My poor dad just got a new Dell with XP and went with Verizon DSL. He is constantly bombarded by pop-ups, virus warnings, there's a buzzing in his phone lines, his printer doesn't work anymore, and in general things what to hell. I had him do the usual stuff like running Spybot, Ad-aware and disabling Windows Messenger, but he's still having these problems. Is this common with DSL, I don't know, I still have dial-up. He never had these problems with his old computer running Windows 98 and dial-up.
For the buzzing he'll have to install line filters between the phone jacks and the phone to get rid of that buzz that DSL generates. Get a pop-up blocker to see if it's just coming from websites, or download a Mozilla browser that will allow you to turn pop-ups off or on. Don't know about the printer thing my Mac dosen't have any of those problems. -Steve
What Schitzo said about the filters, should have come with the dsl setup. He needs to go to the printer manuf. website and get the updated drivers for it to work with XP. No idea on the popups other than what you've already told him but I'm loving Mozilla as a browser.
Microsoft dropped support for a lot of older hardware in XP that had previously been supported in 9x/2K, have your dad check the printer manufacturer's website to see if they offer any updated drivers. Sometimes even if a specific driver isn't available for XP you can still get away with using the 2K version.
Thanks guys for the quick responses. I didn't even think about a driver for the printer. He does have the filter installed, I guess the service guy is going to have to come out for that one. Thanks again.
With XP, there's an added "feature" you need to turn off. The XP 'messenger' service (not related to the MS Instant Messenger) is being abused by scammers/advertisers to send you pop-up messages/ads. This is completely unrelated to your web browser which means "pop-up blockers" won't stop them. You need to run the 'Services' tool in the XP 'Administrative tools' under the control panel, and disable the 'Messenger' service (It is "on" by default). - Roach
You need to have some kind of firewall protection. I would recommend hardware over software personally. Look at Linksys or a Netgear. Then just install one of these simply search toolbar bars like google which I use and blocks about 99% of them. If you are not savvy with the internet, I would not recommend going to another browswer like mozzilla, myie2, opera etc. If you leave your computer out there on the internet unprotected, hackers will find you and possibly use you to help them spread their worms and viruses.
I have Verizon DSl with windows Xp. I have Norton Internet Securtiy for AV/FW. It blocks almost all pop-ups.
Keep in mind that newer machines running XP DO NOT come with the latest critical updates, patches, and hotfixes. Make sure you download them and install them to protect your system from the latest worms, spywares, and malwares. Big bandwidth systems are vulnerable to attack by these vermin.
