hey, gang, we HAVE a solution.
talked to my friend this morning and she said that she's now connected to the net WITH all windows security updates applied successfully. i asked if she had followed the links you guys suggested. she hemmed and hawwed saying that she's embarassed to tell me what the problem turned out to be. finally she told me ... it turns out that when she installed 98 she neglected to change the year when windows asked her what year it was. she changed the day and month but neglected to change the year. according to her computer, it's 2016.
she corrected the year and, voila, everything is copacetic. somehow that was interfering with her updates.
thanks again for helping with this third-party problem.
now that she's net-worthy, i've directed her to this site. you've been warned :D
