Can't get IE to allow Ad-on's for Old Lap top with IE 7 or 8?

[GuitarZilla]

Hi,

I'm trying to help my wife with her old lap top which I just installed / re
installed Windows on. It's an old Dell with Windows XP pro with all updates,
and I downloaded the latest version of IE. However, when she goes online,
she keeps getting a dialog error type box that says she can't see everything
or that she can't download newest updates because Add on's are disabled. I
tried to allow them in the security tab in tools or whatever menu it is
inside of IE but no luck. I even went to Custom Security level and checked
the "allow Active X controls, and scripting, etc," . But it's not working.
Anyone have any ideas?

If so, please tell me. One other thing. This machine is old and only has 512
meg of ram which I realize is not a lot for a windows xp pro machinee, but
she only uses it for Web and Email, and it's a problem of course for the
web. Should I go to something like Firefox?

Thanks in advance.
Tim

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

If so, please tell me. One other thing. This machine is old and only has 512
meg of ram which I realize is not a lot for a windows xp pro machinee, but
she only uses it for Web and Email, and it's a problem of course for the
web.

No, it's not a lot, but how much you need for good performance depends
on what apps you run, and 512MB is adequate for the great majority of
Windows XP users.

Should I go to something like Firefox?

It's your choice, and depends on what *you* like best. I wouldn't,
because I personally greatly prefer Maxthon. Certainly don't use
Firefox because of the amount of RAM you have.