Long one with a TL;RD.
K.
So, ever since I bought my laptop, I have so very rarely used the desktop, and even then, when I've used it, it's been to update something or fix some stuff, because my parents are too technologically-impaired to know how to open an email attachment. The other day, I was trying to install Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 on the desktop, and if the NEW security software you're trying to install says that it can't install because it's detecting OLD security software on the computer that you KNOW FOR DAMN SURE you uninstalled MONTHS ago, there's a problem. So I decided, "You know what, forget this," and we bought Windows 7 and installed it on the computer. Ever since then, I've been able to install things just fine.
HOWEVER
For some handicapped reason, Windows 7 says that there is no audio driver installed, so the speakers aren't working. I've gone through so many motherloving Windows Updates that if I have to go through one more I think I'm going to launch something at the computer monitor, preferably something heavy and damaging. On top of that, my parents use Outlook Express for all their emailing, and if you don't know this already, which I didn't when installing Win7, Outlook Express no longer exists in Win7. So, all the .dbx email database files I copied from the old OS (WinXP) are completely unaccessible and unusable. I've installed Windows Live Mail on the desktop and I'm hoping that will be able to utilize the .dbx files, but if not, then I'm kind of out of options. The only other thing that I can think to try would be calling Comcast (my parents use Comcast for their email) and asking them to unarchive and decrypt all email messages stored in databases on their servers for my parents' accounts.
tl;dr: I loving hate our family desktop and want a new computer which my parents refuse to get and if I can't get all the emails from the old OS to work in the new OS, my parents will murder me.
Poll