I would not do the one through windows update and go online with out the protection especially since you said you had a problem with it when doing it that way before. The stand alone file you simply select to download it to your pc, to like your desktop or where ever you choose, then once you have the internet connection disabled and have your security programs off then go to where you downloaded that file to and double click it to begin the install of it. Yes you can remove IE8 through add remove before you do sp3 and it will go back to IE6, then as soon as you are back online (with your security programs back on) from the install of sp3 go immediately to your windows updates site and get any other updates and you should be offered IE8. the guidelines link Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) Installation Guidelines where to download the stand alone sp3 file from, click the download button and save to your pc, ignore any info there saying it is for IT professionals and not for single pc, this is the only download and is the one everyone uses when not doing it through windows updates. Windows XP Service Pack 3 as to foxit reader, it is a much better choice than Adobe but you do have to make sure it is always updated to the latest version because it also has been targeted by the bad guys. Opening pdf files online has always been a bad habit that is not something new but now more are hitting it with some bad exploits. So whether or not you choose to continue opening them online would be up to you. Since you have foxit now have you removed the Adobe Pdf reader? if not you do still need to keep it updated because having any program on the pc that has not been updated can be a security risk.

I luv it when people put up a fight instead of hauling the confuser off to the repair shop. Great going. Google is or should be everybody's friend. So too is Youtube these days as it seems more and more tutorials are appearing on there. A couple of points you never mentioned but no doubt thought about. If your machine came with SP2 it might be safe to say it is 4 years old or better. If so you probably would be unhappy trying to run Win7 on it even with updates that possibly cannot be migrated to a new computer you will no doubt buy sometime down the road. Money. Not having to buy Win7 saved you plenty, keeping and updating XP never cost a dime, frustration yes but no cash. Had you bought Win7 you would have an excess copy once you buy a new computer - unless you self build of course. Nice work.

Its usually pretty simple,, just close your browser and any instant messaging programs and go to add/remove programs in control panel and double click ie8. You might want to read the microsoft support article for XP. Here is a link that might be useful: Microsoft Support - Uninstall IE8

Hi everyone, I found this on a website that tells you how to do it in Firefox. Open up FireFox and then go to view, then go to Zoom and you can Scroll down and select the 'ZOOM' option, then slide across, then down and select the 'ZOOM TEXT ONLY' option which should put a check mark by it. Now scroll back up and select the 'ZOOM IN' option to enlarge the text that you view on any website. Each time you go back and select the 'ZOOM IN' feature, the text will get larger. If you want to make the text smaller then go to Zoom Out And to get back to where it was before you started simply select the 'RESET' option. I did that here and it has stayed where I put it. You can do this as you move from site to site and it will stay the same as long as you have the check mark in "Zoom Text Only" That is what I found in my search, you can check it out to see what you get, so far this has worked. thirdfrt!!!