http://blogs.msdn.com/b/alexhomer/archive/2011/10/23/there-is-no-good-news.aspxDon't you hate it when someone says "Do you want the good news or the bad news?" and then, when asked for the good news, replies "There isn't any". I really do try so hard to avoid inflicting this on people I know, but sometimes it's inevitable. And usuallyen-USTelligent Evolution Platform Developer Build (Build: 5.6.50428.7875)http://blogs.msdn.com/b/alexhomer/archive/2011/10/23/there-is-no-good-news.aspx#10229244Mon, 24 Oct 2011 09:43:31 GMT91d46819-8472-40ad-a661-2c78acb4018c:10229244Alex Homer<p>Thanks Jamie. In fact a local guy charged her 35 pounds to fix it and get the AV stuff working, so that was quite reasonable. Still on XP unfortunately, but hopefully someone will buy her Windows 7 for Christmas. BTW: the link you provide doesn&#39;t work, so you need to go to Doug&#39;s site Home page and find the fix that way. </p> <div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="http://blogs.msdn.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=10229244" width="1" height="1">http://blogs.msdn.com/b/alexhomer/archive/2011/10/23/there-is-no-good-news.aspx#10229241Mon, 24 Oct 2011 09:36:10 GMT91d46819-8472-40ad-a661-2c78acb4018c:10229241Jamie Akers<p>I use a Pentium 4 HT on a daily basis with Windows 7. &nbsp;Upped it to 4GB Ram for very little and it handles Photoshop and Illustrator without breaking a sweat. &nbsp;I recently encountered the same issue as you describe above - I used the fix from <a rel="nofollow" target="_new" href="http://www.dougknox.com/xp/file_assoc.htm">www.dougknox.com/.../file_assoc.htm</a> on a USB stick and at least then had a working system. &nbsp;Being a Packard Bell, she probably didn&#39;t get any restore disks with the system. &nbsp;Spending a couple of hours removing unnecessary programs and backing up those important files will most likely work wonders on this box. &nbsp;End result - you can see the &quot;real&quot; performance of the system, backup the files more easily and make an accurate judgement on whether the system needs to be replaced. &nbsp;The user has a machine they can cope with whilst saving up for that new machine if needs be, all for just a few hours work.</p> <div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="http://blogs.msdn.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=10229241" width="1" height="1">