It’s been a little while since I last answered a selection of letters from my mailbag so I thought this week would be a good time to start catching up.

I follow your column in the Herald Express and was wondering if [...]]]>

It’s been a little while since I last answered a selection of letters from my mailbag so I thought this week would be a good time to start catching up.

I follow your column in the Herald Express and was wondering if you could help me with the following problem that I am having with my Windows 98 machine. The problem is that it appears to have trouble shutting down so every second or third time I attempt this process I am forced to cut power to the machine in order to get it to turn itself off which then means the drive has to be scanned when I re-start.

This is becoming a nuisance and I would appreciate your advice.

Eileen Woodroffe, via e-mail

The problem you describe can be caused by several things although it is most likely to be one of two things. Firstly there is a notorious bug that Microsoft know about in the Operating System that you own so any users running Windows 98SE who are experiencing this problem (and there will be quite a few of you) should head to http://www.microsoft.com/windows98/downloads/contents/wurecommended/s_wufeatured/win98se/ and download the patch that prevents this problem from occurring. Alternatively if you don’t want to have to type this long URL into your browser you can do a search on Google for ‘Windows 98 Shutdown Fix’. If this doesn’t solve the problem then it is likely being caused by the second hypothesis that I’ll put forward which is that there is a non responsive program in memory that is starting when you first switch on your machine and refusing to shut down when Windows requests it to. As I have already written in the past about preventing programs that load themselves into memory on system start-up please head to http://www.computerarticles.co.uk/removing-start-up-programs/to view a copy and to save me having to repeat myself.

I notice on your articles in the Herald Express you have spent quite a bit of time on viruses so I wonder if you could help me with my problem. My daughter-in-law who runs Windows ME has 45 Trojan horses on her system as found by her AVG Virus Scanner. Unfortunately however AVG cannot remove these as apparently the file is in use so I was wondering if you could give me some assistance getting rid of them?

Pam Packer, via e-mail

This problem is usually caused by the virus remaining present in memory whilst the computer is turned on which causes AVG to throw up an error as you cannot remove a file that is currently being used by Windows even if the file in question happens to be a virus. There are several ways around this and first and foremost press <CTRL> + <ATL> + <DELETE> and look for any processes that look ominous and end them; these suspect processes may be the virus running in the background and once removed the files can be removed safely by your virus checker. Those with a little bit of computer knowledge should be able to spot these processes immediately however if you are a beginner then you may like to leave this step for the more experienced although please rest assured that no permanent damage can be inflicted by the user at this stage because any processes that are terminated will be loaded back into memory when you restart your machine.

Secondly, you could try starting your computer in Safe Mode as hopefully the virus will then never get a chance to start and hence it will be easily deleted. Please do bear in mind that some virus scanners won’t function in safe mode.

Finally if the two above solutions fail you should do a little bit of research by heading to http://securityresponse.symantec.com and finding the virus that was previously identified by your virus checker. This can be easily done as the list of viruses is alphabetically sorted and fully searchable so simply select the virus your machine is infected with and the site should display some manual removal methods or even better it may provide a specific removal tool that will remove the virus from memory and then delete it safely.

Once again I’ll take the take out this week to help out with any problems that my readers have been experiencing.

I’m using Windows 98 with Outlook Express 5 and from time to time I receive e-mails that include an invitation to reply to the sender to acknowledge that [...]]]>

Once again I’ll take the take out this week to help out with any problems that my readers have been experiencing.

I’m using Windows 98 with Outlook Express 5 and from time to time I receive e-mails that include an invitation to reply to the sender to acknowledge that I’ve received their e-mail. I usually select to send the reply and think no more about it. About 3 or 4 weeks ago this happened and found that the reply I didn’t even realise I’d opted to send couldn’t be delivered by my ISP (Freeserve). On the first day I received the following message 17 times at various times during the day – “A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error, the following address failed – webmaster@clubcamcam.com. This message failed because it has an apparently executable attachment “Readme MP3.scr”. This is a virus prevention measure, if you meant to send this file then please package it up as a zip file and resend it.”

As far as I’m aware, I was only replying to the e-mail address of a friend and no other address. Is this some sort of virus or a fault in my computer? I have no virus prevention measures installed and the same thing has now happened again with a different recipient and I’m not sure what to do, can you help please?

Eric (Surname supplied), Paignton.

This problem baffles me somewhat, so I’m going to make up a hypothetical situation that I believe may have occurred although if any readers have a better explanation then please let me know. I don’t believe that the e-mail you received is a result of you sending a delivery report to your friend although it could potentially be the work of a virus.

Many viruses now pick up addresses of individuals and companies from your computer and then attempt to e-mail themselves with the idea being that because the file is from a friendly source. I checked out the site you mentioned to see if there was any explanation as to why the virus would attempt to e-mail itself to that address and also the Internet to see if there was mentions of that particular address being used by a virus and could find nothing. I believe it is possible that even if you have no knowledge of this address even being on your computer that the virus just created it randomly. The servers of this site blocked the file not because it is a virus but rather the fact since it is executable, it COULD potentially be one.

I would suggest doing a complete virus check either by downloading the rather good and free AVG Anti-virus software from www.grisoft.com or by doing one online free of charge from http://housecall.trendmicro.com just to be on the safe side although it is possible that the above hypothesis I’ve made is incorrect so please let me know how you get along.

Dear Chris,

In Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002, I find that the scenery is not very distinct. In particular, concrete often gradually becomes grass when I taxi off the runway and yellow lines either disappear or are ‘Wavy’.  These symptoms are not present on the runway itself.  Altering Options/Display configurations or changing my Graphics card doesn’t seem to help. I am informed that my graphics card is an ‘On Board’ SIS 3D Savage Pro with 32 Mg RAM.

Seán Talbot

I’ve searched the Microsoft Knowledge Base for mentions of the problems you’re experiencing and there is nothing associated with your particular graphics card but this doesn’t mean that it’s not a fault that hasn’t been picked up by the graphics chip manufacturer. Since you’re using an onboard graphics chip I recommend that you obtain the latest video card drivers from your motherboard manufacturer and also ensure that you’re using the latest DirectX drivers by checking www.microsoft.com/directx and I’m confident this should resolve your problem.

One of the jobs I carried out for a customer this week started off looking like a normal Windows corruption but upon further investigation things began to get a little bit interesting. Asked if any modifications to the computer or software had occurred over the past couple of days, the customer replied [...]]]>

One of the jobs I carried out for a customer this week started off looking like a normal Windows corruption but upon further investigation things began to get a little bit interesting. Asked if any modifications to the computer or software had occurred over the past couple of days, the customer replied by saying that he’d recently received a virus through his e-mail account that he subsequently deleted and he was wondering if maybe that was what had caused the current damage. As means of supporting his claim that he had a virus, he produced the following e-mail that had been forwarded to him from a friend;

“I have unwittingly been infected with a virus from someone’s e-mail. The virus sends itself to all the addressees in the address book of the computer it has arrived at. Since you are in my address book it may get to you. Take the time and remove it now. The instructions are easy to follow and I got rid of the virus in about 30 seconds. Some versions of anti virus software including Norton and Inoculate T have not been able to detect it. It is said the virus hides in the computer for 2 weeks and then damages the disk irreparably. The virus is called sulfnbk.exe. Many apologies for the trouble this is causing.”

Of course, after receiving such an e-mail, my customer immediately searched for the file ‘sulfnbk.exe’ and to his horror the file was found in his Windows directory and so obviously not wanting a virus on his machine he immediately deleted said file then got back to his usual routine. The problem with this little routine was that the e-mail turned out to be a hoax and in fact sulfnbk.exe is an important system file that’s present in every copy Windows 98. Every user with this Operating System who received the hoax e-mail and attempted to search for the supposedly infected file, would of course have found it and those who didn’t check out the authenticity of the e-mail first would then have deleted the file and therefore corrupted their Windows installation; very clever.

In addition, the e-mail suggests that the virus could have been sent out by your machine to everybody in your address book and so it urges you to e-mail them all with the removal instructions so they too can delete the file. Obviously all the contacts in your address book wouldn’t be too pleased that you’d e-mailed them instructions on how to quickly and easily corrupt their own Windows installation and as a result you may find yourself losing a couple of good friends!

So, there’s a lesson to be learned from all of this. Firstly, the Internet is even less safe than it may first seem; not only do you have to worry about real viruses, you also have to worry about hoaxes warning you about fictional viruses. It’s also important to remember not to always believe what you receive through your e-mail account, even if you know the sender. Finally, don’t encourage hoaxing by actually forwarding the e-mails you receive without first checking out a list of known hoaxes from a source such as www.symantec.com. At the end of the day, I’d make a guess and say that probably around 99% of the e-mails claiming to give information about a new virus are fabricated so just stop for a minute and think whether the information contained is likely to be accurate. The people creating these e-mails are praying on the vulnerabilities of new computer users to no constructive use and it should be stopped.

Having been using Windows XP for as long as I can remember, when I installed Windows 98 on an old machine the other day I noticed the complete lack of multimedia support provided by the software supplied with the Operating System – Windows Media Player.

Luckily, it [...]]]>

Having been using Windows XP for as long as I can remember, when I installed Windows 98 on an old machine the other day I noticed the complete lack of multimedia support provided by the software supplied with the Operating System – Windows Media Player.

Luckily, it doesn’t have to be this way since the update to Media Player is available for free from the Internet for all users of Windows 98, ME and 2000. Obviously the new features that you acquire via the upgrade vary depending on the version of media player that you’re upgrading from but this week I plan to show you the new features that you can expect to gain that make it worth the download.

By far the most improved feature is the ability to rip music straight off your audio CD’s and store it onto your hard disk in WMA format as well as then being able to burn it straight onto a blank CD, SmartMedia or CompactFlash cards via a compatible recorder without any additional software. You are also able to store onto other devices such as a variety of different Pocket PCs.

The encoder used to save to WMA has been vastly improved to deliver almost CD-quality audio using half the space of MP3 and the program also includes new effects and equaliser controls so that you can alter exactly how the music is reproduced. Video has also been given the same treatment, with support included for the MPEG-4 standards included.

The program allows you to choose from over 1500 Internet Radio Stations which means that as soon as you’re connected to the Internet you are able to tune into huge variety of shows from Country and Western in the United States to local music from the Czech Republic, all completely free of charge, excluding the cost of your Internet phone calls. This in itself is a very nice feature that I fully appreciate when using a fast connection. The new version of Media Player also allows you to access streaming data from sites such as www.skynews.co.uk and www.cnn.com which provide direct video and audio feeds on the latest news events or a variety of other sites such as www.vh1.com which offer music videos online.

The new Media Player is also a lot more customisable; you can download visualisations that play on your screen in time with the music you’re listening to as well as a host of new skins that allow you to change the way that the player looks to the user. These are all available free of charge off Microsoft or third party websites.

In terms of actually acquiring the product, if you head to www.microsoft.com/mediaplayer you are able to download the current version 7.1 or if you use Windows 95/NT then unfortunately the latest version you can use is version 6.4 which doesn’t contain many of the features I’ve listed above. You are also able to download versions for Apple Macs or a variety of different Pocket PC’s if needed.

To summarise, unless you have Windows XP which includes at least all the features above as standard, I would recommend that you take the time to update your version of Media Player, especially if you currently benefit from an Internet Service Provider which gives you 0800 access as this way the upgrade won’t cost you a penny.

Once again I’m going to feature a program that is designed to make your computer safer to use on the Internet; Norton Internet Security. This time however I’m going to focus on the threat of hackers from over the Internet as opposed to censorship of inappropriate material and the infection [...]]]>

Once again I’m going to feature a program that is designed to make your computer safer to use on the Internet; Norton Internet Security. This time however I’m going to focus on the threat of hackers from over the Internet as opposed to censorship of inappropriate material and the infection caused by viruses.

Before I start this article, just entertain me and take a quick trip to http://grc.com/default.htm and click on the link for ‘Shields Up’ at the bottom of the page. This website will probe your computer, much in the same way a hacker would do to determine whether or not you are currently safe from intrusion and consequently what the site would be able to do or see on your computer if it was inclined to do so. An alternative site http://www.symantec.com/securitycheck/ does much the same job, if you need a second opinion.

Unless you have an up to date version of Windows (such as Windows XP with the firewall enabled), it is very likely that you have just been mortified at quite how vulnerable your computer currently is on the Internet; I was when I tried it on an old Windows 98 machine and it bought up a complete list of the entire network I was connected to!

Having some form of Internet security is especially important if you have a high speed or ‘always on’ Internet connection such as ISDN or ASDL (two forms of higher speed connection that are available in the Torbay area), as although I have never to my knowledge suffered an attack from a hacker, it is only recently that I have had access to a high speed connection through the University and consequently it is only recently that I have really been bothered about such security measures.

So what exactly does Norton Internet Security offer to protect the information stored on our computers from prying eyes? Well, first and foremost there is the Firewall – This little piece of software sits between your computer and the Internet at large and monitors all incoming and outgoing traffic. This prevents hackers from the outside world gaining access to, or even being able to see your computer online which gives you the best in security; when I went to the shields up site that I recommended at the top of the page with the firewall enabled, the web page didn’t even know my computer existed.

It also stops un-authorised software on your computer (i.e. Trojan horse viruses) from gaining access to the Internet as this could be considered a possible security breach.

Norton Internet Security also includes Norton Antivirus, which usually retails for £40 to keep your computer protected against any viruses you could encounter whilst surfing the net. Please go to www.thisissouthdevon.co.uk for a review I did not so long ago on the standalone version of this product.

Another nice feature is the Parental controls which is very similar to a program I reviewed in my first month writing for the Herald Express called Net Nanny – This allows you to block sites of questionable material that you wouldn’t like others using your computer to gain access to, suited for the younger members of the family.

The product is extremely easy to set up although at first it does tend to interrupt you quite a bit whilst it gets used to what applications on the computer need Internet access, how security conscious you are etc. but once you have been using it for a couple of hours these should pretty much stop.

The entire package (including Norton Anti-Virus) costs a very reasonable £45 from suppliers such as Dabs (www.dabs.com), and upon purchase, you can keep the application up to date by downloading updates from the Internet to keep ahead of new viruses and security techniques that enter the field.

I would recommend that you assess your need for such a product by considering how fast your connection is, how long you spend online, the results of the Shields Up scan that I asked you to perform at the beginning of this article and please help yourself to a free trial version before you buy by going to the suppliers website, www.symantec.com.

As you may remember last week we discussed the use of Scandisk and System File checker as tools to keep your computer in healthy running order. This article will continue on from where we left off last week.

For those of you who missed the first part of [...]]]>

As you may remember last week we discussed the use of Scandisk and System File checker as tools to keep your computer in healthy running order. This article will continue on from where we left off last week.

For those of you who missed the first part of this series, there were some very useful hints and tips and although all the information given here can be used by itself, I would recommend that you read last weeks article in conjunction. If you don’t have an old copy of the Herald, then please e-mail me and I will send a copy of the article on to you.

As with last week I would like to say that all the information given here to help maintain or repair your system should cause no problems whatsoever. However, you use the contents of this article at your own risk and neither the Herald Express nor myself can be held responsible for the outcome of those actions and that rather than reading the article by itself I recommend that you sit down in front of your computer and follow the points made step by step.

To kick off, we are going to free up a bit of disk space – this process applies to those using Windows 98 or higher only. Start off by clicking on ‘Start’ and then to ‘Programs’, ‘Accessories’ and then to ‘System Tools’ and finally click on ‘Disk Cleanup’ then it will start up a small program which will run through your hard drive and pick up any files that can be safely deleted from your hard-disk. These consist of files such as Temporary Internet Files, Temporary Set-up Files, file stored in the Recycle Bin etc. Once the program has finished scanning, you can decide which of these files you want to delete from your computer. For more experienced users, there are also options in a separate menu to remove parts of Windows that you don’t use and to remove old programs you don’t need anymore.

Once you have freed up as much space as possible using this program, it is time to properly organise your hard disk. If you click on ‘Start’ and then to ‘Run’ and type in ‘Defrag’ you will start up a program called ‘Disk Defragmenter’ which we will use to speed up the time it takes to load programs and information from your hard drive. If you select drive ‘C’ to be defragmented and then click on ‘OK’, I will explain what the purpose of this program is while the computer runs the utility.

As you know, the hard-drive is the device inside your computer that is used to save and load programs and information that you use on a day-to-day basis, very much like a big filing cabinet. To use a real life example of how the hard drive works, imagine that every time you take a file out of this filing cabinet, you put it back wherever you like, but make a note of where you put it, for example – Taking ‘January 1999 expenses’ and putting it into the file marked ‘Recipe ideas’, and then to write down in a big table that you did this. As you can imagine, over a period of time you would get to a point where all the information was so inefficiently organised that it would take you much longer to find the information that you needed. Therefore you would go about putting all records back into the most efficient places so everything would be where it should logically be. Now when using the computer, we have to use a program such as Disk Defragmenter to sort out all the information we have saved put on to the disk in the past in to a sensible order that allows the computer to load things from it’s ‘virtual filing cabinet’ in the shortest time. One would just think that the computer should just keep itself organised as it goes, but due to the way the PC works, this is technically impossible.

While you are running Disk Defragmenter, you will find that closing down any programs that are running in the background and not trying to use the computer while it is running a good idea as otherwise whenever the contents of the hard-drive are changed, the program will have to restart from the beginning. Because Disk Defragmenter can take so long to complete, it would be beneficial if you were to run the program over night or while you are at work, not shortly before you want to use the computer.

Unfortunately, I have run out of room to conclude this set of articles on System Maintenance, and so I will continue next week by explaining the inbuilt Windows Maintenance Wizard and how to really increase your system speed by reducing the amount of unnecessary programs that start up when you first turn on your computer. This advice is especially important when running utilities such as Scandisk and Disk Defragmenter and follows a number of readers comments that after following my example last week about running Scandisk to check for disk errors, the program would never complete because the programs that started with Windows kept writing to the disk, forcing it to restart.

Computers, like people need a bit of tender loving care every now and again, a chance to repair any damage that may have been done in the past. Unfortunately, unlike humans whose immune system automatically repairs any damage, machines tend to need a bit of a push in order [...]]]> <

Computers, like people need a bit of tender loving care every now and again, a chance to repair any damage that may have been done in the past. Unfortunately, unlike humans whose immune system automatically repairs any damage, machines tend to need a bit of a push in order to fix themselves.

What I’m going to write now isn’t something that should be done optionally; the stuff I am about to write should be stamped in big writing on the side of every computer case manufactured for all users to read!

These are very basic tools, but failure to run them can often result in data loss, slow performance and random crashes, just 10 minutes every couple of weeks can keep your computer in good working order.

Unfortunately not all of what I cover here will be available for everybody, for example a number of the programs that I am to mention may not come as part of Windows 95. Therefore I’m going to assume that everybody reading this article has Windows 98 or above, however if there is a Windows 95 option for anything mentioned, I will outline that too.

I’d just like to take this opportunity for a small disclaimer – Any information I give to help maintain or repair your system should cause no problems whatsoever. However, you use the contents of this article at your own risk and neither the Herald Express nor myself can be held responsible for the outcome of those actions. Rather than just reading this article by itself, I recommend that you sit down in front of the computer and run through the steps one by one in order to properly understand the information given.

Okay then, to kick off, start your computer up and click on ‘Start’, then go to ‘Programs’, ‘Accessories’ and then ‘System Tools’. Finally, click on ‘System Information’. This should bring up window displaying a summary of the hardware and software on your system. This information can be extremely useful when trying to troubleshoot problems with your computer, especially when on a technical support line.

If you are having a problem so severe that you find your computer won’t even start up properly and therefore you can’t get into System Information at all then please do the following – Start your computer and wait until the point where the computer says ‘Starting Windows’, at this point quickly press F8 and then choose ‘Safe mode’. Your computer will then start up in a minimal version of Windows, which should allow you to run these utilities so that you can get your computer to start up normally. Now follow the steps above in order to get into System Information.

Once in System Information, click on tools and you will see a number of Windows System Tools that are available to help diagnose and maintain your computer. I’ll go through them in the order they appear on my screen, the available options may differ depending on your computer set-up.

Firstly, ‘System File Checker’ is a good program that should be used if you encounter any errors or crashes when starting up or running your PC, it shouldn’t really be run for the sake of it. This program will check all your main system files for integrity. If any appear to be corrupt, the program will then give you the option of copying a working version of the file off your Windows CD-ROM.

Another program on the list called ‘Scandisk’ is probably one of the most useful pieces of software that you could run on your computer on a frequent basis. For Windows 95 users, this utility is available by clicking on ‘Start’ then ‘Run’ and type in Scandisk. This program looks for any problems on your hard disk, many of them caused by not shutting down the computer properly or by your computer crashing.

Once you have Scandisk up and running, you will be presented with a window which gives you the option of which drive to scan and whether you would like to do a standard or thorough examination as well as whether you’d like the program to automatically correct any errors it finds. To start off with, select drive C, do a standard examination and tell the program to automatically correct any problems it finds. Click on start and then the program should go through the motions and show a progress indicator to let you know when it expects to finish, you might see this as a nice time to go away and make a cup of tea until it finishes.

You will also find that closing down any programs that are currently running in the background and not trying to use your computer while Scandisk performs these checks a good idea as it gives the program a chance to accurately find any problems there are with your hard drive. When you find that you have an hour or so to spare, possibly by leaving the computer running overnight or while at work, try performing a thorough scan – Just start it off and then leave the computer unattended until it has finished. This program can also be used to check any other hard drives on your system or any floppy disks for errors.

I have tried to cover as much as possible in this one article, and we will continue this subject on to next week, where we will also start to look at tuning up your computer and some of the other system tools available to check your system for problems.