What to know before you call for help!

 

Basic Troubleshooting  and answers to some of your nagging questions.

What threatens my computer?

Worms  Trojans    Keyloggers     Ad-ware   Spyware    Viruses

Popups    Security vulnerabilities

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/virus.htm

 

http://www.datadoctors.com/help/columns/21651-What-is-the-difference-between-viruses-worms-Trojans/

What you need to protect your computer?

1. Virus protection – either a free version or retail

2. Anti- spyware  - already included in the operating system on a PC

3. Software firewall – already included in the operating system on a PC

4. Hardware firewall – a router –security enabled

5. Automatic install of Windows updates

 

Data doctors gives a list of approved programs to use for your protection. 

Also listed are those programs to avoid or risk infection at:

http://www.datadoctors.com/help/approved_software.cfm

 

 

Popup blockers:

Popup blockers are generally a good thing.

However, some popup blockers in toolbars such as Yahoo or Google, or even the one installed in Internet Explorer, may block access to certain pages. 

If you click a link on a web page and you are unable to reach the new page, temporarily turn off your popup blocker to see if that is what is blocking your access.

 

Why does it take so long for my computer to start up?
1. Spyware and Adware    Viruses    Too little Memory (RAM)

2. Too many programs in startup    Fragmented hard drive

3. Norton, McAfee, and other huge utility programs

4. Your computer is old and getting ready to crash  and/or it is time to reinstall the operating system.

 

What can you do to speed things up:

 1. Turn off extra start up programs with Software Explorer in Windows Defender.

Here is how: Click Start, All Programs, Windows Defender.

Click Tools, Software Explorer.

 In Vista, click “Show for all users”.  The category at the top should indicate Startup Programs.

Each item listed in the left pane starts when your computer starts.  As you highlight the item on the left, a description of the item appears on the right pane.

Click the Disable button to prevent the program from starting during the boot process.  Only disable those items which you are absolutely sure are not system files.

 Some examples of items that can be disabled are Quicken, Microsoft Money, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Works, Event reminders (unless you use them), Picasa, and many others.  These items can easily be started by clicking the desktop icon when you need the program to run. 

 

Why does it take so long for my computer to shut down or it won’t shut down at all?

1. Antivirus may be scanning on shutdown   

2. Hard drive is fragmented

3. Non responsive programs and services   

4. Unnecessary programs running in the background    

5. A damaged exit sound file    Incorrectly configured or incompatible hardware.    Conflicting programs      Incompatible or conflicting device driver

6. Your computer is old  and/or it is time to reinstall the operating system

 

Don’t panic and pull the plug!!

If you have given the computer sufficient time, and it still won’t shut down, then press in and hold the “Start” button on the computer until it turns off.

You may get an error message on the next start up, “that the computer was shut down incorrectly.”  Try a normal startup.

See more causes and problems at: http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/shtdwnxp.htm

 

How do I close a single tab on my browser?

         Tabbed browsing allows you to keep more than one page at a time open.

In this illustration, you see two sets of tabs. One set is your browser tabs, the other is the web page tabs. 

On either set of tabs, as you click the tab, you move from page to page.

To close a single browser tab, move your mouse pointer to the right corner of the tab and an X will appear.  Click it  to close only that tab.

To open a new tab, click the blank tab at the far right.

Or  you can create a new tab by holding down the CTRL key as you click any link.

 

Why do I get page not found on my browser?

1. Internet connection has been interrupted.

2. The web page is no longer valid or available.

3. The wrong URL was typed in the address bar.

4. Did you have a power surge or outage?

 

Rebooting your modem/router

         If your electricity goes off, your computer shuts down unexpectedly, or your internet provider is not working temporarily, you may need to reset your cable modem.

1. Shut down your computer using the Start, Shut down. 

2. Remove the power cable from the back of the modem. (usually the small round plug). Wait 10-20 seconds.

3. Re-plug and reboot your computer.  This may restore service.

4. If you have a router as well as a cable modem, you may also need to reset the router using this same process.

 

Why is my Outlook Express, Windows Mail, or Outlook program giving me an error message?

1. The internet connection was interrupted.   

2. The mail server is down.

3. There is a typo or incorrect entry in your account setup.   

4. You are using an incorrect password.

 

Why won’t the printer print?

1. If you have tried to print a document and received and error, but then tried to send other documents to the printer, there may be many documents queued up to print.

2. First try Cancel Printing and clearing the print queue.

3. If that doesn’t work, you may need to reset the printer.

 

Clearing the Print queue

Go to Control Panel, double click on the Printers and Faxes icon. 

Find your printer in the list and double click it to open the queue.

 If you have documents listed, click on the menu, Printer, and cancel all documents.

 

Printer reset

If you get a document stuck in the print queue that just won’t delete, then try a reset.

Unplug both the USB and the electricity from the back of the printer.

Shut down the computer.

Restart the computer, then re-plug both the USB and the electricity to the printer.

 

Why is the print so small? 

Are your documents printing with very small print?

Any changes to printer settings that you want to make permanent must be done via the Control Panel.

Go to Control Panel and open the Printers folder.  Right click on your default printer, click Properties.

On the General tab, click  Printing Preferences, then the Page Setup tab.  If you have Page Layout options, choose the Scaled Printing option, and then change the percentage to 120 or 130 percent. Click Apply, OK.

On some printers, the changes may need to be made on the Effects tab, Resizing Options.  Change the print size to 120 or 130 percent.  Click Apply, OK. 

These options will not work on all printers.           

 

Changing Default Print Options:

Other print options which you might want to make permanent are choosing a draft or grayscale as your permanent option.  This will save on ink.

As above, go to Control Panel and get to the Properties.  Open Printing Preferences and make the changes.  Close all dialogs.

You can then make changes to individual print settings when you want to print photos or a business letter that needs a better print quality.

 

Using the Print option in Internet Explorer 7:

To change the print size in Internet Explorer 7, use the toolbar to print web pages.

Click on the drop down next to the printer on the right side toolbar of your browser.

Click Print Preview to view how the printed web page will look.

If the print is very small, click the drop down to the right of “Shrink to Fit”, and select 120 or 130 percent.  This will be the printed size.

Use the page layouts in the  upper left to choose paper orientation.  Use the margin marks to reduce the margins.

Use the page selector at the bottom to view all pages before printing.

 

What happened to my toolbars/layout/file folders, etc?

The View menu controls many of the parts of your display, whether in a word processing program or your email client (Windows mail, Outlook express, etc.) installed on your computer.

1. To get a toolbar back in Word, Excel, etc., click View, Toolbars. Each item you want visible should have a check mark. 

2. To get file folder, etc. back in an email program, click View, Layout. Each item you want visible should have a check mark.

http://www.coolnerds.com/Newbies/Toolbars/toolbars.htm

Office 2007 – The Ribbon – see help at

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA100898951033.aspx

 

Why do I get a red X instead of pictures? 

The red x is your computers way of telling you "I can't display the picture.”

Here are some of the reasons.

1. The "Show Pictures" setting has been turned off in Internet Explorer.

In Internet Explorer's Tools menu, click Internet Options, then click the Advanced tab. Make sure the Show Pictures and Play Animations In Web pages check box is selected under Multimedia, then click Apply/OK.

 

2.   Your anti-virus or firewall settings are set too high.

Check to see if your anti-virus or firewall software has a privacy setting to "disable web bugs".  Uncheck or turn it off.  Read more about web bugs at http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Marketing/web_bug.html

 

3.   Your Internet Explorer security settings are set too high, preventing you from accessing the web site which hosts the image.

Reset to the default security settings. In Internet Explorer, click on Tools , Internet Options, Security, Default Level.  

4.   The Block Images setting is turned on in your HTML email security.

Click on Tools, Options, Security. Then UNCHECK the "Block images and other

external content" check box, and click Apply/OK.

 

If you are the SENDER and others are complaining that they can't see images in emails you sent.   

1. In Outlook Express, Click Tools, Options, Send. Under Mail Sending Format, select HTML, then press the HTML Settings button. Make sure the "Send pictures with messages" box is checked.

2. The image is hosted on a website that's busy, temporarily offline or no longer working, or the image file on the website might have been renamed or deleted.

3. The image is hosted on a website, and you're not online.

4. Make sure your internet connection is active and try again.

5. If you have Norton Internet Security installed, reset your Personal Firewall Settings or try disabling Norton Internet Security to see if that fixes the problem.

6. AdSubtract , an adware and pop up blocker, can block images in some programs.

7. If on the Internet Explorer menu, View, Encoding is set to Auto-Select, some sites may not load graphics. Try setting your system to Western European (Windows) or Western European (ISO).

8. If you are using a firewall that has ad-blocking software, or you are running any other ad-blocking software, disable it temporarily to see if it resolves your problem. 

 

         Do a Disk Clean up or delete all the temporary Internet files by clearing your IE cache. In Internet Explorer, open the Tools menu, click Internet Options, choose the General tab, and click the Delete button.  On the next dialog, click Delete All.

         There may be a missing Java applet or you may not have Java on your computer.

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6130_102-0.html?forumID=7&threadID=64940&messageID=776647

         Sources:  http://www.askbobrankin.com/red_x_appears_instead_of_image.html

http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/answers/51.html

Microsoft FAQ      www.ask.com     Smart Computing

 

Why doesn’t System Restore work?

1. The System Restore utility on the Windows operating system has never worked 100% of the time.

2. Having a Norton/Symantec product installed on your computer may be preventing the system restore from working correctly as some Norton products prevent changes to system settings. 

3. If your System Restore is not working, it is possible to reinstall it.  All existing restore points will be deleted.

 

Instructions for the experienced user are found at: http://bertk.mvps.org/html/reinstall.html

System Restore can also be run in Safe Mode.

More information on troubleshooting System Restore can be found at: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;302796.

 

System Restore – reliability – what it restores

System Restore was first introduced with Windows Me. It records key changes to a computer's configuration.

By default, Windows XP makes one restore point each day. (if you have your computer turned on that day).

It creates extra restore points each time you make significant changes to your configuration, such as installing a device driver, hotfixes or application.

System restore does not retrieve deleted data files or programs.

Over a period of time, as the computer ages, the system restore may not work correctly.

If your system restore is not working, it may be time to delete all the current restore points and start fresh, or there may be underlying operating system problems that would benefit from a reinstall of the entire operating system. (After backing up all your data files, documents, financial, pictures, videos, music, etc.)

 

JAVA –do I need it and where are the settings?

Java is a programming language that is used to create programs to run within web pages so that you can play online games, use chat functions, view 3D images and much more.

Java software installed on your computer is called the Java Runtime Environment, JRE, or Java virtual machine and many other similar names.

You can get it at http://www.java.com/en/download/whatis_java.jsp.

You can learn more about it and what it is used for at  http://www.java.com/en/about/.

If you have Java installed on your computer, you will find an icon for it in the control panel.  You can double click this Icon and check the settings.  Be very cautious when modifying any of these or some websites may not work correctly.

When you see an orange icon on your tray, this indicates there is a Java update.

 

Java Settings

When you have Internet Explorer open, click Tools, Manage Add-ons, Enable or Disable Add-ons.  Java was developed by Sun Microsystems and if the name column doesn’t indicate Java, and you want it to be enabled on your browser, leave enabled all those with Sun Microsystems as the Publisher.

Another option for checking whether Java is installed is again, to open Internet Explorer, click Tools, Internet Options, the Advanced tab.  As you scroll down, there should be a check mark in the Java (Sun) item.

 

Do I need Flashplayer?

Adobe FlashPlayer is a browser add on that provides functionality on web pages.

Should you update to the latest version?  Yes, if it is required by programs or web pages that you use. 

Be sure and remove the check mark from extra items that you do not want to download. 

What to do about AVG/Antivirus warnings?

Many of these warnings are cookies but can also be suspicious registry keys, hidden files, password protected files or archives.  Most of these files do not present a threat to your computer security and no action is necessary.

If you want to see what these warnings are, open your AVG program and click History, Scan results. 

Click the date of any scan, then click View Details.  Any serious threats will be listed as an infection.  Depending on your settings, these should automatically be moved to the Virus Vault, where they cannot harm your computer.

Click on the Infection or Warning tab and you can see a list of the items.

If you want to view items in the Virus Vault, click History, Virus Vault.  To get rid of  these items, click “Empty Vault”. For more information on warnings, go to http://www.avg.com/support#tba5 and click on “Warning in test result”.

 

My antivirus won’t update.

1. Obscure reason  but it happens.  Check the system date and time.

If the date and time is incorrect, the antivirus and other security programs will not update or do their scans.

 

Should I allow Active X controls?

ActiveX was developed by Microsoft to make Web pages more interactive and interesting and is a set of rules for how applications share information.

An example of ActiveX might be an online virus scan site such as TrendMicro’s housecall.  

Just as an ActiveX control allows you to run the online virus scanner, a similar control on a malicious Web site can direct your browser to download a keylogger, a Trojan, or other files that could allow someone to take control of your PC.

Microsoft developed a system to register these controls.

When you encounter a website that requires ActiveX, you will need to enable the controls in order to use the site. If you refuse, you will be unable to complete whatever  task you were trying to perform on that web page.

The  Internet Explorer Information Bar (ivory or yellow bar at the top of the Internet Explorer browser) is displayed whenever an ActiveX control is encountered on the web page you are viewing. When you click on the part of the bar (says “Click here for options”) you are given a choice as to how to proceed.

Any web site that repeatedly attempts to download an ActiveX control or any files before the page has fully loaded is suspect.

McAfee’s Site Advisor can help determine if a web site is safe. http://www.siteadvisor.com/download/ie.html

 

McAfee Site Advisor codes

Red- not safe, may have malicious downloads or many spam messages

Yellow – beware, may not be entirely safe

Green – Safe surfing

 

Things you should never do

 

Never do any free scans offered by pop-ups.

 

Never do any free downloads offered by pop-ups.

 

Never click on .exe files or links purported to be updates from Microsoft.

 

Never download and use a registry optimizer.

 

Never open SPAM messages.

 

Never click on those items in SPAM mail that promise to remove you from the mailing list.

 

Don’t spend a lot of time and money repairing an old computer.

 

Don’t upgrade your Operating system if the current one is having problems. (upgrades do not fix problems).

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/113/story/277991.html

 

 

Examples of Scams

 

Is this an email from Microsoft?

The answer is that Microsoft does not send updates via your email program.

The next picture shows you the content of the message, minus the executable file which was attached.

Please note that the words are not used correctly. “Please notice,  we strongly recommend you to install, distribution of this Update through official website would have result in efficient creation of a malicious software and others.”

If you click on the executable file which was attached, you most likely download spyware, a trojan, a keylogger, or some other malicious software.

 

Another malware scam

Another reason to never  buy any security software of do any scan via a popup is that the newest fake security looks like Windows Security Center.

WinDefender is just the latest in a series of malware attacks designed to look like legitimate Windows components.   This is a full-blown knockoff of the real thing. Computer Associates has the details.   http://community.ca.com/blogs/securityadvisor/archive/2008/10/14/two-good-looking-windows-security-centers-one-fake-one-real.aspx

In addition to the fake Security Center, WinDefender nags you further by blocking web pages from opening (blaming the blockage on "adware/spyware on your PC").

It adds a yellow drop-down box to Internet Explorer like you get when you try to download something from the web, again with text urging you to install WinDefender 2008 in order to unblock the sites.

Just $40 of extortion money makes it all go away...  Maybe!!

Antispy and Antivirus 2008/2009

These are extremely malicious programs.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/malware-removal/remove-xp-antispyware-2009

  http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/malware-removal/remove-antivirus-xp-2008

 

Fake Email trying to get personal information.

            SUBJECT:    Wachovia Customer Support - we are committed to honor our relationship  

 

   WACHOVIA CORPORATION NOTICE.

Citigroup announced a buyout of Wachovia brokered by the FDIC.

All Wachovia bank locations will be in the Citigroup merger to prevent failure of Wachovia.

The Citigroup/Wachovia would focus on upgrading banks' security certificates.

All Wachovia customers must fill the forms and complete installation of new Citigroup Standard digital signatures during 48 hours.

Please follow the installation steps below:

Read more>>

Sincerely, Bernadette Romero.

2008 Wachovia Corporation.

All rights reserved.

 

Those messages purporting to be from various banks actually come from:

inetnum: 87.252.225.0 - 87.252.225.255

netname: CTV

descr: Belarusian-American joint venture "Cosmos TV", Ltd.

descr: Belarus ISP Company

or  Brazil, or Korea, or Serbia, Russia, Ukraine or Africa and many more.

 

 

 

Report Abuse       

Forward bank phishing emails to the bank  abuse address and to

reportphishing@antiphishing.org

abuse@wachovia.com

abuse@bankofamerica.com

abuse@chase.com

 

What updates should you do?

 

Windows Security/Operating System updates

Antivirus updates

Antispyware updates

Java updates

Adobe reader updates

Adobe Flashplayer updates

Software program updates, such as HP, Roxio

Driver updates.

 

Things you should do:

 

Backup to an external media your personal data that you can’t afford to lose.

Use Software Explorer to turn off un-necessary start up programs.

Delete cookies and cache files

Disk cleanup regularly

Download free software only from safe sites.

Disk Defragmentation – earlier than Vista

Install RAM on a slow computer (if less than 4 years old) given that everything else works normally.

Reinstall the operating system periodically

Call tech support help for something you can’t handle.

 

Have a safe and positive computing experience.