IT Queries: Computer problems answered

Sometimes you’ll find an important Windows file has been damaged, for instance Internet Explorer will tell you a critical file won’t load.

Windows has built in tool called the System File Checker which will reload system files. SFC has been part of Windows since Windows 98.

To run it, disconnect from the Internet, turn off all programs including virus protection and security programs, insert your original system or Windows CD and then click Run and Start, then type SFC /Scannow. The System File Checker will take up to an hour to run.

At the end of the scan, remove your CD and reboot your computer.

Please advise if there is a FREE download to remove the Crap from my computer. I have tried two but they want a $30 US payment. pcdecrappifier and crapcleaner.com. Can you help?

There’s plenty of tools for removing rubbish from your PC. If you are looking at cleaning your computer up then two free tools are the excellent Cleanup! and the slightly more comprehensive, but more likely to mess up your system, CCleaner.

If you are talking about removing trialware from a new computer. Then we’d recommend going to “Add or Remove Program Files” in the Control Panel and uninstalling unwanted programs first. When you’re finished, download and run the PC Decrapifier.

For all three of these programs, we’d recommend backing up your critical data before running them.

Hi. I moved from Optus broadband to Iprimus broadband. Every time I want to send an email on a site I still get the Optus verson of Outlook Express which of course doesn’t work.

How can I get the screen to go to Iprimus email, please?

I have tried looking up the instructions on the web, but I never seem to have the right boxes needed to activate things.

I am a novice in all this and would really appreciate your (very simple) instructions.

Kind regards.
Sylvia.

Hi Sylvia,

There’s a couple points here. First, across the top of your Outlook Express screen you’ll see the Optus name and possibly their logo. Ignore these as they are only for decoration and don’t affect your email.

To receive your email, you’ll need to change your mail server settings. A mail server is a like a post box. Your email gets delivered to that post box and Outlook Express collects the mail from there.

Currently Outlook Express is going to the old Optus mail box. You have to tell it where the new iPrimus mail box is.

This is something you’ll need to ask the ISP. From Primus’ website their settings are pop.iprimus.com.au for the incoming mail and smtp.iprimus.com.au for sending mail.

The Internet is a dangerous neighbourhood so your Internet Service Provider protects your mailbox with a lock and key, known as a username and password. You’ll need those to get the contents of your mailbox.

Finally, you need your email address. This the address people need to send you email. Just like your street address, no-one can send you mail if they don’t know your address.

Once you have those four settings, you’ll need to enter them into your Outlook Express.

Open Outlook Express, click the Tools menu and click Accounts and then click the Mail tab.

Under mail, highlight the account that’s currently there, this is the old Optus account and press the Remove button. This gets rid of the old account.

Next, click the Add button, click Mail and the setup wizard for a new email account will start.

The first question will be your Display Name. This is the name at will appear on your emails, this is NOT your email address. Use the name people know you by.

Click Next and you will be asked for your email address, make sure you enter this correctly or people will send replies to the wrong address.

After you click Next again, you’ll be asked for the mail server accounts; the account type is POP, the incoming mail server is pop.iprimus.com.au and the outgoing is smtp.iprimus.com.au.

Once again click Next and you’ll be asked for your username and password. Make sure your username is correct, for Iprimus it’s the email address but for other providers it might just be the part before the @ symbol.

Then click Finish.

That’s it, done! If you’ve made a mistake you’ll get an error message. We’ll look at what Outlook Express error messages mean in another ITQueries post.

Recently I have heard a lot about running software to repair the hundreds of faults that you have on your computer that occur in your registry, I`m new to all this computer stuff so just wandering where do I get the software to repair my registry or do I really need to repair it at all?

The registry is the core of Windows operating systems. It’s where all the system settings are kept. If the registry gets damaged, then your system is in trouble.

A lot of registry cleaner programs are snake oil. We’d strongly recommend saving your money.

It’s best for none technical users to avoid doing anything with the registry. This engine of your computer and it’s best to leave it alone unless you know what you are doing.

If you insist on cleaning the registry, CleanReg is a good free program and Microsoft have a registry repair tool called RegClean. Neither these are tested with Microsoft Vista and we’d strongly suggest not using them on Vista systems.

On the subject of snake oil, if you are getting boxes popping up on your system claiming you have registry errors, then it is possible you have a spyware infection. If this is the case, run a scan and contact your local computer tech.

Overall we recommend leaving the registry to qualified computer techs.

I have some emails that I saved and now want to read but when I click on them the wrong program opens and all I see is gobbledygook. How do I get my email program to open them?

What’s happened is your computer is associating the wrong program with the files. When Windows tries to open a file, it looks for three letters at the end of the file which are known the file extension.

Windows keeps a list of programs that open with each file extension. For instance, Microsoft Word documents open with doc while Notepad opens files with the txt extension.

For Outlook, the message are saved with an .msg extension, Outlook Express uses .eml

On your computer, the wrong program is associated with one of those file extensions. To change it do the following.

Right-click on one of the files that won’t open, a menu will appear and select “Open With“. Select “choose program” then find the program you want to use for this type of file, tick the box that says “always use this program to open files of this kind of file” and click “Okay”.

If the program isn’t listed, you’ll have to click “browse” and search the hard drive for the program you want. Most programs are kept in the c:\Program Files folder.

Losing file associations is a nuisance and this is why it’s important to read all messages and notes when installing new software or making changes to your computer.

My outlook express will not open hypertext links.I have to copy and paste the links  to the address bar to view the linked page.

First you need to check that this is just Outlook Express, you might want to check that links work from other programs. If it is all other programs then it could be an errant firewall, security or pop-up blocking program at work.

If it is only affecting Outlook Express then it sounds like a problem with Internet Explorer. IE controls many of the functions in Outlook Express so the first possible fix is to open the Internet Explorer options, click “Advanced” and click the “Restore Defaults” button.

If that doesn’t work, then we’d recommend reinstalling your web browser. Click Start, Run and type “sfc /scannow“. You may be asked for a Windows disk.

Generally we recommend using an alternative to Internet Explorer for general web surfing. Our favorites are Firefox and Opera.

As a matter of course we’d also recommend checking for spyware and viruses. If the problem continues you should call your local computer guy to have a look at it.

A newsletter I subscribe to had an item regarding Broadband speeds. It recommended readers check their download speeds by going to “speedtest.net“

When on that site a link was shown to products which offered access to free applications that would clean your computer and make your computer run faster. Do you know of these applications and are they safe? The applications are listed on the right hand side of the Speedtest screen

Anthony

Hi Tony,

I had a look at that site too. It’s a terrific little setup.

That said, I wouldn’t trust any broadband accelerator with a bargepole. You can slightly improve the speed of your Internet connection with various tweaks and but the risks of messing something up are high. A lot of the paid for accelerators are snake oil and many of the free ones are spyware supported.

We’d recommend you give them a miss.