What model Dell are you using?

What Anti Virus are you trying to install?

Have you tried to install AVG Anti Virus? Its free and its pretty good. If you can load that, maybe it can pick up whether you have a virus or not. Avg also has a Malware detection program that works well too.

One other program to try is CCleaner. I have had it work when notjhing else would.

Also try Ad Aware, the latest version.

You can get them all I beleive from download.com

Sounds also like a possible firewall problem, but I'm not sure why all of a sudden it started happening unless there is a malfunction somewhere.

 

Another tip......Try installing and running cleaners in safe mode if possible.

I dont have a dell I have an emachnie. I have the latest version of ad aware and it found nothing i will try the others to see if they will work. I was trying to install mcafee which i had in the computer befor but i some how lost it and when i tryed to reinstall it it wouldnt work. Thank you for your help I will erply if they dont work.

OK I was able to do the cleaner and it got rid of alot of stuff but when i tryed to do the mcafee in safe mode it still didnt work it just opened the box but it was blank it had the mcafee security center at the top but where it normaly would have the install options was blank. I tyred to do it again in reg mode but the same thing happened. I was going to do the avg but i have dial up because of the area i live in so it would take me 9 hours to do so. I dont know what else to do.

If I were you (and I'm not), but I would wipe the drive and reinstall Vista from the formatted Hard drive. Seems like you may have an issue that only a reinstall will get corrected.

Thats my 2cents.

Gd luck!

OK I finally got the avg installed and updated and it works. It found nothing so I guess that is a good thing but I am still haveing the problem with not being able to install the updates for vista. Could any one tell me how to get them to work please.