Can not download Vista update after reinstaling

[goody15]

My monitor would take a long time to come out of sleep mode and after trying to update drivers trying to fix it I regrettably reinstalled Vista Home Premium from discs on my Dell Inspiron 531 Amd Athlon 64x2 dual core 4400 2gb ram with ATI Radeon hd3450. Turns out it was a faulty monitor. Now most of the updates will give error code 80073712. I read about the system file check tool but cannot access it as Im stuck with outdated Internet Explorer 7 that will go to the websites buth the say it cannot open them and Im unable to update it. Any ideas to fix this? I know its an old computer but just for everyday internet it was fine.

 

[Samat]

Is it plain Vista or does it have any of the service packs installed (sp1 or sp2)? You could download Mozilla firefox (https://www.mozilla.org/) or Google Chrome (https://www.google.com/chrome/) to start with. Then you can manually download service packs for Windows Vista from http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/service-packs-download#sptabs=vista.

To run the system file check tool you need to open administrative command prompt (windows key + x and select administrative command prompt or go through start menu > programs > windows system > right click on command prompt and select run as administrator, then type the next line on the command prompt and press enter:
sfc /scannow
You can check http://support2.microsoft.com/kb/957310 for more information on the problem.