Vista Tutorial - I can't download software from the internet e.g. AVG or Flash Player

Hi,

Please help, I am using a new laptop Dell inspiron 1520 using Vista Home 32bit and I can't seem to download anything off the internet.

I can click to download the file to my computer,but once it's on my computer, itregisters as being a part file that is 0bytes in size. Therefore it won't let you open it to install the software.

I have limited kowledge and am not sure whether it is Vista or some setting on my laptop somewhere. Could anyone give any advice?

Thanks

Hi Nicola,

Welcome to the forum.

Your downloads are not finishing, try using, right click, save link as, (Choose Desktop) save.

You should get a new window showing the whatever it is downloading and you should have two new Icons on you Desktop one of them named part.

Give the download time to finish, when finished it will only show one Icon which you should click on to open the what ever it is.

If this still doesnt work try to find the same download from a different site.

I hope this helps

Pooch

I don't know exactly how to help you, but understand this, it is not anything you are doing wrong; it's a compatibility problem between IE7 and Vista. It is a problem with either DEP (data execution prevention) or the updates that Vista's Updates automatically download.

I had this problem and eventually switched to Mozilla Firefox, as no help was available anywhere. I accidentally found that others were having the same problem when searching through MS Windows web site.

Because of other problems, I switched back to IE7 recently and my downloads worked fine, but today, most likely after Windows Updates were installed, I am now having the same problem. I'll keep you posted if I learn anything more...at least you don't have to feel like it's your fault.

What I've found so far, using IE7 with Vista, is that it won't work using google's toolbars or yahoo's toolbars. Go to your control panel, then uninstall programs, and delete the toolbars for google and yahoo.

Try that. Otherwise, there is another option but try this first.

I am having a similar problem.

I tried installing an old game - Diablo II. In the process of trying to get the game to work, I disabled the UAC. I also downloaded directX from the MS website, for which I had to submit to a check for OS authenticity. Not sure if this had something to do with it. Ever since I have not been able to download anything in firefox. IE seems to work fine though.

When I try to download something in firefox, the download appears to start - asks me where to save the file, then the dl manager pops up, it scans for viruses, and then the download just stops, says that it is complete, but nothing actually downloads.

IE is painfully slow. I would really like to use firefox. All this trouble started after visiting the MS website, and submitting to their authentication process. My vista is absolutely 'authentic' - but not, I'm sorry to say, worth what I paid for it. :-(