Hi

I have got myself into a bit of a mess with my OS and need some help.
I installed a pre-release version of Windows 7 a while ago. The Key has now expired leaving me with what was an operational window7 that run for 2 hours then crashed. Iv been a bit lazy and just left itas it is but now its got to a stage where it really is screwed.

Problems im having are:
Unable to access microsoft website
Unable to access any security website AVG, kaspersky etc
Unable to use IE (says there is a DNS error. I can still receive emails and use firefox though)
Unable to run dos box through cmd (says windows cannot find c:\windows\system32\cmd,exe)

I have ordered a windows 7 32 bit disc but it wont be here for another couple of weeks.
I also lost my original win XP disc which is why i havent deleted win7 and started again.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

Andy

Hi Andy

Welcome to PC Help Forum

Was this the beta version of 7 or the RC version?

hi

Its a beta version

Well according to this,

Windows 7 public beta end date named ? The Register

No matter who you are, though, the Windows 7 beta will cease to work on August 1, according to reports.

it hasnt ceased but is now getting there .. It was working fine apart from shutting off after 2 hours.
The only thing that ceased working was the liveupdates therefore it hasn't updated and i have a feeling a lot of the security hasnt been running properly either so i think i have some sort of virus which is stopping me from accesing security websites and microsoft.. not sure though, im no expert.

any ideas what to do apart from chucking the whole thing out the window?

Other than the every 2 hours shut down, which I believe was anticipated in the beta version at this point - it sounds like you might have an issue with your HOSTS file. I have not tried this on Win7, but you might give it a go.

Download HostsXpert and then follow the below steps.

• Unzip HostsXpert.zip
• It will create a folder named HostsXpert in whatever folder you extract it to.
• Run HostsXpert.exe by double clicking on it.
• click the Make Writeable? button.
• click Restore Microsoft's Hosts File and then click OK.
• Click the X to exit the program

ok did that, it changed some things on the host file list, didnt see what though. what should it have done? still cant get onto microsoft or security websites?