IT Queries: Computer problems answered

Dell Windows XP Home PC. I get sound on some sites and not others. I have real player. Why would this happen & what can I do?

It sounds like you need Flash player. Many sites, like YouTube, use Flash to play the media files. You can download Flash from the Adobe website.

Should problems continue then you may have to repair Internet Explorer. You can do this as we describe in on one of our other pages.

If you have a problem with Internet Explorer, you don’t need to uninstall and reinstall the entire program.

Open the Control Panel and click Add/Remove Programs, or Programs in Windows Vista, and select Internet Explorer.

To right of the selection there are two buttons; change and remove. Click the Change button and follow the wizard to repair the existing installation.

How do I get rid of Windows XP asking me to log on when it starts up?

To do this, click Start, Run and type Control Userpasswords2 then click okay. The User Accounts box will appear.

Highlight the user you want to automatically log on as then take the tick off users must enter a user name and password to use this computer box.

Click Okay and the log in will go away.

I am running my new Toshiba Satellite A210 laptop on the same dial-up phone line as my old Compaq PC with windows xp. My PC now seems to have same start window as the laptop with vista, all old icons have gone and the PC needs much prompting to start. What have I done with windows XP?

The problem sounds like your user profile has been damaged. Given your system is having trouble starting our first thought is the hard drive is failing.

You need to get this computer to a technician as soon as possible to check the drive and recover any data.

I am facing a problem at the time of start up of my Laptop. Ut is showing messages like “windows cannot find Winsafe in a particular location, type the name correctly & search it again”

Can you please tell me the solution, so that this message should not come afterwards .

The problem is due to Windows looking for a program that no longer exists. To stop the message appearing, run the MSConfig utility, go through the start up list and take the tick off Winsafe.

When you reboot the message will be gone.

Many thanks for your help.   One more question though, to connect my BT Broadband through a wireless connection, do I have to use the recommended BT Adaptor connector.

If it’s the BT Wireless Hub, then any wireless adapter, including those built into most laptops, can do it.

On the hub, you’ll find the wireless encryption key and it’s just a matter of entering that when asked to by your computer or setup program.

Full instructions on using the BT product can be downloaded from their website.

We are starting up a small business and are looking at purchasing a high end computer (and associated hardware and software) to edit and archive the company’s digital media resources: photographs, illustrations, videos etc.

We have a budget of $5000.

The $5,000 budget should pay for a good computer. Our sister site PC Rescue has details of what typical users should buy for home and small office use.

Given your requirements are somewhat higher than the typical user, you’ll want something more advanced. We’d suggest the following.

Hard drive: Given you’re dealing with graphics, you really want to have a bigger and faster hard drive. We’d suggest a 750Gb or higher 3.0Gb per second SATA drive.

Memory: With these applications, the more memory you can throw at it the better. Go for at least 4Gb.

Processor: You’ll need to consider a quad-core processor. Be a bit careful here as specifying something too high can blow your budget out. A 2.4GHz Intel Q6600 should be fine.

Video: Get at least a 512Mb video card with DVI out.

Sound card: For many applications built in sound cards are fine. If high quality sound is important then add something like a SoundBlaster Xtreme.

Warranty: Whatever you get, make sure you add a three years manufacturers warranty.

With a 22″ monitor you should easily squeeze in below $3,000 which should allow for a good quality A3 printer, backup hardware and Internet router.

Good luck with the new business.

I took my laptop and external hard drive to my local computer shop. I wanted them to transfer iTunes and My Photos onto the external hard drive to free up some space on my laptop’s hard drive. I also wanted the computer people to do a minor clean up so my laptop would run better.
The computer people erased both my laptop and my external hard drive. They did not back up my system as “there was no point as we were only working on the external hard drive”. They managed to find about half of my files but I had to rename them all and put them back into some type of order.
I am a school teacher and they erased years of my personal and professional life. They deleted student marks, uni work, past and current school programs etc. I am so angry and upset! They didn’t end up charging me but I’m still so frustrated with the company at fault.
Is there anything I can do:
1) To retrieve my lost information?
2) Is the company legally at fault?
Thank you for your time,
Frustrated & Angry

We’re not in a position to give legal advice so we really don’t know the answer for the second question. You need to talk to a lawyer or contact your local consumer advice service for some guidance 0n this.

To answer the first question, we like the Restoration utility.

Keep in mind with lost data is that every time you use the drive, the less likely it is that you’ll find the lost data.

So stop using the computer NOW!

The best way to recover data is to take the drive out of the computer and put it into another machine, then run the utilities and save recovered files to your external drive. You can also do it by booting from a boot disk and running some recovery utilities.

Generally it’s best to consult a professional. Recovering deleted data is a delicate operation which is best done by experienced technicians.

There are good businesses that specialize in data recovery but, quite rightly, their services are expensive and they don’t guarantee success. It may be possible to get the offending shop to pay at least part of the recovery costs.

Sadly, it may be that data is totally lost. That’s why we recommend backing up as much as possible.

I have the new version of Microsoft Office and people are telling me I can’t read what I send them.

Office 2007 has a range of new formats; Word 2007 saves documents in the docx format which is incompatible with the older doc formats.

The best solution when you are sharing files is to save files to the lowest level everyone can read. In Office 2007 you can set the file format by clicking the Office button (the big round button in the top left corner, click the Word Options button, click the Save tab.

Under Save Documents, click the drop-down arrow in the Save Files In This Format box and select Word 97-2003 Document (*.doc) the click OK.

Repeat this for Microsoft Excel.

One downside with this feature is that you will lose some Office 2007 features by saving to the 97-2003 format.

Office 2007 is going to become more common as will this problem. So we’d strongly recommend your friends and colleagues install the Office Compatibility Pack so they won’t get this problem in future.

I have run an antispyware and it has picked up: Trojan-Clicker hkey-current-user\\software\

\microsoft\\windows\\current version\\internet settings\\zonemap\\domains\\analcord.com
\\gooozle.bz/www
\\preferit-windows
Avast doesn’t pick these up.  What do you think

You almost certainly do have some sort of spyware infection and the spyware has changed settings in the Internet Explorer trusted sites zones. This allows the sites listed to get better access to your system.

This is one reason we suggest running Firefox, Opera or Safari in preference to Internet Explorer.

You’ll need to give your computer a good scan for spyware, encourage your office or household not to use IE and educate users on what websites they should avoid.