Software

This feature article is a step away from our normal discussions, as I am currently out of town visiting a friend in Toronto, Ontario for the next few days. RE: My encounter with the Backdoor.Agent.B Trojan I arrived at Frank's place in Toronto this ... past Sunday, and was unable to access the Internet until Wednesday. Unfortunately, Frank's computer was host to 35 virus-infected files, 7 Spyware variants, 4 Trojans, and 2 Internet worms (including MyDoom and SoBig) -- and he didn't even know it. I spent much of Monday and Tuesday "undoing" the damage caused by the malware. I have to ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Ken A. writes: " Dear Dennis, Whenever I try to run Scandisk (and Defrag), Scandisk gets 2/3 through the operation and reports an error message which reads: 'Not enough memory to continue. Close all programs to try again.' Even ... with all programs closed down still cannot run Scandisk. I have Windows 98SE (second edition). I hope you can help! PS: Love all newsletters -- they're great! " My response: Microsoft Knowledge Base article # 229154 states that this error may occur if your hard drive's cluster size is less than 8k. To correct this error, you will need to ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Ed M. writes: " Dear Dennis, I can't seem to run Disk Defrag, ScanDisk, or Norton Disk Doctor on my system because other programs are actively running in the background and keep interrupting the process. How can I find out what is ... running in the background and stop it? I have asked this question numerous times to Microsoft and they don't seem to know the answer. I have tried 'CTRL + ALT + DEL' on my keyboard to bring up the Windows Task Manager, I get a list of programs -- but I do not know which ones are safe to delete? Can you help? " My response: Many users ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Nancy E. writes: " Dear Dennis, I bought a router to make my computer less vulnerable to hackers, but now cannot receive files from my ICQ contacts. I can send files, but cannot receive. I talked with D-Link tech support and they ... helped me to change a few settings, but to no avail. They said that ICQ had to be changed in order to get this to work. I cannot get any help from ICQ except a 'form' reply from their site which doesn't help at all. I am using ICQ Pro, and the router is a D-Link DI-704P, and am running Windows 2000. As far as I understand it, one of the ' ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Ruth S. writes: " Dear Dennis, I use Outlook Express. Every time I receive an email, the sender's address ends up in my Blocked Senders List. The next time the person emails me again, it goes directly into my Deleted Items folder. ... I don't know why this keeps happening. Any ideas?" My response: I can honestly say that I have never encountered this problem before. At any rate, I have a few suggestions: 1. Clear your Blocked Senders List and Mail Rules. Open Outlook Express Click Tools -> Message Rules -> Blocked Senders List Delete all blocked senders entries ... (view more)

Recall -- Yesterday, Infopackets Reader Darren F. asked what term 'Windows Embedded' meant: " Dear Dennis, I was watching Tech TV recently, and there was reference made to a program that is capable of making a 'preinstalled environment' bootable ... Windows XP CD-ROM. I decided to do some research on the topic, and kept coming across discussion boards where people constantly made reference to something called 'Windows Embedded'. I don't quite understand what this is and was wondering if you could explain it the term? " I responded to Darren's question by querying Google for the term ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Darren F. writes: " Dear Dennis, I was watching Tech TV recently, and there was reference made to a program that is capable of making a 'preinstalled environment' bootable Windows XP CD-ROM. I decided to do some research on the ... topic, and kept coming across discussion boards where people constantly made reference to something called 'Windows Embedded'. I don't quite understand what this is and was wondering if you could explain it the term? " My response: From what I understand, the Windows Embedded technology automates the installation of Windows. Basically, this ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Jon M. writes: "Hi Dennis! I recently uninstalled a program called 'RoboPDF' (not related to RoboForm ). Now, I receive an error message that "C:\ Program files \ Microsoft Office \ Office \ Startup \ roboPDF.xlt could not be ... found' every time I launch Excel. I was wondering how to get rid of this from appearing? " My response: I researched some topics in the MS Excel Help File, and found info relating to how Excel starts. Basically, the XLStart folder typically contains a bunch of mini-programs (called macro files) which execute every time Excel starts. A ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Josh T. writes: " I was wondering if your could help me. I just burned some MP3s using Windows Media Player [WMP] onto a CD-RW disc. The CD seems to play in my computer's CD drive using WMP, but when I try playing the CD in my ... stereo's CD player or on my portable CD: neither will detect the disc. Is there any advices or tips you can give me to solve this problem? " My response: The reason why your .MP3 CD won't play in your stereo or portable CD player is simply because neither of these devices can read your CD-RW [re-writable] disc. The disc you burned can only ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Frank B. writes: " I need help! When I try to forward a picture to my friends, all that they receive is a box with a small red X. This started happening to me about 8 months ago. I have tried everything I could think of and even ... had a computer repairman try to fix it. It doesn't happen all the time, but more often than not. How can I correct this? " My response: Believe it or not, I get asked this question quite a bit ... and it's worth addressing (briefly) once more. This problem deals with Outlook Express 6 -- specifically: Anyone who has recently upgraded to, ... (view more)