american laptop help

broonbear · 31 October 2007 at 11:34PM

hi all i'm new to this forum so be gentle please. i bought a laptop from walmart in florida with assurances it would be uk compatable , when i load my vista disc from aol nothing happens. If i was to have any problems i was told to contact Asda and they would help , which i'll do in the morning.question is am i stuck with this laptop or will it work with aol

Donnie · 1 November 2007 at 3:57AM

Your OEM Vista OS is probably only compatible with the brand of machine from which you obtained the disc.

Was it supplied with an operating system? Does it work ok otherwise?

Little_John · 1 November 2007 at 8:25AM

What do you man by load the disk? put the disk in the drive and nothing happens or when the autorun window comes up you cant select the install option?

If its the first option than open computer (start then computer) and double click the cd/dvd drive this will either kick autorun in to life or display the contents of the disk in the drive if it does find the setup.exe file and double click it. If nothing is dsplayed or you get a can't read error try another disk in the drive and see if it reads that, to prove a faulty disk and not a faulty drive.

If its the 2nd option then are you clicking the right thing? try rebooting the machine, check the disk for scratches, clean the disk try another AOL disk.

There should be no compatibility issues between a US laptop and the UK. The AOL disk is just software and should work on any version of windows it s compatible with, check it works with Vista.

hendersonb · 1 November 2007 at 8:40AM

Had a few problems with machines coming in to work with installing aol on vista - usually just the autorun that doesn't work properly.
Little John's answer is all we do - browse the cd and run the installer manually.
Are you sure its the vista version of AOL too - it should be by now most discs should carry AOL 9.0 VR now - but maybe worth checking.

How are you connecting to the internet also? Is it broadband - if so what are you using a modem or a router. As if you can configure either to connectto the internet you can download the latest version of aol from there website

Donnie · 1 November 2007 at 9:12AM

Did I misunderstand?

I thought he was trying to install Vista, not AOL. Who wants to install AOL?

Kilty_2 · 1 November 2007 at 9:13AM

Don't install AOL.

There are ways to access the Internet without their software - very easy if you use their broadband service.

sleep2much · 1 November 2007 at 9:57AM

AOL is terrible full stop.

Mrs_pbradley936 · 1 November 2007 at 10:32AM

Just a couple of points apart from some of the keys being in different places and that you will not have a £ sign you should be fine. If you really do want AOL then you can download it. If you cannot get on to the internet at all without it (possible if you do not have a wireless router) then call their help line. I have two AOL accounts one for the UK and one for the USA I have had them for years but I do not use the software very often (sometime you have to if installing a wireless bridge is one example). I originally had one dial-up account which I could use anywhere, then AOL did not charge but the phone company did so to get around that (I spend a lot of time in the US by the way) I set up US account. You can use the same software just sign on as a guest and put in your screen name and password.