Myke

Defender is annoying and lame. It is really only good for people who do not really know what they are doing to a computer. It protects people from making stupid mistakes on the Internet and becoming submissive to stupid e-mail tricks. If you are confident with your security practices on the Internet and e-mail, then don't bother with Windows Defender.

Make sure that you have administrative rights to your machine. If you do and you are still having problems, try to copy the file and open the copy.

Try unplugging your router's power for about a minute. With all of the cables unplugged, plug in your router's power and wait for the self test to complete. After that is done, plug in the cable from the modem, then plug in your PCs. Afterwards, type in "ipconfig /release" from your command prompt and then type "ipconfig /renew" in the same window. Check your Internet connection. If you are still having problems, connect to your router's web server and check the settings there.

Another good reason as to why you should reboot a PC is due to the resources that have been used up. When a program is opened, it uses a certain amount of resources to open it and keep it running. When you close that program, not all of the resources are freed up. Constantly opening and closing applications (including logging off and on) will eventually slow the PC down. Better operating systems have less problems with this (e.g., ME sucks at this while XP is better with it). In addition, this also has to do with your physical components and what they can handle. If a HDD is fragmented pretty badly, even a reboot won't help out too much. If the system doesn't have too much RAM, then that could also cause issues. It really depends on the scenario. I usually instruct our employees to reboot once every two weeks. It helps out with a lot of different potential issues. In regards to your original scenario, you should just ask the person who uses the machine at the very end of the week to reboot upon leaving. It really isn't too hard of a thing for a user to do and doesn't seem like too asinine of a request.

A couple of simple checks first: 1) Check the NIC and see if the lights are flashing where the cable is plugged in. If not, check your cables. If all cables are plugged in properly, then you have a bad cable. 2) Can other machines ping the newly added one? Can your machine ping itself (not the loopback address, but the one you assigned it)? If not, then check your TCP/IP settings again. The problem with setting up static IP addresses is that you sometimes assign the same IP address to different machines. In addition, you allow for human error by accidently entering in the wrong information (e.g., subnet mask of 255.255.25.50). If you have a router, I'd suggest not entering in the IP address and instead allow the router to assign the machines values.

This may also have to do with an incompatibility issue. SP2 has been known to cause many of these. If you have any USB devices plugged into the laptop, try removing them during the installation. After SP2 is installed, then try to manually configure those devices.

Well, another update on the situation at hand with the issue of printing an Excel file to an HP printer. It turns out that the scenario is not exclusive to HP printers. Another one of our employees experienced the same issue on a NEC printer. I had to set her up with the batch file to restart the service in case that it happens again. While having this happen to another person is rather annoying a frustrating, the good news is that the problem can now be specifically pinned on Excel. Again, this does not happen with any other application, just Excel. Since all of the users who are experiencing this belong to different departments (which each has different software installed), I highly doubt that this is due to any sort of macros installed on them. Turning off bidirectional communication also does not help. Anyone else have any clues? Endless searching has yielded no results on my end.

Try reinstalling the modem. Make sure to uninstall it, reboot, then reinstall. This will help to make sure that you have a clean installation. There's no guarentee that this will work, but if this issue is being caused by your modem, them it wouldn't hurt to try to reinstall it.

When you get the blue screen error, what does it say? Specifically, you're looking for the hexidecimal message. It should be one set followed by a few sets in parentheses. Hexidecimal will look something like this: 0xC000001A. This will allow you to figure out specifically what is wrong with your system.

You can use the Disk Cleanup tool located in All Programs, Accessories, System Tools. This will scan your HDD for all files that can be safetly deleted, as well as compress old files to save on disk space. You'll be amazed how much disk space you can free up if you've never run this before. I've seen up to 10 GB freed up (combined total of Recycling Bin, Setup Files, and Temporary Internet Files). This doesn't delete cookies, either. It assumes that you want to save those.

Most HDDs have the jumper settings printed on the top of the casing. Check those settings to determine where the jumpers need to be placed on both HDDs. If for some reason the HDDs do not have the jumper settings printed on them, you can look them up on the manufacturer's website.

Another point: can your CD-ROM recognize any other CD that is inserted? If not, try rebooting. If your CD-ROM cannot be read before Windows boots, as asked by fps.dyl, then there is definitely something wrong with your drive. Make sure that all cables are snuggly in place and the insides dusted out. If the drive works before windows boots up, but not once you are logged in, then there is most likely a driver issue (it may have become corrupt and needs to be reinstalled). If the drive works after Windows boots up, then you may have had a problem reading a disc in Windows before the reboot. The most common cause of this scenario is trying to rip a CD that is all scratched up. The drive then fails to read anything. Lastly, this is going to be a stupid question, but needs to be asked: are you sure that your CD drive can burn CDs?

Due to a recent and unfortunate event (the building's cleaning crew accidently tripped our breaker and all power to the server room was lost; sadly I watched everything die before I could figure out what exactly happened and none of the servers were properlly shut down), we have been investigating the best software to use to power down our servers in the event of a power failure. We have 4 seperate Smart-UPS's and have installed the APC software (PowerChute Business Edition) on one server for each UPS, which is connected via serial. However, we have multiple servers connected to a single UPS and want each server to be properly shut down, not just the server with PowerChute. APC claims that you can load an agent on the other servers which will be shut down by the PowerChute Server which communicates with the UPS. However, when you go to install the agent on the other servers, it demands that the agent be able to communicate with the UPS, but there is only one serial port (and no USB ports) on the UPS! How are we supposed to get the other servers to properlly shut down in the event of a power failure? If it happens at 2 a.m., no one would be able to respond in time to manually take care of it. APC has offered no help with this and they're FAQs seem to avoid this question. Anyone experienced with this software and/or situation to help me out? Essentially, we want all of our servers to safetly shut down when there is a power failure. Thanks in advance.

I've looked into Network Shutdown, but it requires that each UPS unit have a NIC installed. We're trying to avoid that. The way I see it, it makes sense to have a few servers plugged into the UPS and have one of those servers act as the PowerChute server, which will communicate with the UPS. All other servers plugged into the UPS would have an agent installed on them, and those agents only communicate with the appropriate PowerChute server. If the PowerChute server detects a power failure and needs to shut down, it will shut down the agents associated with that particular UPS. Maybe I'm wishing for too much.

The small clicks you are hearing are usually a bad sign. Try to pinpoint where they are coming from. From my own experience, these clicks were coming from the HDD itself and was due to physical errors on the disk. If this is the case, you're just going to need a new HDD.

Per Microsoft, this issue is due to faulty RAM. Here''s the article: "Stop 0x50" Error Message While Installing Windows

Yeah, that's the HDD. Most likely, even a fresh reboot including a long format of the drive will not work. It is a physical error on the disk and won't be repairable. Contact the seller and/or the laptop's manufacturer. You should be entitled to a new HDD free of charge.

I just had the same thing happen to my on my VIAO a month after my warranty expired. It's most likely a HDD error. Have you tried reinstalling Windows from scratch? If you do this and still experience the rebooting, then it is probably due to a physical error on the HDD. Another question: do you ever hear strange (not normal) clicking noises coming from within the laptop? If so, then it definitely is the HDD; mine was making very strange clicking noises, almost like the HDD was stuttering, and then it would get stuck in a looping reboot. You might want to think about replacing the HDD. If it's still under warranty, don't try tampering with it and just get it replaced free of charge.

The blue screen you are experiencing is very bad and is known as the blue screen of death. Try to get it to happen again and write down the exact message. This will help to figure out what is really going on here. It could be caused due to an incompatability issue between Windows XP and your hardware, based on what you have said so far. Again, make sure that you write down the entire message. It is important that you include the hexidecimal code that it displays. For example: 0x7c91888f, 0x0109ee74, etc. This information will help to determine what in particular is failing here.

Try using port 8080. I don't know if that will help, but if it doesn't then at least you'll have more information to go on. Also, check firewall settings. If I remember correctly, Windows 2003 tends to block a lot by default.

I would suggest that you go to www.filext.com and look up the file's extension there. It's a pretty good site for determining the type of program the file needs to run. It also may be possible that the file needs to have its extension renamed. Check to see if the fix came with instructions for running it.

Did you notice this happening after you upgraded to Windows Media Player 10? The later versions of Windows Media Player do not allow for protected content to be burned to a CD. Older versions allowed the buring of protected content, but this changed as Microsoft tried to aggressively prevent digital music pirating (now, you have to go out of your way to do this, so you are assuming the risk; stupid, but a good tactic as ignorance is no longer an excuse). This could be a reason as to why you are receiving this error. There are settings in the Options windows which allow you to disable content protection. There are other programs out there which can burn to MP3 format without having to worry about this feature, namely MusicMatch Jukebox. I have an older version which works fine, but I'm not sure how the newer versions work. Regardless, you should be able to tweak the Windows Media Player ripping settings to allow you to do what you are inquiring about.

First off, how long have you had the machine? Some of the older Dell models sometimes have problems with USB storage devices. If it is not compatible with USB 2.0 devices, then that's probably your answer. Secondly, since some devices are working just fine in your USB ports, the ports can't be fried (very good thing), although there might be some damage to the ports if you don't properly remove the devices by using the "Safely remove USB device" option on the taskbar. After inserting a USB storage device, see if you can manually detect and install the hardware. To do so, go into the control panel and use Add Hardware. I've had to do this with some of the devices. A real pain in the neck, but it might help you out some.

Try starting up the existing HDD in safe mode. If that boots up fine, then you might have an issue with your OS. Check to see if you recently installed any new applications or drivers. This tends to cause the OS to fail like this sometimes. If that does not resolve your issue, open up your machine and make sure that all of your cables are connected securly; you might as well give the insides a good dusting while you are in there. I've seen instances where dust build-up around connectors caused an issue. If that doesn't work, then I would suggest putting another HDD into the machine to see if it will boot up with the new drive. If so, then make the new drive your primary HDD and the existing drive(s) your slave HDD(s): check your jumper settings for how to do this. Once you get this set up, you can boot into the newer of the HDDs and should be able to retrive any information from the old HDD (Windows Explorer should show the slave drive(s)). This same scenario happened to me on my new VIAO, but it was due to a physical error on the surface of my HDD. Go figure, 2 months after my warrantee expires, my 200 GB HDD fails on me. Just pray that this isn't the same issue.

I would make a physical note of these threats (e.g. the threat's name, the file that is infected) and go to Symantec's website to research the threat. Some threats cannot be removed by the SAV client and require manual removal. The details of the particular threats that your PC has been exposed to will help you to find out if you are really infected or not. If so, then the threat details almost always have information on how to remove it from your PC. Keep in mind that these threats might be quite a pain to remove, so you'll have to be patient with it. Other times, Symantec offers tools that you can run on your PC which will automatically remove the virus, including making the necessary registry changes, if any were made by the virus. Another thing to make a mental note of is that the threat history contains a list of all threats which have been discovered by the program on your PC since you installed SAV. It is possible that you may have already removed the threat from your PC if a search of your computer yields no results of a particular threat.