IT Queries: Computer problems answered

This 89 yr old must be a slow learner. My Vista home prem has picked up “about:blank”.  Please point me to a  s i m p l e  way to delete. 

The about:blank page is the opening page for Internet Explorer when there’s no start page set.

Usually this is easily fixed by opening Internet Explorer, clicking Tools, Internet Options and select the General tab.

Once you are in the General settings, you can type the page you’d like to start with in home page box or click the Use Default button.

If Internet explorer keeps going back to the about:blank page then you probably have a spyware infection and you should follow our Removing a Trojan instructions.

We have MS Windows XP Pro Version 2002 Service Pack 2, 80gb Hard Drive, 512mg Memory. We keep getting the MS pop-up `Virtual Memory low`. What does this mean and what can we do about it? Please help.

Hi, we’ve previously covered the problem. It’s best when you set the maximum memory to put it at the maximum 4000Mb.

I have been receiving unsolicited large (240Mb)downloads, and only found out about them by looking at my bigpond usage monitor. I would like to find out where they come from, but BigPond cannot or will not identify the source. I run XP ver 2, two year old computer, have a Bigpond wireless USB (blue) modem, do not have a LAN, and I am the only one who uses the computer. Is there a utility which will identify the source of the downloads?

There are utilities that will do that for you, but the information you get is difficult to understand unless you really understand the Internet (which is why Bigpond support can’t help you).

It’s probably easier to kill off whatever is downloading the excess data. In your case it’s probably Windows or another program automatically trying to update itself and there’s a number of things you can do to turn these programs off.

I’ll cover the specifics of turning off the automatic downloads in Windows Update, Real Player and Apple QuickTime and iTunes in the next posts, in the meantime you may want to check you don’t have any spyware on your computer just to be safe.

I have a fairly new HP Pavillion with Vista Home Premium – It regularly ( once a day at least ) “crash dumps” I have not added any hardware since purchace except more memory- now 3gig – what could be causing this?

It sounds like something is wrong with the memory. 

The first thing to do is take the memory out and see if the crash dumps go away. If they don’t then some more troubleshooting is in order.

If the crashing does go away, try reinstalling the memory. Some motherboards are little fiddly with the memory slots and it’s not unusual to find one or more of the memory modules aren’t quite fitted correctly which will cause this random crashing.

It is also possible the memory needs to be installed in a certain order. You’ll need to check in the manual that the modules are in the right slots.

Finally, if the problems reappear when the memory is installed correctly then the RAM modules are either incompatible with the system or defective and they should be returned to the supplier.

I have bought a new computer – Dell inspiron with Vista home basic already installed. I could not get the email up and running (my fault), so i put microsoft office 2003 as i knew how to set up this email. now i am learning how to use Vista i do no need 2003 office. HOWEVER i cannot find 2007 email program.

I do not want to uninstall outlook 2003 until i find outlook 2007. Cannot uninstall individual programs in office either, so i asuming I can’t re-install just 2007 outlook.

The program you are looking for is Windows Mail, this is Vista’s successor to Outlook Express, the email program that was part of earlier versions of Windows. You’ll find this by clicking the Start Button and selecting All Programs.

A more important question is exactly what are you looking for. Windows Mail is a very different program to Outlook 2003 or 2007.

If you want to run Outlook with its calendar and scheduling features then you’ll need to install Office 2003 or 2007. Likewise if you want to use other Microsoft Office tools like Word and Excel.

After downloading mozila firefox, how do I disable Internet Explorer as my web browser and make FireFox the default, I have Windows Vista Home Premium installed on my laptop, thanks.Normally Firefox will ask you if it should be the default browser the first time you open it. If it doesn’t, you’ll have to change the settings in the Default Programs settings.To get to this setting, click the Start Button and then Control Panel. In the Control Panel screen, click the Programs heading and select Default Programs.The the Default Programs box will show the available programs on the left of the box, double click Firefox and select Set this program as default on the right. Click okay and Firefox is now your web browser for all applications. 

I’m running Vista – and using Windows Mail.  There is one email which for some reason cannot come through and it is stopping my other emails from coming.

How can I fix this problem?

The first thing is to download and install Windows Vista Service Pack 1. This will fix a bug with Windows Mail that caused this problem.

If the problem continues you can clean Windows Mail up with the WMUtil tool.

Once you’ve installed it, choose “Clear Outbox” and, once that has finished “Repair Database”.

Restart mail and the problem should be fixed.

When I open an email in Outlook, I find there’s a big red cross where images should be. How do I show the images?

Warning: This solution involves editing the Windows registry. Doing this incorrectly can damage your system. If you are not an experienced computer user, call for a computer technician.

First backup your important data and then restart your computer. Do not open Outlook.

Once your computer is running, open the registry editor by clicking Start, Run (or Find in Vista) and type regedit and click okay.

Go down the list on the left hand side of the Registry Editor screen to HKEY_CURRENT_USER click the plus on the left of the key to expand it and click the plus next to Software.

Continue down the tree by clicking the plus next to Microsoft then Office then 11.0, Outlook, Security and finally highlight OutlookSecureTempFolder.

On the right hand side of the screen you will see  %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\OLK3D\ . Note the %USERPROFILE% may be the user’s name instead.

Highlight and delete %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\OLK3D\

Close the Registry Editor, reboot your computer and Outlook 2003 should work fine.

My staff and kids are spending too much time on facebook and myspace. How can I block these sites without buying some expensive security software?

The quickest and easiest way is to edit the hosts file. This file is loaded when you start the computer and is used to direct Internet requests. You can direct requests for certain domains not to go beyond your computer.

In Windows, the hosts file lurks in c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts. Open this file using Notepad and add the lines 127.0.0.1 facebook.com and 127.0.0.1 myspace.com.

On the Apple Mac the hosts file is in /private/etc/hosts.

Keep in mind this will block all access to those domains, so if you block a certain domain  you won’t be able to receive anything from that address.

Also remember this method, like all methods of blocking Internet access, is not foolproof. Determined little fingers will find ways to get around this block so it’s no substitute for proper supervision.

I stupidly opened an e-card sent to my box.When I opened it the script was in an unrecognisable format.I deleted it.Since then I have a box which continually comes onto the screen saying: Windows-no disk. I have done a virus scan and there were nil virus found. Can you help me solve this problem?

It sounds like the card probably wasn’t malicious, it was just in a format your computer couldn’t read.

The first step would be to clean up your computer as we describe in a previous post.

If that doesn’t clear it, then run a registry cleaner to flush any nonsense out of the system. Before running these programs make sure you’ve backed up your system.