IT Queries: Computer problems answered

How can someone send an e mail using my hotmail account to all my contacts when I did not send it?
It has then deleted all my contacts? What should I do ?

Your account has been hijacked. You must change your password immediately. In fact you change all your passwords for websites and computers.

The new passwords you choose should be complex, long and use a combination of letters and numbers. Our sister website, PC Rescue, has hints on how to put one together that you can remember.

It’s also important to check your computer hasn’t been compromised by checking for viruses and Trojans. You should also monitor your bank accounts for suspicious activity.

This all sounds paranoid, and it probably is, but you can’t take risks with your online security.

My Internet provider has told me my mail box is full and messages will be rejected. How do I fix this?

The problem is your email program is set to save the emails on the Internet provider’s server. Over time, the mailbox fills up and the ISP rejects all new messages.

To clear it, you have to change your email settings. In Outlook, Outlook Express and Windows Mail click Tools, E-Mail Accounts, in Outlook select View or Change Existing Mail accounts while in Outlook Express and Windows Mail select the Mail tab.

You’ll now have a list of your email accounts, select the account you want to share and click Change, then click More Settings and then the More Settings.

In the Internet email settings box, click the Advanced tab. Under the delivery heading take the tick off the box that reads Leave a copy of messages on the server if you don’t want to share your email with another computer.

If you do want to share it leave the tick on and in section that reads Remove from server after xx days reduce the number of days. Also tick the box that reads Remove from server when deleted from deleted items.

You’ll need to watch the email account closely to see how many days is best for you. If the problem is because you receive massive emails then you’ll need to either tell your correspondents to reduce the size of their emails or get an Internet provider with larger email storage.

If the server fills up, your emails will be returned to sender with an error message. If this happens, drop the number of days the server keeps your email.

My wife and I have our own computers but we only have one email address. How do we set up our system so we can both receive the same emails? Currently, if one computer gets the email the other won’t. We’re both using Outlook Express on Windows XP.

You can set the computer to leave email on your ISPs server. To do this, open Outlook, Outlook Express or Windows Mail.

Click Tools, E-Mail Accounts, in Outlook select View or Change Existing Mail accounts while in Outlook Express and Windows Mail select the Mail tab.

You’ll now have a list of your email accounts, select the account you want to share and click Change, then click More Settings and then the More Settings.

In the Internet email settings box, click the Advanced tab. Under the delivery heading click the box that reads Leave a copy of messages on the server. Below that, tick the box that reads Remove from server after xx days because you don’t want the server to fill up.

If the server fills up, your emails will be returned to sender with an error message. If this happens, drop the number of days the server keeps your email.

I don’t seem to be able to open my email attachments. I am using Vista. Thanks!

This is a long standing problem with Windows Mail and Outlook Express. To protect you from potentially infected files coming in on your email account, the program simply blocks most attachments.

To fix this, open Windows Mail, click Tools then Options and take the tick off the box next to Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus.

Click Okay and the problem’s fixed.

Update: If you’re using AVG then you may need to change your email plugin settings. We have instructions on doing that in a later entry.

I would like to use windows mail , and have a yahoo email address. It was working but somehow I’ve messed it up . I now read all mail on the Yahoo server, but would like it to download to MS Mail.

The reason for it stopping is Yahoo! Mail has been through some changes in the way it handles POP (Post Office Protocol) mail which Outlook Express and Windows Mail use.

To enable it, go into your Yahoo! mail folder and click Options on the top right hand corner of the screen.

Select POP Access and Forwarding and click the button next to I want to receive all messages, including those that SpamGuard thinks are spam.

You’ll need then to run the account setup wizard in Windows Mail, fill in your own details and enter pop.mail.yahoo.com.au as your incoming mail server and  smtp.mail.yahoo.com.au as your outgoing mail server.

While in the Options page you can export your Yahoo! address book by clicking  Address book then Import/Export then choose to export your addresses as a Comma Separated Value (CSV).

You can then import the addresses into your Windows Mail.

During the past week I changed from Ozemail to Bigpond. Besides other problems with bigpond, I find they will not support Thunderbird. The result is that my extra mail box must be accessed via the Web.  Could you please help to set up Thunderbird?

The Thunderbird setup process is straightforward. Open Thunderbird, click File, New and then Account.

In the Account setup box choose Email Account and click Next.

For identity, you should put the name you want to appear on the emails in the Your Name box and your email address in the Email Address box.

Next is the Server Information page this is where you put in the incoming server settings.  For Bigpond you need to enter mail.bigpond.com in the Incoming Server box. Leave the POP button and the use global inbox options selected. Click Next

The next box is the User Names page. Enter your ISP username in the Incoming User Name box. For Bigpond users this is your email address. Click Next to continue.

In the following box you’re asked to name the account. You can put in anything you’d like to call it; Tony’s account, work email, whatever suits you.

That’s it! When you first go to check email, you’ll be asked for your password. Enter it and tick the box asking to remember your password and you are up and running.

Hi !, when I attempt to send or recieve an e-mail I get the following message x800ccc90 

We’ve answered part of that question previously. What the error message means is the computer can’t find your ISPs email server.

If you can surf the net then you need to check your firewall isn’t blocking your email program. If it isn’t, then there is a problem with the email program.

For Sympatico the settings are pophm.sympatico.ca for the incoming email and smtphm.sympatico.ca for the outgoing mail. Sympatico have step by step instructions on their website.

I have four messages in my outbox. One of them won’t display because an error message appears saying low memory or low disk drive. Because of this error message, it won’t send any of these four messages.

The first thing to check is you have enough hard drive space. If the drive is full then the computer will choke. We’ve covered freeing up space on your hard drive previously.

If you do have enough hard drive space then one of those outgoing emails is damaged and it’s blocking the others from leaving.

To fix it, turn off the auto-preview screen by clicking View and then Autoview in Outlook. If you are using Outlook Express or Windows Mail click View, Layout and take the tick off the Show Preview Pane box.

Once you’ve done that, go into your Outbox folder and drag all four of the emails into your drafts folder. Delete any you don’t need to send then open the ones you do want to resend and click the resend button.

I am operating Vista, with a Bigpond account.  I continue to have problems with my e-mail account.  Bigpond instruct me to have no firewall, so it is turned off.  I am not comfortable with this solution, however they say the firewall interfers with the e-mail.

Can you give me some advice on this please?

It sounds like the firewall or anti-virus program is blocking access to the mail server. You’ll need to make sure your email program is trusted by the firewall and the email server is trusted, in Bigpond’s case this is mail.bigpond.com.

In the Windows firewall,  you should add your email program to the trusted applications list by Start, Control Panel and Network Connections. Select your Internet connection, the name will vary with your computer.

In the General tab of the Internet connection properties, click the Properties button and the Advanced tab. Click Settings under the Firewall heading and click Exceptions.

In the Exceptions list, select your email program by ticking the box beside or clicking the Add Program if it isn’t listed.

There are some settings in Norton Antivirus where you can make similar exceptions. In recent versions, this has been under the heading of Internet Worm Protection.  The location of these settings varies between programs.

I use Outlook for my e-mail as well as the Calendar which is linked to my smartphone which is using Mobile 6 software.

Does Mozilla support my calendar function or is there a way of linking these if I change?

Unfortunately Sunbird, the calendar function for Mozilla, is still under development and we’re reluctant to recommend beta software.

The next version of Thunderbird will include calendar support, but we wouldn’t be too optimistic about getting it to work with the Windows Mobile ActiveSync.

For the present we’d recommend sticking with Outlook.