IT Queries: Computer problems answered

I have a laptop just over 2yrs old running Windows XP SP2 without virus problems.Your advise has been helpful and I have been running AVG 7.5 anti-virus and Windows Defender.I have had no troubles with viruses until recently.On the 25th of January 2008 three “Exploit” viruses were found and quarantined and two more were found on the 29th,using the morning “complete scan”.

It brings into question the effectiveness of this version of AVG.

What’s happened is AVG has found an attempted Internet Explorer malware attack in your Firefox or Opera file cache. The anti virus didn’t report it because the script didn’t attempt to run.

The writers of AVG, Grisoft, have made a choice not to scan these Javascript applets because it would slow down the computer and web browsing. If you are concerned about these, then you can add .js programs to the Resident Shield in the paid version, or just tell AVG to scan all files in the free version.

Be warned though, this will slow your computer dramatically.

In our view, it’s better to setup users with Limited User profiles which prevents these things from being able to get on your computer.

The fact these exploits didn’t run on your system is a good sign that you are practicing safe computing. I’d be more reassured than worried.

help, I’ve been told that my password has been stolen. How do I protect it in future.

There’s all manner of ways your password can be compromised.

Popular ones are using a password that relatives and colleagues know, such as your dog’s or kids names. Others ways are using easy passwords, the word password is apparently the most common password.

Our previous post looked at creating strong passwords and that’s the first defense you have against the bad guys.

There are more sinister ways you can lose it, one of the reasons for phishing sites is to harvest passwords. A fake message for a bank or online retailer is to grab usernames and passwords. The bad guys assume you’ll use the same username and password for most of your sites.

There’s silly ways to lose your password as well. Leaving your password on a sticky note attached to your computer monitor is a classic.

One common problem is people giving out their usernames and passwords over their mobile phone while in a public place. You’ll be shocked how many people give out details like account numbers and passwords while sitting in airport lounges or on buses.

Sadly though, you can also lose it through no fault of your own. Some legitimate businesses are less careful than they should be with your details. Because of this, we recommend changing your password on a regular basis.

So the fundamentals to protecting your password are three three points;

Choose a good, secure password

Be careful about where and who you give it out to

Change them regularly

I’m worried about the passwords I’m using and wondering how I can make them harder to break

Passwords are serious worry. Most people have two or three passwords that they regularly use and if one of them gets revealed, then there can be a serious problem.

On top of this, many people use very simple passwords that are easy to guess, such as their dog’s name, this is a risk when dealing with family members, staff or colleagues.

A slightly more obscure, but still real, risks is many passwords are a simple combination of numbers or letters and these can be quickly broken by dictionary or “brute force” attacks, where someone sets a computer program to try every possible combination of numbers and letters.

While even the strongest password would eventually fall to a determined and well resourced hacker it is possible to create a strong password with the following tips;

One popular trick is to take a phrase and use the initials to create a password. For instance; “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” becomes tqbfjotld.

That password then can be toughened by making the letters q and l capitals so we now have tQbfjotLd.

To strengthen it a bit more, we’ll change the letter b to an 8 and t to a 7 so we now have tQ8fjo7Ld.

The important thing is to have a password you can remember. If you have to write this password down and stick to your computer monitor, then all your hard work is wasted.

We’ll discuss protecting your passwords in another post.

My son has a computer running Windows 2000 Professional. He created a user name and password to to prevent a minor from accessing the computer. On closing it down and rebooting it he was refused access to the computer. how can he bypass the password to get in?

There is no way of bypassing the login screen if it has been setup, luckily there’s a number of useful tools that allow you to reset passwords.

The best tool in my view is the free Offline NT Password & Registry Editor by Peter Nordahl.

Your son will need to download the tool on another computer and then either burn it to CD or extract it to a floppy disk.

Once he’s done that, the locked computer should be started with the floppy or CD. This will start a mini version of Linux that has allows you to reset the Administrator password.

Read the instructions carefully! and take your time with the tool.

You should also be aware that if there are encrypted files in the Administrator profile, they will be inaccessible after resetting the password. There are also some problems with more advanced functions on Windows servers.

Once the Admin password has been reset, remove the disk, restart the computer and login into Windows using the name Administrator with no password.

Once in Windows, go to the Control Panel, click Users and reset the passwords for all users to something secure.

With minors, it’s a good idea to setup each user with their own Limited User profile. We have instruction on doing this on the PC Rescue website.

This process requires a fairly high level of computer skill, so if you find it’s too complicated, it’s best to call a qualified technician.

Have updated to Norton 360 on main computer now can’t access this computer on my network places

Regards John

Hi John,

The problem is almost certainly firewall related. The Norton 360 is blocking access from other computers.

This is proper behaviour for a firewall, unless told otherwise the system will block anything that’s potentially a problem and other people trying to connect to the computer is certainly a problem.

To fix this, you’ll need to tell Norton 360 to trust your local network.

Open Norton 360, click Tasks and Settings then Advanced Settings and Firewall Protection Settings.

In the Firewall settings, click Network Location. In there your network will be listed under Limited Locations, highlight it and click the arrow to it the Trusted Locations box.

There are some other errors that can cause this with the network sharing in Vista and XP which can be fixed through changing file permissions and network locations in the Vista Network and Sharing Center.

Hi,

Can you please tell me to name of the programme that you can buy/download that is used to return digital dictation that you have accidently deleted from your computer.

Julie

Hi Julie,

Losing any file is a serious pain. The best free tool we’ve come across is Restoration.

When you’ve lost a file, the most important thing is to stop using that computer. The more you use the computer, the more likely you are to overwrite the deleted file.

We recommend you download the program to another computer, then copy the program to a USB drive or CD (Restoration will actually fit on a floppy disk which you can use if you have spare disks and both machines have floppy drives).

When you run it, choose the drive (usually c: drive) where the file was lost from, type part of the lost file’s name (leave blank if you don’t remember what it was called) and click Search Deleted Files.

The search might take some time, several hours if you’ve left the file name blank and it’s a big drive. Be patient and let it run.

Once its finished and the list of found files appears, highlight the file you want and click the Restore by copying button. You’ll be asked to save the file somewhere, make sure you choose a place and name you’ll remember.

Losing data is always a big worry and this is why we always recommend having a backup drive and good backup software.

 Hi I have always used sygate personal firewall rather than windows on all my computers with no probs, however I installed it on my dell inspiron laptop when mcafee expired and it doesnt want to allow my wireless network connection or my modem and therefore I cant access the net.

 

They both work perfectly once I remove it from the computer. This is with windows firewall turned off.

 

Any suggestions as it means I can only use the windows firewall which I am a bit dubious about.

Sygate Personal Firewall is a favourite program of ours and it was a sad day when it disappeared into the maw of Symantec. It was probably the most configurable and powerful of the consumer firewall products. However the nature of firewall is that if they go wrong, then the Internet and network stop.

The first thing you need to do is to uninstall McAfee. If you have already done this, we’d recommend you download and run the McAfee Removal Tool just to be on the safe side.

Once you’ve done this, restart the computer. If the problem hasn’t cleared uninstall, reboot and reinstall Sygate.

The clue to diagnosing Sygate problems is the icon in the task bar. If the icon is showing the “blocked” symbol then it is blocking all network traffic. Right-click on the icon and select “Normal”.

If the problem still continues, then right-click  the Sygate icon again and choose “options”. Check that the Sygate Personal Firewall service is ticked to automatically load, in the Security section click the button that reads “reset all fingerprints for all applications”. This will drive you mad with prompts but it may be blocked programs that are stopping you from getting on to the net.

The final option to tick allow all the Network Neighborhood settings on all the adapters. You’ll find this in the Network Neighborhood tab. We don’t recommend this as a long term solution if you are connecting directly to the Internet.

An excellent resource for Sygate Personal Firewall is at the Sygate Basics site. This covers all the settings in the Pro version.

Firewalls can be funny beasts and you sometimes find they just won’t play properly regardless of what you do. If you find problems continue then you might want to consider another firewall. PC Tools has a free firewall which may work better.