I know you're going to tell me just to format the computer and load Windows 7 after I tell you it's running Vista! But it's not my computer and for the moment I'm just trying to figure out why and how it's doing what it's doing. It belongs to my Sister in Law, she worked for a University and they supplied her with the laptop. It's a Dell Inspiron 1545. I'm visiting with her and I tried to load a program on the computer yesterday but I can't. Then I found out that it seems to be locked to IE because I downloaded Firefox AND Chrome but it won't let me run either one. I can do control alt delete and see that they are running but it won't open the window. I can't even do Start Computer right click on it and see what she is running, it just freezes. She's the one that says it must be because the University supplied it. Is that possible? Can this computer even run Windows 7? I have no idea since it won't let me see what the hardware is. Edit> Never Mind. I just Googled what I think is the answer. McAfee. I can't turn that off either. Sheesh. Maybe she'll let me format it.
The machine might be joined to the university's domain. If you reformat it the new installation will not be domain-joined, which may prevent the machine from connecting to the university's network. You should keep a backup image of the current installation to be safe.
She no longer works for them. It's McAfee Enterprise. I managed to turn it off yesterday and installed Firefox and was able to install a few things. It does look like it has some kind of weird thing about IE and it restricts everything. McAfee pretty much has everything locked down. She wanted to hook up to her wireless printer, said they had never been able to, and now I know why. She said she would be perfectly happy upgrading to Windows 7 as long as I can back up her Itunes That's about all she has on her laptop, besides a few photos. I was only trying to teach her how to put some books on her Kindle since she's a big reader like I am. One thing led to another and another......
Probably IE policy restrictions. Maybe try repair install to keep everything else?? McAfee should be uninstalled for sure...
Oh I'm just laughing. She's got a Dell desktop computer she also received from the U that's she's never set up. So I connected everything and of course it has McAfee and I can't even get online with it. It says it's firewalled even though it's says it's connected. I've turned McAfee off and the Windows firewall off and tried putting the Linksys IP number in the URL and it won't even take it. Although it DID download the McAfee updates. Can I tell you how much I hate McAfee? I'm trying to work around it because I think she has like a permanent license for it because of the EDU. These were like a gift to her because of her job level or something. I can do a lot of things on computers but this literally has me stumped. If I had more time I could eventually figure it out. I'm running out of time. She is clueless, I had to show her how to delete a book off of her Kindle.