiosity is that if I manually log
> off,
> I get the Welcome page log-in (as per my setting choice). If I let the
> computer time-out, I get the Classic log-in box instead. Now one possible
> issue was that during the update installation, I was somewhat impatient.
> Is
> it possible for an earlier update to overwrite a newer one causing
> problems
> if I somehow managed to do this? Any comments other than suck it up type
> of
> replies appreciated?

"POTO" wrote:

> Here's my sob story. Got a nasty virus masquerading as an antivirus program.
> It overpowered my AVP software and prevented me from doing anything
> executable. I could copy some personal files to a memory stick and then
> reformatted my hard drive and reloaded XP. Went through all the updates
> (hours of time!). Not sure if Messenger loaded automatically or I asked for
> it. Anyway, the Windows Live Messenger display is different (I may have had
> an outdated version) but I don't get any E-mail notification alerts anymore.
> Can't find any place to ask for this. Also, my Hotmail seems to "lock-up" a
> lot of the time in Firefox. It doesn't work at all in IE-8; just loads the
> Inbox and sits there dead. Another curiosity is that if I manually log off,
> I get the Welcome page log-in (as per my setting choice). If I let the
> computer time-out, I get the Classic log-in box instead. Now one possible
> issue was that during the update installation, I was somewhat impatient. Is
> it possible for an earlier update to overwrite a newer one causing problems
> if I somehow managed to do this? Any comments other than suck it up type of
> replies appreciated?

Have you downloaded and installed Flash player, also Java?

XP should'nt simply get "reloaded",how you reinstalled to an updated OS
seems impossible,but it may have happened..Either way,to install xp,you
need to boot to xp cd,then format the hd,then let xp reinstall the OS.W/O
formatting,youre headaches have just begun.

"POTO" wrote:

> Here's my sob story. Got a nasty virus masquerading as an antivirus program.
> It overpowered my AVP software and prevented me from doing anything
> executable. I could copy some personal files to a memory stick and then
> reformatted my hard drive and reloaded XP. Went through all the updates
> (hours of time!). Not sure if Messenger loaded automatically or I asked for
> it. Anyway, the Windows Live Messenger display is different (I may have had
> an outdated version) but I don't get any E-mail notification alerts anymore.
> Can't find any place to ask for this. Also, my Hotmail seems to "lock-up" a
> lot of the time in Firefox. It doesn't work at all in IE-8; just loads the
> Inbox and sits there dead. Another curiosity is that if I manually log off,
> I get the Welcome page log-in (as per my setting choice). If I let the
> computer time-out, I get the Classic log-in box instead. Now one possible
> issue was that during the update installation, I was somewhat impatient. Is
> it possible for an earlier update to overwrite a newer one causing problems
> if I somehow managed to do this? Any comments other than suck it up type of
> replies appreciated?