IT Queries: Computer problems answered

Hi, I need to reinstall my Win XP OS to get rid of all the junk I’ve accumulated;  I’ve burnt a DVD with my documents on it, but will my emails be there as well ?  if not, how do I preserve them ?

Your emails probably won’t be in My Documents unless you’ve specifically told your system to save them there.

Finding your emails on a Windows system is particularly irritating as the different programs dump them into different folders. In Outlook Express and Windows Mail the address books are also saved in a completely different location.

The best thing is to back up your entire profile, this sits in the Documents and Settings folder on your C: drive and the profile will be either your log in name or something close to it.

By backing up this entire folder, you’ll save your My Documents folder, desktop, web browser bookmarks, address books and email. Just take care that your email folder isn’t so big it won’t fit on a single DVD.

I have received a fraudulent email from a bogus UPS parcel delivery site. As I have been expecting a delivery, I mistakenly opened the email and clicked on the attachment.

My AVG 9 program promptly detected 2 viruses which I thought I had then successfully removed. However now, when I boot up, I get the following 2 error messages:
C:\\WINDOWS\\rhstap.dll – Specified module could not be found
C:WINDOWS\\olamobel.dll -Specified module could not be found

1. Does this mean the registry is damaged?

2. How can I repair the registry and avoid getting these error messages … can you recommend a safe registry repair tool?

It’s good your antivirus picked up the problem and removed the malware. Just to be safe, we’d recommend following our Removing a Trojan instructions as well.

Once you’re happy you’ve cleaned the computer out, you can fix the missing .dll issues. The registry itself isn’t damaged, it’s just trying to find the files the malware installed and told it to run on startup.

The best tool for cleaning out the errant registry entries is CCleaner and running that after making sure you are free of viruses should give your computer a significant performance boost.

I have an Apple Mac running OS 10.6 and Mozilla Firefox. I don’t want to use Apple’s Mail program as I have a Gmail account. How can I set my Mac to open Gmail instead of Mail?

Doing this on a Mac is pretty straightforward. First you need to set Firefox to use Gmail for email links on the web, then tell the Mac to use Firefox for email. The steps are as follows;

1. Setting Firefox mail preferences

Open Firefox then select firefox from the menu and choose Preferences. In Preferences, select the Applications tab and go down the list of available applications until your reach mailto: then select Gmail from the drop down options. Exit Applications.

2. Setting the Mac default mail preferences

Open the Mac Mail program and under the Mail menu choose Preferences. In the General tab, the top setting is Default email reader and in the drop down box select other. This will open your applications folder and you then find and select Firefox.

Now, whenever you click on an email link, the system will open Firefox which in turn will open Gmail.

I have Windows 7 and I’ve discovered that Windows 7 does not have windows mail.  We have Bigpond account with a proxy server.  Can you suggest an email program for me?

Microsoft’s decision not to bundle an email program with Windows 7 was a strange one which is awkward for most users.

There are a number of ways to resolve this; with Microsoft’s free download, with an online service or with a third party email.

Third Party Solutions

If you are installing Microsoft Office on your computer then you may have Outlook as part of the suite. Use that for your email.

Otherwise, look at downloading a program like Thunderbird or the venerable Eudora.

Online Services

For many people the online services are fine. These include Gmail, Yahoo! and Hotmail. These can be set to collect your Bigpond or other ISP emails. The advantage with these is they are easy to use, portable and don’t require you to install anything on your computer.

Windows Live Essentials

The fact Microsoft calls them “essentials” indicate they should have been included with Window 7. The only thought why they were not is as a marketing strategy or a ruse to get around US or EU competition concerns. The Windows Live Essentials pack is free and contains mail, calendar and chat functions.

So there’s plenty of options for mail with Windows 7, have a look at them and see which one works best for you.

My hard drive just got replaced. I have Windows 7. We set up outlook for my e-mails. It works with my go-daddy account, no problem sending and receiving e-mails.

However, if I’m on a web site, and I decide to right click it and e-mail the web site somewhere, it wants to send it via windows live, instead of defaulting to my outlook instead. How do I get it to work and e-mail from my outlook?

The problem lies with Outlook not being your default email program. To fix this, click the Start Button and select Control Panel.

In the Control Panel screen, select Programs then Default Programs and Set Default Programs.

In the Set Your Default Programs list, highlight Microsoft Office Outlook and click the Set this program as default. Click OK and Outlook will now be the program used for all email function.

I am using windows XP. I am on Microsoft Outlook for my email and I have gmail as my default email.

What should i do? should i go to control panel, firewall, and go to advanced and press return to default? i am scared to as it said some things could be lost. I think at some point last week I pressed a button somewhere saying ‘reset’ but i can’t remember what i did . thank you so much.

Email error 554 really doesn’t tell you much except the message has been rejected by the recipient’s server. It could be for any of a number of reasons which could lie on your system, your Internet provider’s servers or a problem at the other end.

One common problem is time and dates. If the clock on your computer is seriously out, then some servers will reject emails sent from it. So checking your computer’s time and date is a good first step.

You should also check your return addresses are correct; for instance if you are sending out emails saying you’re with AOL when you are really with Comcast will be another reason for servers to reject your emails.

If the problem continues, call your Internet provider and get their support line to walk through your email settings to ensure they are correct. Beyond that, the problems are either with the various mail servers or your ISP.

Emails that I send out in Microsoft Outlook are received by others with just “Peter” in the From column of their In Box. Also, the email itself shows just “Peter + my email address at the top.

How do I change this to “Peter Kowaltzke” OR something else ??? Could you help me please.

Fixing this is relatively straightword. It’s a matter of changing the setting in the mail account. Open Outlook, choose the Tools menu and select E-mail Accounts.

In the E-mail Accounts screen choose View or change existing e-mail accounts, select your email account and click the change button.

Under User Information, change your name there. Click Next and Finish then restart Outlook for the new name to take effect.

I keep receiving PPT files from friends, but I cannot open them. What are they and are they dangerous?

PPT files are PowerPoint presentations and normally they are perfectly harmless although it is a good idea not to open any email attachment from people you don’t know.

Powerpoint is the Microsoft presentation program which comes with some versions of Microsoft Office. Just because you have Microsoft Office, it doesn’t mean you have Powerpoint.

If you want to open ppt files, then you can download the free Powerpoint Viewer from Microsoft. This allows you to read and print ppt files but not edit them.

Should you want to change them, the free Open Office program can deal with most Powerpoint presentations.

On ABC Radio last week you advised how it is possible to keep a bigpond email address by paying $25/year and then being able to have internet with another provider. Please advise these details.Thanking you.

If you have a Bigpond.com email address it is possible to retain it by moving to Bigpond’s Casual User plan which charges $25 a year. The plan also allows dial up Internet access at $3 per hour so it can be a handy fall back connection as well.

There is catch though. If you are on an older Bigpond ADSL or cable plan, then you won’t be able to retain your bigpond.net.au address.

If keeping an email address is important, then it’s important to register your own domain name which will follow you wherever you go.

I am able to receive emails, but unable to send them.  Windows XP & MS IE installed. The error message is “ The connection to the server has failed. Account: ‘pop3.people.net.au‘, Protocol: SMTP, Port:25, Secure[SSL]:No, Socket error:10060, Error number:0x800CCC0E.

Any thoughts?

The immediate thought is your firewall has decided to block your email program sending data.

To fix the built in Windows Firewall in Windows XP Service Pack 2, open the Control Panel, choose Windows Firewall, click the Exceptions tab and tick the email program.

If the email program isn’t listed, then you can either manually add the program through the Add Program button. Although it may be easier to reset the firewall through selecting the Advanced tab and clicking the Restore Defaults button.