Mac--MSE stands for Microsoft Security Essentials which is their new free antivirus product. It gets it's update through the Windows Update system so you have to have that turned on to stay updated. What I was saying is that if you never installed MSE, you would not get updates in WU related to antivirus.
If you've been getting a lot of Windows Updates, it's probably because that computer wasn't used for a while before you got it. The updates can pile up and a lot of times you will only receive an update after the one previous to it has been installed. After you get caught up, you should only get updates once a month unless Microsoft thinks something is critical enough that they provide what is called an "out of band" update before the normal "Patch Tuesday" (the second Tuesday of every month) comes along. The combination of past unapplied updates and a dialup connection can make getting XP up to date seem interminable but it will eventually get there 
.
It's also pretty apparent that since there is no manufacturer info, the machine was either home built or built by a small computer shop. You can get a lot of information about what is in it by right clicking on My Computer, clicking on Properties, then on the Hardware tab and finally on Device manager. You can then look through all the entries there to see what processor, disk drives, sound and video cards, and many other things, are present.
I used to do computer troubleshooting over the phone and I encountered people who know far less than you. I told one guy to right click and he said "what?" I said "click your right mouse button". To which he replied "Right mouse button? I only have one mouse". Another guy was wanting to install something that was on 3 or 4 floppy disks. I told him to insert the first disk and run setup from it. A few minutes later he says "It says to insert the second disk". I told him that was normal and to do what it said. He comes back about 30 seconds later and says, "Okay, I put the second disk in but now they're both in there and it won't work and I can't get either one of them back out". Compared to those people, you're a computer guru so keep plugging and you'll get it.
Dch, That's nice to know, that once a month updates could be expected. I was getting more than several a day. This system was off line for 60 days just here where i know it was off line. before that I can assume it was off line a time, but no clue as to how long a time that was. Too many things all down loading at random and at the same instant gag up the 56 k dial up, and if you ask me the systems gags to a stand still.
In order to do anything i turned that up dates off, and expected a warning or notice by now telling me a up date was in the wings waiting for permissions. So far not a thing has happened that i would see to say any update is waiting.
As a x foreign car tech, I know better than to stuff 2 floppies into one drive. What i don't know is what I should do if anything about this system thinking it does have an 'A" Drive. Once it did, and i am sure because there is washer and screw marks in the mount rails inside the case. I am dead sure that there WAS an 'A' drive, and I am as sure the xp system thinks it IS Still there!
I am dead certain that there is no 'A' Drive device period, at this time inside the tower. So should I try and tell xp it's gone? Or should I install one of several A drive units hanging out? There is a dead gateway system here with one, my old dell hell, both ran Win 98. Then there is a beater xp running at 750 Hrz or something with less than 1 gig memory that all it did was read a set up for a machine we used to make, and is scrap for parts.
I can run a screw driver just fine ya know.
The thing is I will never use a floppy disk in my life again so far as I know.
The other drive in this box is a dvd burner/reader. I KNOW it is. I was going to add another, and even bopught one, but there is no 2nd port for the IDE port. I didn't know what SATA was and had i bought one of the dvd drives for SATA it would be installed now.
Then I was told I didn't need 2 dvd burners in the first place. The shipping just about equaled the cost of the dvd burner, so shipping it back at more cost isn't a wise idea since that will far exceed the cost spent for the unit itself.
I had envisioned myself making millions doing Japanese Beetle porn DVD movies
I fooled around in sys info, and if this works this is what it says there.
OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name GWYN
System Manufacturer MSI
System Model MS-7309
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 107 Stepping 1 AuthenticAMD ~2109 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date MS-7309 V1.9, 8/31/2007
SMBIOS Version 2.5
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2111)"
User Name GWYN\Monack
Time Zone Eastern Daylight Time
Total Physical Memory 2,048.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 1.31 GB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 3.79 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys
it worked.
Gwyn is my wife. I have no idea what Monack is, means or nuthin'. The folks that gave this tower to use had the name Gywn\Monack installed the day i turned it on, and that name is as good as any to me.
More or less going in this way, ' My Computer, clicking on Properties, then on the Hardware tab and finally on Device manager. You can then look through all the entries there to see what processor, disk drives, sound and video cards, and many other things, are present.' I can open everything and made a print screen file, but I will be damned if I can figure out how to get the file on here. And then the page is more than one page long. So the bit map I made is pretty big in size.
What really happens if I right click on the short cut to my computer to get Properties is only 2 tabs show general and shortcut, w/ short cut being the one highlighted.
Then if i open Start/My Computer/ right click properties, then I see 7 tabs, of which one is hardware/device manger, and from there is where and how i made the paint Prt Screen.
I can use windows explore too, not as well on xp maybe, but that will come.
On the old win98 Dell, i had a MS Game of WW-2 air planes, but don't recall the name of the game. It was Euro theater, and the game had around 9 planes you could fly.
With a little help I ended up with every plane in the game flyable to some point or another, and added 300+ more more planes from the web, plus I changed weather, locations around the world and few not in the world, and learned about the file system in windows explore that way somewhat. Once I even had a patch, well I still do on a disk, but don't know if it would work on xp. The patch allowed the game to be played with no disk in a drive.
That isn't important anyway, since no one plays that game any more on line. It was just a way to keep my interest to learn the file system really. Other than that on line back then for the game i was Cpt Von Dervare, and I was infamouse in a Focke-Wulf 190. Somebody has to be the bad guy
And i was. If you say Von Dervare several times fast it comes to you just what that means.
