Tech Help and Discussions

I don't know why this is happening, but I often find that my CPU usage goes up to 100% and will not come down until I reboot. If I get the Task Manager up it says that no applications are running, so it must be from a background process. I've run full scans with Kapersky Anti-Virus, Ad-Aware and Spybot and it seems to be all clean. XP is fully updated too. Is there a way I can find out which program is causing this? It's annoying to have my system slow to a crawl every day, and with the CPU temperature going through the roof.

When I Go To Remove/Add Programs in the "Control Panel" the buttons for adding or removing are not visable. I cannot remove anything listed. This just occured recently. -- Tom H

Hi - after installing latest versions of Firefox and Thunderbird, I had a problem with the display (text was overwriting to give scrambled output); was advised to update the video driver. Control Panel>Display Settings gave NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Mod 64 as my driver so went to NVIDIA website, selected latest driver (78.01) and downloaded. NVIDIA advised to remove existing driver using Add/Remove Software before installing new driver, so did so. Ran Install Wizard for 78.01; got message similar to (I didn't note it exactly) 'Cannot find hardware supported by this driver, so will exit'. System appeared to go to a default driver (I am no expert!) and gave unwanted s…

I test drove Corel's font manager and it unloaded ALL of the fonts in my fonts folder. After rebooting a few times, I got Arial and a few others to register so I can actually read my screen, but even though I have reloaded all of the windows core fonts, my start menu button is still appearing with strange characters along with other system menu items like "All Programs" etc. How do I restore this? Thanks! Tony

It all started about a month ago ........... I have a Dell Dimension 4600 with Windows XP operating system (no network) it is a home computer that is more than 4 years old. I have had some Virus / Trojan Horse problems which are resolved. My computer is now protected with Avast and Stopzilla. I have changed ISP's in the last month in my thrashing about to resolve problems. I have downloaded updated drivers through a service (driveragent.com) and also sub- scribed to a registry repair service (registryfix.com). While these steps have eliminated many of the strange "blue screen me…

Hello, I began a thread last month about adding RAM, got lots of responses and they were very helpful. I had that pesky RD RAM, nearly didnt do it because of the cost but bit the bullet. Anyway I had some local guy I used occassionally to help me with major problems once or twice over the years. Sufficed it to say, Im not really trusting this guy anymore. Anyway my question is this, after I installed the new RAM on my own, my system recognizes it. I emailed this guy just to tell him I wont need his services. He is saying, oh but you must now correct your bios, and I cant tell you how to it, Id need to come over (and be paid of course). so what might he mean i…

When I shut down windows, after the shut down processing complete and the windows box " Windows is shutting down......" disappear, the PC hang and just display a blue screen with the mouse pointer in the middle, Please help!

hi all i have a problem. there is an icon in the task bar the one ware the time is desplayed and it is in the shape of a shield. in this shield there are 2 alternating signs ? and x. Now my problem is that i know it is adwere and i have tryed every adware program that i have and none of them can remove it from the computer.It keeps poping up and it says ( ! SYSTEM ALERT ! ) i clik on it and it takes me to a web site for virus program it is called (VIRUS PROTECT PRO).I have used windows defender,spybot,and outher programs none of them found it.HELP please

Using WinXP Media: Is there a way to set all of the start menus, docs, and desktop to be identical, and keep it that way? Tired of looking all over the place to synchronize all of them. Thanks so much, Yoly

Hi im facing the problem when im trying to loging in server 2003 the following massage comes when im trying? plz help me out. Thanks. "Windows cannot log you on because your profile cannot be loaded. Check that you are connected to the network, or that your network is functioning correctly. If this problem persists, contact your network administrator. "

Since installing SP2 none of my CDs or DVDs auto-play any more when I insert them. I always have to manually start them, even when installing new programs. Any way to fix that? Thanks, GettingByOk

On my computer I have a large folder with 2.6 mb of photos, but the I recall making this a private folder. By now I have tried all the HELP suggestions I have and need more help. The folder is on the Desktop, but when I try to open it, the enclosed file (small) named tn.4.cache returns an error message that "this file is not a valid win32 application. Does anyone know how I can get beyond all this a open the private folder, if I can. I've exhauster all the HELP topics that I could find and none of the ideas worked for me. George

Is there any way to utilize the "print screen" key without additional software?? I have a Dell E310 with a Dell 962 All in one printer. Any info would help... -- Paintwagon

Hi, Is there any way to cancel a reboot (before it actually preforms) after I've clicked shut-down -> restart ?

I turned on my laptop this morning and when I went to log on a message came up that had something to do with "user environment" and logged me in under a default. This has caused me to be unable to access my files, passwords, websites etc. I have searched everywhere online for help and can't find anything. Any suggestions

I have been having a networking problem on my WinXP Home edition laptop. I am not able to connect to shared folders and printers on my local network by the computer name. i.e. if I use the following command: Start->My Computer and put in \\LocalNetworkComputerName\SharedFolderName\ the response is: Windows cannot find \\LocalNetworkComputerName\ If I do the same and enter: \\192.168.x.xx\SharedFolderName where 192.168.x.xx is the ip address of the target computer it works. Please advise if anyone knows a workaround to this problem

I tried using the command prompt to copy a file, unsuccessfully. I then tried using the CD command, starting the from C:\> prompt, to make each successive sub-folder of the path the default directory. I succeeded until I got to a sub-folder with an ampersand (&) in its name. Here is the command-prompt input and the response: C:\Documents and Settings\hm\My Documents>cd clippings & drafts The system cannot find the path specified. 'drafts' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. How do I get Command Prompt to recognize this folder name?

Hey guys I currently have Windows XP Home Edition and use a Dell Dimension 5150. At the moment i have an administrators account and a guest account which both crop up at start up for you to choose which one you want. However sometimes when i switch my pc on it gets stuck on 'starting up...' , never actually reaching the login phase. However if i restart my PC during this time, my PC will boot up as normal. It is temperamental, however i don't really like restarting my PC like this as i'm scared it'll get damaged. Was wondering if anyone had any ideas on how to fix this or ways i could figure out what was wrong? Thanks

Yesterday when I turned on my comouter the background, toolbars, scrollbars, etc changed color - they are now multicolor (blue, purple, green, and shades of) when they used to be the default blue. Other applications (Word, Internet Explorer, etc) have also changed. However Pictures (Jpeg's, Bmp's) appear normal. Any Idea what happened/How to fix it.

for some reason, i have like no sound on my computer. though the sounds coming from media players, such as itunes and windows meida, work fine, the sound for everything else on my computer doesn't seem to work, i can't even hear the jingle thats supposed to play at the start up or stuff from youtube. i have a windows xp. thanks in advance and i'm sorry if this question has been adressed before

I just reinstalled windows XP and now it has set my resolution to 16 (medium) it does not give me any other options. The windows are too big, i cannot see everything in the window. i need to make them smaller, but again after reinstalling it will not give me the option to change my resolution

I need to administer a new company. Right now, temporary, there is a clone Server with a GIGABYTE Motherboard Model 8KNXP with a SCSI CARD Adaptec ASC-29320 Ultra320 SCSI Controller. Server is running Windows Server Standard 2003 SP 1. Remote Desktop was disabled when I arrived. Now I enabled and when accessing, the server gives me blue screen with error msg "STOP: 0x0000004E PFN_LIST_CORRUPT" KB291806 tells me it is related to hardware. Does anyone know a way to fix this? Thanks; Frank Jacobs Small Business Specialist

As part of our standard build we change the registry to save IE Favorites to the users personal drive, in our case "H:\.": ; These set each users' default save locations, H:\Favorites and H:\My Documents. [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer \User Shell Folders] "Favorites"=hex(2):48,00,3a,00,5c,00,46,00,61,00,76,00,6f, 00,72,00,69,00,74,00,\ 65,00,73,00,00,00 "Personal"=hex(2):48,00,3a,00,5c,00,4d,00,79,00,20,00,44,00,6f, 00,63,00,75,00,\ 6d,00,65,00,6e,00,74,00,73,00,00,00 Although it hasn't happened in a while, today users began getting error messages when they tried to save a new Favorite. The error message states …

Hi all, I've recently posted a question on here but didn't get the answer. The problem is my windows installer service keep popping up and i tried to download the "msicuu2.exe" but it didn't fix my problem cause it said "the package does not exist.." something. Ay help will be great. Thanks

My Windows fails to start, then tries to, then after about 15mins fails. It advises me to restart in safe mode but when i restart my keyboard does not work so i cant move the cursor to the "safe mode" prompt. Any ideas anyone??