IT Queries: Computer problems answered

Safe mode is Windows with the bare minimum features. It is used for troubleshooting or to prevent viruses or troublesome programs starting with the computer.

In safe Mode you can’t access the Internet, hear any sound and the colours look dreadful.

To get into Windows safe mode you hold down the F8 starts. Timing is important and it can take a few attempts to get it right.

If you hold the key down too early you may get a key stuck error from the BIOS. Hold the key down too late then Windows will start normally.

In Windows XP and Vista you will get a menu. Normally you should select “Start Computer in Safe Mode”.

Once in Safe Mode you can navigate, remove files and uninstall programs. Scanning for viruses, running scandisk or defragmenting are common reasons for starting in Safe Mode as they won’t be distracted by other programs or locked files.

Running safe mode is not something you should do every day, but it is a useful tool when faced with a troublesome computer. Because it starts only the functions that Windows needs, it isn’t suitable for day-to-day use as you can’t use printers, CD’s or the Internet.

If your computer regularly starts in Safe Mode then you should back up your data and call a technician.

Hi,
I am running the latest version of Mozilla Firefox(it’s great). But after the latest update the toolbar link to Thunderbird (Email) has vanished.
Any thoughts about why and can it be reinstated?

It sounds like a recent upgrade has lost your email toolbar.

One of the features with Mozilla is the sheer number of add ins available for it. The add in you need is the Thunderbird Biff addin. There’s a lot of other addins you can install to make Firefox easier to use. We’d encourage exploring the packages available.

“In my computer when I double click on any of the drives I am getting the “open with” option to “choose the program you want to use to open this file:” & when I right click on the Drives I am getting “Auto” as  first option instead of  “open” what should I do?”

It sound like the drives has some files that Windows wants to run when it first looks at the drive.

The quickest way to fix this is to move as many files as possible into folders. This way Windows won’t assume you want that drive to run programs or videos. It’s good computer practice to keep what we call the root directory free of junk for this reason.

One of the most common culprits for this is an autorun.inf sitting in your root directory. Make sure you move any files that finish in .inf into another folder.

If your “c” drive that’s doing this then be very careful about moving files out of the root directory. It might be best to get a tech who knows which files are important to the Windows system.

“I am having trouble synchronising ipod shuffle with windows XP error message of ‘Cannot find required disk’ are you able to help”

What’s happening is iTunes cannot find the correct disk.

Windows handles disk names by giving each drive a letter. When you plug in an iPod or anything else that has some sort of storage in it, Windows will allocate a letter for that device.

What we usually find with this problem is that you have some removable and network drives connected and Windows has messed up the drive letters so the iPod is now a different letter to what iTunes is looking for.

The simplest solution is to unplug all the external drives, scanner, cameras, printers and anything else that might have been connected since the iPod last worked.

If that doesn’t work, Apple have instructions on fixing this at their website. We’d suggest giving the drive a letter further down the alphabet so it doesn’t get mixed up, “P” for “Pod” might not be a bad one.

Because computers can go wrong, Windows has the System Restore facility. This makes a backup of all your system settings and allows you to go back to a previous setup to fix a problem.

It is important to remember that this doesn’t backup your data files, it also won’t wipe them if you go back to an earlier point.

Before running System restore close all programs, disable your virus protection and disconnect from the Internet.

To open the program, click Start, Programs, Accessories ,System Tools and System Restore.

The System Restore wizard will start and ask if you want to restore to an earlier time or create a new restore point. Creating a new restore point is recommended if you are going to install some software or make changes to your system.

To go back, choose the “restore to an earlier time” button and click Next.

A calendar will appear in the next screen. The dates in bold are when restore points were created. You can click next to the month to move between different months.

Select a date before you noticed the problem first appearing, on the right hand side it will list the restore points made on that day and a description on why the computer made that point. Choose whichever point seems right and click Next.

You will then be asked to confirm the restore point. Click Next.

The computer will take some time to go through the restore process, an hour is not unknown. You must not do anything to the computer while it is running. Eventually it will ask to restart which you should do.

On restarting, it will give you a summary of what happened. Unfortunately, it’s not unknown for the restore process to fail. If that happens, then go through the process again and choose another point.

System restore is very much prone to failing, particularly if you have a spyware or virus infection. If this happens, you may need to contact your local computer tech.

Over the last couple of months, my outlook has become very slow — so slow that when I go to type a reply – I have to wait for the letters that I type to appear on the screen.
I have XP Pro SP2 and have even gone to the trouble of doing a clean install of all my disk. I have Norton up to date and running as well as using Window Defender and Spybot with no viruses etc found.
I don’t seem to have the same problem at different times of the day or even on weekends.
Any clues??

The quickest way of finding what is tying up your system is to press the Ctrl, Alt and Delete keys at the same time to bring up the Windows Task Manager.

In the Task Manager box, there is tab marked as Processes. The two right hand columns on that list show what is using the memory and the CPU processes.

Once you’ve identified what processes are hogging the system, you can then search the net for those processes to find if they are legitimate and what the problem might be.

One problem we have encountered is the Windows Update service which we have covered previously. It might be worthwhile checking this is not affecting you.

I have a 802.11g network with my two grandchildren. (Windows XP Home) I keep getting the message System Error. “There is an IP address conflict with another system on the network”. This doesn’t appear to cause any problems, but please can you tell me how I can find out what the conflict is and how to correct it.

What’s happening is two computers have the same Internet Protocol (IP) address on your network. This can cause problems, but if you’re just surfing the net with these machines then you won’t notice them.

As part of your network you will have a router. Its the router’s job to give out addresses and for some reason one of the computers is holding onto it’s address and confusing the router.

The simplest way is to open the Control Panel on each computer and go to Network Connections. You will find all the different network connections listed, right click on the wireless connection and choose Repair. This will force the computer to get a new address from the router.

It is also possible one of the computers isn’t set up to get it’s address from the network. We’ll look at resolving that in another query.

When I try to open outlook express a box comes up which reads outlook express could not be started because MOSE.DLL could not be initialized

Are you sure the file is MOSE.DLL or MSOE.DLL?  We’ll work on the assumption it could be either.

The first step is to re-register these dll files.

Click Start, then Run and type regsvr32 msoe.dll.  Then click okay and a confirmation box should appear. Repeat this process for mose.dll.

Reboot your computer.

You might find the Outlook Express files are damaged. If this is the case, refer to our fixing Windows installation files tip.

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.