Vista - Can't download anything. Can anyone help?

Hi, everyone..

I'm new to this forum and could really use some help. I have an HP Pavilion notebook with Vista 64 that I bought in August. Recently, I was at my sister's for the holiday and brought my laptop. (She has wireless and I am still in the land of dial-up). To my dismay, I started getting lots of pop-ups that I never had before after browsing at her home, but when I tried to download ad-aware or any other type of spyware remover, I was unable to do so. I'd get a quick page telling me, "Thank you for downloading "so and so" ", but nothing happened. I just went to try and download another spyware program that I read was supposed to be compatible with vista 64, but it "hung" on me. It looked like it was downloading, but it stayed at "0%" for the longest. Also, while at my sister's, my nephew gave me his ipod because he received a new version for Christmas, and I was unable to download itunes so I could use it. I received the same message as when I tried to download a spyware program, ("Thank you for downloading itunes"), even though nothing ever downloaded.

I had temporarily turned off my firewall and adjusted my internet security settings to see if that was the problem, to no avail. No matter what I do, I cannot get anything to download for me.

Can anyone offer any advice? While I don't consider myself a computer novice, I am not a technophile, either, and can't seem to figure out what the problem might be. I have Avast anti-virus installed--could that be at fault? In any event, I'm totally stumped (and frustrated; regretting having gotten this computer already!) Maybe some of you more computer-savvy geniuses can lend this girl a hand? I'd appreciate it.

Thanks in advance,
Jo

Sounds like you got some spyware and/or viruses that you may not have encountered with your dialup connection. If you can, go to lavasoft.com and try to download their spyware sweeper. Its free and with any luck, you won't have to scrub your machine.

Be sure that you're running some sort of antivirus/antispyware program in the future.

Hope this helps.

Well..my issue was that I couldn't download anything, so that certainly includes ad-aware (which I had tried to download to no avail).

I discovered that if I turned off my pop-up blocker that that resolved the problem. I was able to download a spyware program and that resolved the pop-up issues.

Thanks, anyway, for your input.