IT Queries: Computer problems answered

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 have Microsoft Outlook

Will be grateful for any assistance

There’s three things it can be. The first is you have the same account set up twice. Open Outlook, click Tools, Options and Email accounts.

In the email accounts, click View or Change my existing email accounts. You’ll now have a list of the email accounts Outlook is checking. Remove any duplicates.

If there is only one account then the current Outlook setup is damaged. Delete the account, reboot the computer and then return to the Outlook email accounts and recreate the account.

Should that fail, it may be a firewall problem that isn’t allowing Outlook to confirm the messages have been received. Check your firewall has allowed Outlook full access to the Internet.

I am unable to access Task Manager from the task bar in XP Pro, it is “greyed out”

Can you help please?

It sounds like you are logging in as a Limited User or your profile has restrictions added to it. The first thing to try is holding down the Control, Alt and Delete keys together to see if the Task Manager starts. If it does there is a problem with the shortcut.

The next thing to check is User privileges. Open the Control Panel, click Users and check that your profile has Administrative rights. If it doesn’t, you need to logon as an Administrator to run MSConfig.

If you have account limitations on your machine, it may be this has been set as part of an office installation. This is one reason why we recommend avoiding second hand computers. To overcome this, you will have to remove the restrictions and it may be easier to reinstall Windows.

Fiddling with these settings can be risky. We recommend calling a technician to look at it if you are not computer savvy.

I am using Windows Vista home premium and always have difficulty opening any email attachments in Microsoft Word. They automatically default to Microsoft Works Word Processor. How do I change it so I can view them in Microsoft Word?

The problem is Works has been set as the default program for .doc files. You need to change the file association settings for the .doc files.

Probably the simplest way to do this is to remove MS Works, we’d recommend this unless you have a very good reason for running it. Works is not a very good program.

To do this click the Start button, click Control Panel and Programs, you can uninstall it from there.

If you don’t want to uninstall the programs, then you can change the association. To do this, go to the Control Panel and choose Default Programs. In this screen, select “Associate a file type or protocol with a program”.

In there, you will get a list of file extensions. Go down the list and choose the DOC extension and click “Change Program”.

You’ll get the Open With dialog, Word will be one of the listed programs, choose it and click “Okay”.

This will set Word to open all DOC attachment. You may have to do the same thing for Excel spreadsheets, just look for the XLS extension.

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.

help, I’ve been told that my password has been stolen. How do I protect it in future.

There’s all manner of ways your password can be compromised.

Popular ones are using a password that relatives and colleagues know, such as your dog’s or kids names. Others ways are using easy passwords, the word password is apparently the most common password.

Our previous post looked at creating strong passwords and that’s the first defense you have against the bad guys.

There are more sinister ways you can lose it, one of the reasons for phishing sites is to harvest passwords. A fake message for a bank or online retailer is to grab usernames and passwords. The bad guys assume you’ll use the same username and password for most of your sites.

There’s silly ways to lose your password as well. Leaving your password on a sticky note attached to your computer monitor is a classic.

One common problem is people giving out their usernames and passwords over their mobile phone while in a public place. You’ll be shocked how many people give out details like account numbers and passwords while sitting in airport lounges or on buses.

Sadly though, you can also lose it through no fault of your own. Some legitimate businesses are less careful than they should be with your details. Because of this, we recommend changing your password on a regular basis.

So the fundamentals to protecting your password are three three points;

Choose a good, secure password

Be careful about where and who you give it out to

Change them regularly

I’m worried about the passwords I’m using and wondering how I can make them harder to break

Passwords are serious worry. Most people have two or three passwords that they regularly use and if one of them gets revealed, then there can be a serious problem.

On top of this, many people use very simple passwords that are easy to guess, such as their dog’s name, this is a risk when dealing with family members, staff or colleagues.

A slightly more obscure, but still real, risks is many passwords are a simple combination of numbers or letters and these can be quickly broken by dictionary or “brute force” attacks, where someone sets a computer program to try every possible combination of numbers and letters.

While even the strongest password would eventually fall to a determined and well resourced hacker it is possible to create a strong password with the following tips;

One popular trick is to take a phrase and use the initials to create a password. For instance; “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” becomes tqbfjotld.

That password then can be toughened by making the letters q and l capitals so we now have tQbfjotLd.

To strengthen it a bit more, we’ll change the letter b to an 8 and t to a 7 so we now have tQ8fjo7Ld.

The important thing is to have a password you can remember. If you have to write this password down and stick to your computer monitor, then all your hard work is wasted.

We’ll discuss protecting your passwords in another post.

I have an problem that some of our PCs shut down while running a certain program. What is the reason behind this? I am working with window XP.

The problem is the program is crashing some of the computers and they are shutting down. Unlike earlier versions of Windows, Windows XP reboots rather than displays the dreaded Blue Screen of Death.

The clue to the problem is in the error message the Blue Screen gives you. Among other things, it will list the application and driver that triggered the problem. Microsoft have further information on deciphering BSOD messages.

In your case, given it happens on some machines and not others, it’s a safe guess that this problem is hardware related and is probably the graphics card. You may want to check the differences between the machines that don’t crash and those that do.

Troubleshooting these problems can be time consuming and complex. If you aren’t experienced in doing this then it’s best done by a