Numerous issues with Vista

OK heres the deal - I bought an XPS 420 (which cost me around £1000, when the deals were on over christmas on the UK site) and I got it on Tuesday and since then I have constantly had NOTHING but problems with Vista. Things were ok at first, there were some issues, but I think they were mainly due to the computer doing lots of things at once...


Then I installed ZoneAlarm (which was compatible with vista according to their site), but during the installation the installer became unresponsive, I waited for 15 minutes to see whether it would sort itself and it did not so I tried ctrl alt delete to bring up the task manager (I know that on vista it goes to the blue screen and then you chose task manager, but even that doesnt come up) I left it fr a little longer, nothing, tried clicking the X and it came up with "end process" and clicked it, nothing happened.

Then I tried to shut my PC down and nothing happened so I turned it off at the computer. I waited 5 or 10 minutes and restarted the computer, it took a good while to start up (takes atleast 2 or so minutes) and when i logged on I saw that Zonealarm was apparently installed, but the problems were just starting, the screen would go completely black and then an error message would come up saying

"Failure: Security Options"

or something similar, I clicked OK and tried to uninstall Zonealarm, but the uninstaller would crash and the events would occur exactly the same as when the installer crashed, resulting in me having to turn the computer off at the tower.

Now when I attempt to uninstall Zonealarm it comes up with - exception processing message 0x0000013 parameters 0x75fb023c0x83f480bc 0x75fb023c 0x75fb023c, with options of cancel, pressing continue then brings up the message of "Validation failed for c:\users\simon\appdata\local\temp\vsinit.dll."

On top of that whenever the computer starts up and something to do with Zonealarm initiates (which it does automatically) it seems to cause a complete and total shutdown of everything (not in terms of power shut down), I cant open any new programs, any that are open go unresponsive, the internet stops working,I cant log off, I cant shut down or restart, I cant bring up task manager, end processes etc. It seems that the screen saver wont even work, as earier on it came up with "No options, this screen saver has no options that you can set" the screen saver is meant to come on after 10 minutes of inactivity and i didnt initiate any attempted changes or anything.

Something else that seems to have appeared is a small box in the corner came up saying there are security problems with the system and click to sort the problems out, and it brought up Windows Security center, and everyting was set to off, when I tried to turn Windows Firewall on it came up with "Security center cant turn on Windows Firewall, turn on windows firewall manually" then whe I press the link to do it manually nothing happens.

In total I have had to turn my computer off at the tower a total of 7 or 8 times, and I have only had the computer for 3 days.

Apologies at the length of the post, but I'm sure you'll understand that this is incredibly important I get this sorted out as it has cost me an awful lot of money and at the moment is completely useless.

EDIT - Oh and as an addition, when I try to open Firefox after Zonealarm appears and makes everything (including the net) mess up it comes up with this message

"could not initialise the browsers security component. the most likely cause is problems with files in your browsers profile directory. please check tat this directory has no read/write restrictions and your hard disc is not full or close to full. it is recommended that you exit the browser and fix the problem. if you continue to use this browser session, you might see incorrect browser behaviour when accessing security features"

Then if I were to restart firefox would be fine until Zonealarm crops up.

It doesnt even matter how Zonealarm crops up or whether I cancel it initialising, it has the same effect.

Message Edited by Tatious on 01-19-2008 01:27 AM