Dennis Faas

Rezzy47 asks: " I'm running Windows XP Home Edition on a Dell 8200 Desktop computer. Every time I attempt to run ScanDisk [CHKDSK] on one of my hard drives, Windows gives me the message, ' Please wait while windows restarts ... ', but never does. I ... have to shut the computer down manually by turning off the power. Is there any solution to this problem? " My response: I know that the "shut down" feature under Windows hasn't worked properly since the days of Windows 95 ... but I figured that Microsoft licked this problem once-and-for-all with Windows XP. I guess not. ... (view more)

Last week , Rocky R. asked how to turn on the AutoComplete feature found in Internet Explorer. A quick recap: what is AutoComplete? When enabled, the AutoComplete feature remembers (and completes) frequently used form data on web pages. An example ... of a form might be one that asks you a name and password, such as the login form used at Hotmail.com. After providing instructions on how to enable / disable the AutoComplete in last week's newsletter, I furthered the discussion by introducing a dilemma of my own. My problem was that I sometimes have to revert back to an old image (backup) of ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader John S. writes: " Quite often, my web browser displays gibberish characters throughout the entire web page, instead of the web page itself. I have to refresh the screen (sometimes repeatedly) to get the page to display correctly. ... This also sometimes happens to my emails, too. I did a clean reinstall of Windows, but it didn't help. Any suggestions? " My response: I was plagued with a similar problem for quite some time. After upgrading to Windows XP, my old firewall program (Black Ice) didn't work properly. I decided to replace Black Ice with Zone Alarm ... which ... (view more)

A few days ago, Rocky R. asked me a question about the AutoComplete feature in Internet Explorer: " When I fill out a form on a new website, a dialog box appears asking if I would like auto complete to stop asking me to store info. Well, I ... accidentally hit 'Yes' -- and now I can't get auto complete to remember any information! Please help! " My answer: The AutoComplete feature can be enabled / disabled by modifying a preference in Internet Explorer. Here's how to change the setting with IE6: Load Internet Explorer Click Tools -> Internet Options Click the Content Tab Click the ... (view more)

Yesterday, Bill B. sent me a question regarding Adobe Acrobat Reader. Wait a sec -- what is Adobe Acrobat Reader? Acrobat Reader is a free-to-use tool which reads documents which contain the file extension ".PDF". The Portable Document Format has ... been around for quite some time and is supported by all major computer platforms (PC, Mac, Unix, OS/2, etc). Acrobat is a popular pick among eBook developers because it provides many useful features, including: document encryption (IE: the ability to copy-protect all / certain aspects of a document), bookmarks, clickable links, clickable ... (view more)

Yesterday's article, which details how to "Remove lop (lop.com, C2 Media) from Internet Explorer", prompted quite a few responses from readers. Remove lop (lop.com, C2 Media) from Internet Explorer Robert S. writes: " I Just received the latest ... Infopackets and was reading about the lop.com and C2 media. You mentioned SpyBot Search and Destroy (SBSD) ... [from my own experience,] the latest version (1.2) has a problem with [Lop] ... SBSD has issued a fix, but it still does not work on my Windows 2000 Operation System. " I also received the below email from Michael A. Woods ... (view more)

Last week, David R. told me about a program called Lop that was installed on his machine: " I've installed Lop on my computer and now every time I go online, an annoying browsing toolbar that pops up. Now I can't get rid of it! Can you help? " My ... Response: After some digging, I found some excellent resources on Google. A web site called doxdesk.com provided a very complete picture of what Lop is and how to combat it. http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/lop.html Here are some snippets from the doxdesk.com web site: Description Lop is a family of programs that set your start page and IE's ... (view more)

Last week, Ben M. from Australia wrote about a problem he was having with his 40x CD burner not being able to write at maximum speed under Windows XP. Ben's main problem: both Roxio Easy CD Creator and Nero Burning ROM (CD burning software) only ... allow the burner to write at 16x instead of 40x write speed. Ben's computer is running Windows XP with 256 meg RAM on a 1.7 GHz machine and a 40 gig [7200 RPM] hard drive. In short, here's what Ben has already tried: Replaced the burner with another (same model / brand); Changed the buffer size for CDFS (CD File System) under Windows XP; Updated both ... (view more)

Ben M. from The Land Down Under (Australia) recently told me about a problem he's been having with his 40x CD burner. In a nutshell, Ben can't get the writer to record at maximum speed and asked me for some troubleshooting suggestions. Ben writes: " ... Dennis, I religiously read Infopackets 3 times a week! Thank you. As a computer technician, I find your newsletter a valuable troubleshooting resource. Unfortunately, I'm having a problem that has got me stumped and was wondering if you had any suggestions? I recently purchased a new computer (Celeron 1.7GHz) with 256MB RAM, 40GB hard drive, ... (view more)

Yesterday, I wrote about a new spam problem associated with Windows Messenger. Recall: Messenger pop-ups are a new form of spam that exploit a feature of the Microsoft Windows operating system intended for use by network administrators. These ... pop-ups can appear even if you aren't surfing the web (ie: a web browser), and are not related to MSN Messenger. The remedy: Yesterday I detailed instructions I used when searched Google for a solution. Unfortunately, the instructions for Windows XP were not complete and I received a few emails from folks who were not able to complete the "fix ... (view more)