If he bought it new from dell they may offer a recovery xp cd for cheap ...he should call dell and give them the express service code (it's usually under a lift up door on the front of the tower right below the on button) ...they can be helpful... get ready for a wait ...polish up on hindi and pashtun!!
-----Original Message----- From: Robert [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, January 30, 2009 7:11 PM Subject: Dumb asked to give advice to dumber A friend has an older Dell laptop with Windows XP that won't connect wirelessly to internet. Maybe other problems, don't know. He knows nothing at all about computers, so he asked me for advice since I know next to nothing. He believes his problem is caused by viruses since he sees a message that his laptop has 178 viruses. Don't know where the message comes from, maybe an expired virus program from Dell or maybe a virus program that he paid to download from the web. He doesn't know what he downloaded, if anything, and he threw away all the CDs that came from Dell, including OS, since he didn't know what they were for. I told him to go to a local computer builder (not chain repair place) who might have an old Win XP OS on hand, tell them that he will pay to have the disk wiped and the OS reinstalled (ask price first), and say that if the computer won't work afterwards he will make no demand that the computer be fixed for that initial price. The computer is old enough that a high price to fix isn't wise, and he has no data that needs to be saved. Should I have told him something else? (I could try to fix for him but I am not that dumb.) ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** ************************************************************************* ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
