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My wife's Dell 640 laptop has picked up some malware that affects the display. It shows up as faint rainbow colored horizontal bars across the screen, plus a circular, concentric, variable rainbow graphic in the upper left corner of the windows startup screen. The machine is running XP professional. The AVG software on the machine doesn't recognize it, nor did Trend Micro Housecall.

Microsoft has kicked off what it calls a "two-year countdown" to the death of Windows XP and the Office 2003 productivity suite. Separately, Microsoft announced that Windows Vista, the problem-plagued operating system that never really took hold among customers, exited mainstream support on April 10. In a product's extended support phase, Microsoft provides security patches to registered users but offers other fixes, including reliability and stability updates, only to organizations that have support contracts with the company. Windows XP and Office 2003 will no longer be supported as of April 8, 2014, a company spokeswoman said in a recent blog...

Microsoft says Windows XP users have two years to remain with the older operating system before it ends all support and updates for the software. While users can continue to use Windows XP after the end of Microsoft support, the lack of such support and updates, especially security patches, will make the operating system less and less secure as time passes, Microsoft's Stella Chernyak wrote in a blog post. "Windows XP and Office 2003 were great software releases for their time, but the technology environment has shifted," she wrote. Support for Office 2003 will end at the same time as...

QUESTION: If I delete all Alternate Data Streams I find in Windows XP, will Windows Operating System continue to work? The more I read about Alternate Data Streams (ADS), the more I don't trust them. I found that there are 10 Things to know about ADS.1. There is no limit on the size of streams and there can be more than one stream linked to a normal file. ADS are not visible in explorer or via command prompt. In fact, their size is also not reported by Windows! 2. Streams can be attached not only to files but also...

After a healthy 10-year run, Windows XP may finally be losing its overwhelming grip on computer users. Though it's still the most heavily used version of the Windows operating system, XP's market share among all operating systems finally dipped just below the 50 percent mark last month, according to stats out today from Net Applications. The aging OS has gradually been shedding market share a bit each month over the past few years, touching 62 percent a year ago and 51 percent in June before its latest dip in July, according to Net Applications. At the same time, Windows 7--the...

Microsoft's past operating system woes might have some people living in the past While many computer lovers eagerly await the arrival of Windows 8 and Mac OS X Lion, a massive segment of users takes a decidedly slower approach when it comes to embracing new operating systems. According to an uber-detailed infographic by blog Manolution, 40.7% of users still run Windows XP on their computers. XP, which was released way back in October 2001, has since been succeeded by both the not-so-well-received Windows Vista, as well as Windows 7. In that same time frame, a half-dozen new versions of Apple's...

Dear Computer-wise Freepers, I was messing around with my computer and have deleted something very serious. I now only have the "My Computer" icon and the "Recycle Bin" icons on my desktop. My wife's and my accounts were on this computer and it is the same issue with her desktop. My program folders are still there and can been by going to My Documents through another route. I can not send an icon to the desktop of any program though. In control panel, I can not go to "My programs" -- nothing shows. Can anyone help me reverse this disaster?...

Tomorrow is D-day for Windows XP SP2 users. Granted, Windows XP SP2 will still work, but tomorrow is the last Patch Tuesday for the venerable OS which means it will become more unstable and less secure as time goes on. Simply applying SP3 will suffice to continue running a supported platform, but here are five reasons to consider switching off of Windows XP entirely. 1. Hardware Support. Windows XP is archaic, and it is designed to run on outdated hardware. As new technologies are introduced, it is unlikely that Windows XP will be compatible or able to take advantage of...

My old computer died the other day and I'm picking up a new one tomorrow. I always load the OS myself and for the last few times I've stayed with XP Pro SP3 because it's stable and reliable for what I use the pc for. I've heard decent things about Windows 7 but for now I'm thinking of staying with XP. If you had the chance to reload your pc today would you stick with XP or move to Win 7, and why? No flavors of Unix are an option, I'm sure it's a great OS but I want Windows...

Most Windows 7 customers are satisfied with the new operating system, according to tech analyst house Forrester Research, but many stick-in-the-mud types still see no reason to upgrade from the OS that refuses to die - Windows XP. Forrester published the results of its study (subscription required) about take-up of Microsoft’s old and new operating systems this week. It found that 86 per cent of 4,559 US punters who took part in the survey were happy with Windows 7. However, the same research also reaffirmed that there’s still plenty of love out there for Microsoft’s aged Windows XP, with 43...

I am able to reboot but it keeps locking up. I can launch a browser but it goes nowhere. Firefox or IE. I was able to run defrag. I delete some old files and the first ones would delete then it would lock up. I have System Mechanic 7 (iolo) which I do not like. The real time anti-virus you cannot turn off. I tried to remove but had problems with that. I was using System Mechanic to run daily clean ups and to recover ram. Had an old game I was able to remove. I can reboot but have...

IE 6 browser is antique, but there are still companies continue to use the current IE 6 is still very common in the enterprise side, but even Microsoft’s long-term partner Intel is also still using relatively surprising.

News of a newly discovered bug in VBScript and Windows Help files in Internet Explorer that could allow a remote attacker to run an arbitrary command has reached Microsoft on Friday and they immediately sat down to investigate the matter. After two days, they confirmed that this vulnerability "could allow an attacker to host a maliciously crafted web page and run arbitrary code if they could convince a user to visit the web page and then get them to press the F1 key in response to a pop up dialog box", but that there has been no news about attacks...

The presence of a hard-to-detect rootkit may have caused Windows XP machines to freeze up after applying a patch from Microsoft last week, according to preliminary analysis of the problem from Microsoft's security team. Microsoft's users forums filled up with reports of Windows XP users experiencing the dreaded Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) after applying the 13 patches released by Redmond last week. The problem was later linked to one specific update - MS10-015 - a patch for an "important" kernel flaw - and it was discovered that uninstalling this package unfroze affected machines. The Blue Screen problem affected a...

Working on someone's PC which can only handle 768MB of memory. The problem is this: crucial.com says there is a 32MB (stick?) somewhere installed in the PC, so until I find a way to disable that 32MB, I can't install one 512MB stick and another 256MB stick to equal the 768MB (because that "phantom" 32MB puts me overboard). Right now, if I put in both a 256 and a 512, it's too much memory and the screen freezes up and I get the dreaded BSOD. Any idea where crucial.com is picking up this 32MB? My guess is that it's the...

I want to "wipe the slate clean" on my Dell laptop, and reinstall Windows XP. I boot from the operating system CD, and get to a menu that shows existing partitions. FAT is about 10 Gb and NTFS-OS has about 230 GB. The system asks me where I want to put the new XP. I tried the FAT partition but it's too small. I selected NTFS but the system said it is a potential problem to have two operating systems on the same partition. I have backed up what I need, and am OK with wiping the disk clean. In...

There is this older Toshiba laptop running Windows XP. It loads but I can not log in. It says it is loading the settings but then it logs off, the desktop never loads. I tried safemode but AVG is hard to use in safe mode. There may be a virus but why would it do this? I think AVG may have quarantined a file the computer actually needs or something. Does anyone have a clue?

HOW TO UPGRADE WINDOWS 7 BETA OR RC TO WINDOWS 7 RTM (RETAIL VERSION) You can’t upgrade directly from a pre-release version—at least, not without a quick and easy workaround. Here is that workaround...The ProblemWindows 7 checks whether or not the current version you are running is a pre-release copy, and prevents you from upgrading further. For reference purposes, this is the error you’ll see when you try and upgrade.The SolutionThe solution is to edit a file inside the Windows 7 DVD—which you’ll have to extract to the hard drive to proceed. If you are using an ISO image for...

Through its XP Mode, Microsoft Windows 7 can extend the useful life of legacy applications and peripherals. With a feature called XP Mode in Windows 7, Microsoft hopes to make it easier to use legacy applications and equipment. In this video, ZDNet’s Ed Bott, blogger of Ed Bott’s Microsoft Report, shows you how the new XP Mode works and suggests a few possible uses for the feature.

If you’re like of lot of Windows users out there, you skipped Vista and are still running XP on your computer. You’ve been waiting for October 22 and now that it’s here you’re ready to try Windows 7. You’re system is relatively new, about three- to four-years old, and you’ve run Microsoft’s Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor and your hardware is well on par with Windows 7’s requirements. However, you’re not quite ready to give up XP just yet. Maybe you have some applications that failed the Upgrade Advisor’s compatibility check or maybe you got burned during the Vista debacle. No...