IT Queries: Computer problems answered

Every time I try to access Hotmail or Windows Update I get the message “An error has occurred in the script on this page.”

Internet Explorer is damaged. First, check your system for spyware as malware infections are a common cause for the problem.

Once you’re happy the computer is clean restart your computer. Once it is fully running click the start button, click run and type the following command;

regsvr32 msxml3.dll

Click okay and you should get a message saying registration completed.

Then click Start and Run and type the following;

regsvr32 urlmon.dll

Restart your computer and the problem should be clear.

I am running Vista Business on an LG Laptop. On booting I am presented with the logon screen which shows 2 pictures (the same) for each user. How do I get rid of the duplicates?

Log in as one of the users. Once the computer has started click on the start button, open the Search box and type “user”. Click on User Accounts when it appears in the list.

Once in the User Accounts screen click on the Change your picture link.

A list will appear of the built in pictures, click on the picture you want to use from those displayed. If you want a different picture, click on the Browse for more pictures link and find the picture you want to use.

Click the Change Picture button and the new picture will be associated with that profile.

I have a SCSI drive that wont boot to xp pro. Just keeps rebooting. Tried repair from install disc I get x00000024 STOP error. I have xp on other disc plug drive in and it will find it if I go to device manager but then chashes the system and reboots. So can\’t get to it as slave.
Have tried seatools no go, others too.

The  stop error indicates a problem with the hard disk drive, usually it means a damaged ntfs.sys file but can mean a corrupted file system.

Given you can’t access this drive as a slave, it almost certainly appears to be the latter.

The drive needs to be tested for physical errors and if it isn’t damaged then a reformat and reinstall. Of course you’ll need to get any data off the computer.

The best way to do this is to start your computer from a boot disk, either a Windows 2000, XP or Vista disk or a specialist disk like Bart PE or Knoppix. You will be asked to install the SCSI drivers. From there you should be able to access the drive and recover the information.

If you can’t, try using a different SCSI card to see if that resolves the problem. If not, then you will have to contact a professional data recovery company.

I’ve been waiting for the Windows Vista service pack to be released before buying a computer. Now that it’s out, should I start looking?

At this stage, no.

The release is only to the manufacturers like Dell and Hewlett Packard so it will take a few weeks, or days in Dell’s case, for these to appear on the market. For the next few months, a lot of computers will still be sold with the original Vista.

The other point to keep in mind is that we don’t know if the service pack will change things much for users. What we do know is some software and drivers that do work in the original Vista are broken by the changes in the service pack.

Our advice at the time of writing on February 5, 2008 is to wait a few weeks so we can get up to speed on what changes and improvements Vista SP1 delivers.

 I have a friend that update Norton 360 and now cannot access his wireless network. He can from a wired LAN NIC. I turned off the Norton 360 firewall and the Windows firewall and it could still not access the wireless network.

Has anyone seen this?

It sounds like the incorrect software’s being used for accessing the wireless network. Some wireless adapters require you use their software rather than the built in Windows wireless configuration tool.

To switch to the other software, open the Network Connections, click on the wireless connection’s properties and in the Wireless Networks tab take the tick off “Use Windows to configure my wireless network settings”.

After rebooting you should find the wireless software has changed to the manufacturers. It may be necessary to download and upgrade the latest software for that model adapter.

How do I uninstall a program in Windows?

Uninstalling software should be easy. Open the Control Panel by clicking Start, settings and Control Panel.

In the Windows 95, 98, ME and XP Control Panel, click Add/Remove Programs or in Vista choose Programs and Uninstall a Program.

In this screen you will get a list of programs that are installed on your machine. Click the one you want to remove and the uninstall process should start. You may have to answer some questions during the process.

That said, it isn’t always that easy. If the program is damaged, then it may not uninstall. Some programs are simply badly designed and won’t obey the rules.

Sometimes the program will have it’s own uninstall routine which you can access by clicking Start, Programs and then selecting the program group and looking for a item that reads uninstall program name.

There’s a few programs that are so complex they have specialist uninstall programs. Norton products are a good example and they provide the Norton Removal Tool. Some of the more “legitimate” spyware applications also have these removal tools.

If those isn’t available, then you’ll need to uninstall the program manually. This involves deleting the program folder and then running a registry cleaning tool. This is something we don’t recommend to inexperienced users and we’d urge you to call a computer tech to do this for you.

Every time I boot up my PC there is a dialogue box saying “Preparing to install ScanOmnisoft” and I cannot ‘cancel’ it away I have to Ctrl/Alt/Del to get rid of it. How do I fix?

Omnisoft is a program that was installed as part of the setup for many scanners. What’s happened in this case is the installation has failed or become corrupted.

The first, and easiest step, is to attempt to uninstall the program through the Control Panel’s Add/Remove programs function.

It’s likely that will fail as the installation is probably damaged so the next step is to reinstall the software. You’ll need to run the installation package from the disk that came with the scanner. Keep in mind it may be an older scanner and not your current one.

If you can’t find the disks, then you can repair the Add/Remove function with the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility which is a free download from Microsoft.

If all of that fails, you can kill the install through editing the Windows registry. But this is a complex task that really shouldn’t be carried out by inexperienced users and you should call a tech unless you know what you are doing.

I have just downloaded Norton Internet Security 2008 Upgrade on my Windows XP and now the following message keeps popping up on screen:
Windows – No Disk
exception processing message c0000013 parameters 75b6bf9c 4 75b6bf9c 75b6bf9c\”

Underneath this message there are three options:
cancel
try again
continue
However none of these options work and the only way to get rid of the message is to keep clicking on the X box at the top of the message.
I would appreciate your advice please.

We’ve covered some no disk errors previously and you may want to try those solutions, particularly the MS Config part.

A quick solution is to take the system back to a restore point shortly before you installed the Norton update and then re-installing the update.

A number of people have found this error is actually a Quicktime problem and updating Quicktime removes the error. If you are installing QT, uninstall the old versions listed in the Add/Remove programs Control Panel.

If you still have the problem, you’ll need to do some detective work in the Event Viewer. This will give you more clues as to where the problem lies.

As you can see there’s a lot of potential things that can cause these problems. If you are still stuck, you may need to call a tech.

I think my hard drive is full, how do I check it?

To check how full your hard drive is, open My Computer and you’ll see a list of all your computer drives. Right-click the drive you want to check and go down the menu to properties.

Click Properties and you’ll get a graphical view of how full your drive is. Generally we like to have at least 20% or 5Gb free.

If it is full, it’s worthwhile running some cleanup tools on the computer. We’ve covered that in a previous post.

You may need a larger hard drive or to make some system changes to stop this happening again, if so call a computer tech to help you.

I cannot hear anything on my computer when looking at websites( youtube etc) I can hear things when using media player or itunes but nothing else. When I go to control panel and click on sounds and audio devices it says no audio device. It use to work normally but all of a sudden stopped. any ideas please??

We’ve covered missing sound devices in a previous post.

In your case, the situation’s slightly different. The sound device is obviously working but Windows isn’t recognising it as being the default setting.

To change this open the Control Panel by going into Start, Settings, Control Panel and clicking on Sound and Audio Devices.

In the Sound and Audio Devices properties click the Voice tab. In this tab you will the default devices, click the drop down box and change the device then click okay. If you have a number of devices you may have to experiment to find the correct one.