IT Queries: Computer problems answered

I have been trying to install Sygate Personal Firewall, as per your excellent “internet protection kit” but am being told that it is incompatible with my Vista SP1.  Should I be comfortable using the “Before you Download” tab which directs me to “Uniblue Registry Booster”?  Is this a safe site?

Many thanks

We don’t know much about Avira, but it seems to be a fine anti-virus. If it seems to be working, and your ISP will support it, then it’s probably worth sticking with.

As far as firewalls go, Sygate is unfortunately no longer being supported, which means there won’t be a version that works with Vista.

Some free alternatives to Sygate are Comodo Internet Security and PC Tools Firewall Plus. Both of these products are basic, but working versions. If you want assistance with them though you’ll need to buy the professional editions.

When updating my AVG I keep getting the message “Invalid update control CTF file”. I’ve followed your advice on waiting for the AVG Update server to be less busy, but without any luck. What’s going wrong?

The problem is a corrupt update file in AVG. That file is blocking the incoming updates. 

You’ll have to delete the .ctf files before the update will work. Grisoft have the procedure for doing this on their website. Keep in mind you may have to view hidden files to find and delete the corrupt entries.

Our thanks to John G who alerted us to this problem and his link to Sanjay Goel’s blog.

My son attempted to uninstall limewire, my computer is now misty and wiil not switch off and simply refuses to do anything, help.

You’ll need to go back to a system restore point as we describe in previous question. 

However to do that you’ll have to turn off and restart the computer. The easiest way to do this is to hold the on/off button in for ten seconds and it will turn off.

Once the system’s running again follow the instructions on how to reset to a previous point.

It may be this is not Limewire’s or your son’s fault. It could be a different hardware problem as screens “going misty” usually indicates something like a video card problem.

See how it goes and post another query if the system restore doesn’t work

On my PC I have a DR Watson program instaled. Is this one of Microsoft programmes??. Just got concerned when I saw it.

Dr Watson (Drwtsn32.exe)  is Microsoft’s built in error detecting tool. It has been around in almost every version of Windows and it attempts to analyse problems with your computer. Microsoft have a description of Dr Watson on their website. 

It’s a harmless program that unfortunately isn’t as useful as it could be, but it won’t hurt your system.

I mainly print black and white photos from my printer. No matter what I do, I cannot get pure B&W prints – the blacks are never dense black and there is a pale greenish tinge across all the grays. I get the same effect whether I print from the PC or direct from the printer. Selection of “Grayscale” at the printer Properties does not help.

My printer is an Epson Sylus Photo RX630.

My PC is a professionally supplied custom build using Gigabyte Technology motherboard S Series 945GMF-DS2 with Intel Core 2 Duo.

Hoping you can help – I would like to be able to make correct B&W prints

The problem is with your printer settings. Rather than using the black cartridge, the printer is mixing colours to create the “gray” tones.

This isn’t just irritating, it’s also a waste of ink.

To fix this, you’ll need to go into the advanced printer options where you should find an option to use the black only for grayscale. There should also be a setting to only print in black and white which will disable the colour cartridges.

Unfortunately the Epson website doesn’t explain how to do this, but a bit of exploration in the printer settings (click the Advanced buttons) should find it.

This sort of problem – poor software and bad documentation – is common with Epson printers which is a shame as the printers themselves are very good products. It’s worth considering this the next time you look at a printer purchase.

Can you explain the following.  If I use Google to  search on a subject such as “googlebomb”, I get search responses with sensible summaries, but the URLs dont make  sense, returning what appears to be spam and malicious sites.

I have AVG running,  tried Spybot and Malwarebytes and plan to try Adware.

Is what I’m seeing  through a result of Trojan’s?  BTW,  I have an unaffected computer which is returning  sensible results  on Google searches.

It certainly doesn’t sound good. It may be worth trying another browser on the system to see if the same happens.

If another browser doesn’t have the same problem, itt could be something in your current brower’s proxy settings.

You may want to check your anti virus and malware scanners are up to date. If you have a serious infection, the trojan could be interfering with the updates. So try downloading the update files for AVG, Spybot and Malwarebytes manually.

It’s worthwhile giving the computer a serious scan for malware and we’d suggest following our Removing a Trojan instructions.

I was sent some jpeg and text under each pic. What I received was all the pics in subject line and text randomly scattered in main body of the e-mail. I looked at all HTML setting but to no avail.
I have Vista, IE7 and Outlook 2007.
please help

The problem is your computer is not associating JPEG files properly. It’s trying to open them as a text file rather than as a picture.

File associations are a long standing problem, we’ve previously covered fixing this in Windows XP, but Vista is slightly different.

First click the Windows button, select Control Panel then Default Programs and Set Associations.

You’ll get a list of all the suffixes Windows recognises. Scroll down to JPEG, click the Change Program button in the top right hand corner and there will be a list of programs that your computer can use. We’d suggest using Photogallery or Paint.

Click Close and reboot your computer.

I’m working in an office and we’ve been having trouble sending attached documents via email. We have a Windows XP, Professional, version 2002, service pack 3. The computer itself is a Dell Dimension DXP061, Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU.

When we try to send a Word file from our office system to a computer outside the network via email, the document won’t open. A message comes up saying that the file is “corrupt.” This has happened twice, both times with a Microsoft Word document.

The documents were very similar in that they were roughly 16-20 pages long with a lot of hyperlinks and a lot of the text pasted on.

The strange thing was that the first time this happened, we resent the same document saved as a different file and were able to open it. Also, in between these two instances, we’ve sent numerous word documents and were able to open them. No word yet on the second time.

We resent it, cut and pasted onto a different file, but the person we sent it to has not gotten back to us yet. What do you think the problem is?

It sounds like the problem is your version of Microsoft Word. If you are using Office 2007, this is a common problem and we have the fix on a previous page.

Another thing to consider is the size and the nature of the pasted information. Word isn’t efficient at stripping out unnecessary code so something you might paste from another document may contain a pile of redundant formatting instructions which don’t apply to the new document.

If you are pasting into a Word document it’s often handy to paste into Notepad, which strips out the unnecessary formatting, and then cut and paste into Word.

The problem with that solution is you’ll lose any formatting and fancy features so it may not be suitable if you are pasting anything other than text.

Finally, the hyperlinks may not be helping. If you have a number of links that don’t work, this can cause problems for the recipient’s system.

The simplest solution to problems like this is to send the document in a .pdf format which not only preserves the layout but is more reliable and secure.

Both it appears Google searches are being hijacked whether  using Internet Explorer or Mozilla.  This  has started in the last 2 weeks. We have AVG   free  installed and  current. Can you  suggest some free downloads to fix the  problem? Tks

First, be careful you didn’t fall victim to the recent Google mistake. If Google’s your homepage any site you went to it from there may have been caught with the malware warning.

If it appears you have been hijacked, then we have a comprehensive run down on fixing these problems on our Removing a Trojan page. If you follow those instructions it should clear the problem.

My computer I have just set up. When working ok last night I switched it off then turned it back on this morning it kept repeating itself by logging in then switching itself back off again. The erorr comes up as PRI slave HDD erorr. What can I do to sort it out please?

Unfortunately it sounds like your hard drive has failed. The PRI slave HDD error means the computer can’t talk to the main hard drive.

It could be something as simple as a loose connection or it could be something as serious the drive failing. 

Either way, you’ll need to contact the supplier if the computer is still in warranty or call a computer technician.