Software

More Windows XP SP3 Woes

October 7, 2008 By Terry Stockdale

Reader Tom Linton wrote about is problems that occurred when he installed Windows XP Service Pack 3 shortly after it was released:

Terry,

I made the mistake of not being patient. SP3 had been out about a week and I hadn’t seen very much in the various email newsletters I subscribe to. A few friends had told me they installed SP3 and had no troubles. One even commented that his PC ran noticeably faster after the upgrade. So, I went ahead and upgraded 2 of my 3 PCs. Bad timing!

My primary PC (a Gateway GM5045H) did not appreciate the medicine, my secondary PC (my hand me down to my wife, a DELL Dimension 8200) upgraded with no know problems, and my third PC is to old to run XP.

My Gateway refused to run I.E.7, crashed my Media Center, would not let me connect to the Internet, and generally ran very slow. There may have been other problems I didn’t wait around to find out about. I did research (which I should have done before the SP3 upgrade, but I trusted MS to get this right since it was so long coming) with my wifes PC. The consensus was to uninstall SP3. I did this. My Media Center worked again but I.E.7 refused. I uninstalled I.E.7 back to I.E.6. It seemed to work OK. I upgraded to I.E.7 and it crashed again. Back to I.E.6. I only use I.E. for those pages that will not run properly in Firefox.

My real problem is my personal LAN. All the other PCs can see my main PC but my main PC cannot see them. Network Magic could not resolve the problem. I have searched the Internet and tried several suggestions on various forums. None have restored my ability to see my other PC’s on my LAN. I cannot PING the other PC’s. It is like the SP3 upgrade changed some settings to tighten up LAN security, but I cannot find how to undo them.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Tom,

Tom said that he could not ping the the other computers from his computer. — by name – or by ip address? If you can’t by IP address, then something is blocking them. If you can ping by IP address but not by name, you would know that it’s Windows name resolution that is causing the problem.

I suggested …

Continue reading More Windows XP SP3 Woes

Filed Under: Bug Fixes, Microsoft Updates, Operating System, Patches, Security Fixes, Software, System, Terry's Computer Tips, Windows Updates, Windows XP

Windows XP Service Pack 3 Woes

October 5, 2008 By Terry Stockdale

So far, I’ve still avoided installing the new Windows XP Service Pack 3. I know that a lot of people have installed it without any problems.

However, when there is a problem, it is not trivial! Recently, two subscribers wrote to tell me of their horror stories and ask for suggestions on solving them.

Delmer Tergarden wrote to say that he had installed Windows Service Pack SP3 and the drivers for both the CD and DVD drives stopped working. Even though he restored the system to its state just before back up, his CD and DVD drives still were not recognized by Windows. He wanted to know how to get the drives working again.

I wrote back to say:

I haven’t installed XP SP3 yet, to avoid running into any of the early-adapter problems like you did. That’s why I think Microsoft made a blunder in its choice to push SP3 as a high-importance update as its initial release. It really abuses our trust of the update system.

Anyway, …

Continue reading Windows XP Service Pack 3 Woes

Filed Under: Operating System, Security, Security Fixes, Software, System, Terry's Computer Tips, Windows Updates, Windows XP

Choosing to Send Plain Text or HTML in Outlook Emails

September 17, 2008 By Terry Stockdale

One of the first things many people do, when they find that Outlook will let them use different fonts and stationery in their emails, is to start experimenting.

While personal friends may think these are cute, we quickly realize that many others don’t want to all the glitz and glitter — they read emails and mailing lists for information. In some cases, the email programs display all the formatting codes in addition to the text we wrote, so the message effectively becomes unreadable. By he way, these emails are formatted using HTML (the language of web browsers like Internet Explorer) by default.

Fortunately, Outlook allows us to easily switch between HTML-formatted email (the default)…

Sunbelt VIPRE Review | VIPRE Antivirus + Antispyware Review

August 23, 2008 By Terry Stockdale

When I began my evaluation period of Sunbelt Software’s new VIPRE Antivirus + Antispyware program, I was promptly shocked.

I had read several reviews about VIPRE and had read phrases like “high performance” and “low resources.” I had even read comments that where the writer said that VIPRE was virtually unnoticeable on their computer and that their computer suddenly had more speed that it had in a long time.

Naturally, I discounted those comments and claims, thinking that they were advertising exaggeration and hyperbole. They usually compare the computer’s performance to when it had been running one of the big-name suites, so that wasn’t too surprising any way.

I was shocked when I installed VIPRE on my notebook computer. I saw for myself that VIPRE didn’t interfere with my activities. My computer really was faster with VIPRE, even faster than the speedy combination of CounterSpy and NOD32.

Get more information on VIPRE

Continue reading my Sunbelt VIPRE Antivirus + Antispyware Review

Try the free, fully-functional trial of VIPRE for 15 days – click here

Filed Under: Anti-adware, Anti-spyware, Anti-virus, Software, Terry's Computer Tips, Vista, Windows XP Tagged With: Antimalware, Antispyware, Antivirus, Firewall, GFI, GFI Sunbelt, Sunbelt GFI, Sunbelt Software, Sunbelt VIPRE Review, VIPRE, VIPRE Antivirus Premium

Staying Up-to-Date – Problem Running Online Games

August 6, 2008 By Terry Stockdale

I received an email from subscriber Bev, who wrote that she was having problems running some online games:

Hi, Love your newsletter and look forward to it. I don\’t know how to explain myself very well so you can shorten my description immensely. I have an HP Vista Home Premium 3 months old. 2 gig ram. I play games on Pogo.com every day. I have an HP Laptop XP Pro 2 years old. I have a Linksys router G 4 port 802.11G I use Cox Cable IP. I have been having a big aggravating problem with my game page just dropping out losing my progress. I play Mahjong Garden and many others. It leaves a page saying Unable to connect to server.

Continue reading Staying Up-to-Date – Problem Running Online Games

Filed Under: IE, Microsoft Updates, Operating System, Software, System, Terry's Computer Tips

Anti-Spam Program Choices

July 29, 2008 By Terry Stockdale

Subscriber and long-time reader Scott Adler wrote to me about his experiences with three of the various anti-spam programs. I’ve used Mailwasher Pro and PopFile and like both, but they are entirely different in their approach to spam. My current choice is PopFile.

I’ve also mentioned iHateSpam, which is from the same company that offers my choice in anti-spyware and firewall programs; however, I don’t use iHateSpam because I don’t use Outlook Express or Outlook as my email program (I use Eudora).

The three anti-spam programs you speak about have quite different impact on ones PC.. I’ve been using I Hate Spam but it’s use brings a slowdown to the reaction of the computer. As the files of friends and enemies build up the computer runs slower and slower until it almost freezes up. That’s what happened to me and it took three days of agonizing trouble shooting before I recognized where the problem lay.

Continue reading Anti-Spam Program Choices

Products:

MailWasher Pro full-function 30-day trial
iHateSpam full-function 30-day trial
PopFile free

Filed Under: Anti-spam, Communications, Outlook, Outlook Express, Security, Shopping Deals, Software, Terry's Computer Tips

Preparing An Old Computer to be Recycled

July 13, 2008 By Terry Stockdale

Recently, Agnes Brach wrote to me with a question that, eventually, applies to all of us:

Hello Terry,
I enjoy your newsletter very much. I have a question that has been on my mind for a while. I have an old computer which i would like to recycle, but have absolutely no idea how to wipe the machine clean. Could you please give me some ideas of what i can do. Have to tell you that I can work the computer pretty well, but do not have a deep knowledge of the inner workings of the machine.

Thank you.

Agnes Brach

If you’re going to donate or sell your old computer, or even throw it away, you have a basic decision to make — how bad do you want to wipe out your personal history and data on the drive?

None of the disk wiping systems are convenient, easy nor fast. In order to wipe the disk, they have to overwrite every spot on the disk multiple times with different characters.

Continue reading Preparing An Old Computer to be Recycled

Filed Under: Hard Drive Recovery, Hard Drives, Hardware, Software, Terry's Computer Tips

Problems with Program Installs and Updates

July 9, 2008 By Terry Stockdale

Occasionally when I’m installing a new program, or updating an existing program, I run into a special issue. Yes, that’s probably the right term for it — when my security software does exactly what it’s supposed to do — and blocks the software installation or upgrade/update.

Such was the case this week with the surprise update from Microsoft called .NET Service Pack 1.

I tried to install it on my desktop computer and on my wife’s computer. In both cases, the installatiton failed and didn’t bother to tell me why it failed, just that it had. In both cases, I had started the update and left the room, so I didn’t get to see any warning messages that may have occurred.

Anyway, my anti-spyware/anti-adware program CounterSpy prevented the .NET service pack from changing all the files that it wanted to change. I had CounterSpy set for some aggresive control by setting its Active Protection function to Cautious (the choices are Paranoid, Cautious, Trusting and Custom) and putting checkmarks on all the options.

Continue reading Problems with Program Installs and Updates

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Filed Under: Optimize, Software, Terry's Computer Tips

WinClear Internet History Eraser the Review

July 4, 2008 By Terry Stockdale

Product: WinClear
Class: Utility — Privacy — temp file and Windows/Internet history deletion
License: Commercial product.
Version Reviewed: v2.0

WinClear is a computer history cleaner program designed to delete or erase the history of your activity on your computer. Obviously, it can’t dig into the guts of every program to find and delete the history each might retain (and you probably would not want that).

WinClear targets general Windows items, recent document lists in many programs, chat history, and all sorts of data that Internet Explorer records on your use of IE.

I wrote in my email newsletter that I had been trying out WinClear. I was impressed with it from the start.

On my notebook, after I had deleted my temporary files (I thought) and the Temporary Internet Files, I was surprised that WinClear found over 800 MB of temporary files for me. Since I was down to only 2 GB free on my notebook, getting 800 MB more was a significant find.

Continue reading WinClear — Internet History Eraser — the Review

Download and scan with WinClear now

Filed Under: Software, System, Terry's Computer Tips, Usability, Windows XP

Unable to Delete Email in Outlook Express

June 27, 2008 By Terry Stockdale

Sherrill Kerbaugh wrote about a major problem she and her husband were having on both of their computers:

Hi, Terry… We have a major problem…. My husband has been unable to delete daily e-mails for a few weeks now….we can’t figure out what in the world is wrong!?!?!?! Now, all of a sudden I can’t delete e-mails on my computer (same local area network and e-mail…Outlook Express)! HELP!!!!!!!!! Also, John can’t download or use Adobe Reader on his computer, but I can!?!?!?
We are going crazy here!

What are your thoughts? We just found your website this morning….hope you are our “computer angel”! : )
Thank you!

I wrote back to tell Sherrill that Outlook Express has a problem that will creep up on you and prevent you from deleting emails. When you delete an email, it goes into the Deleted Items folder.

Continue reading Unable to Delete Email in Outlook Express

Filed Under: Email, Outlook Express, Software, Terry's Computer Tips