Monday, August 11, 2003		Dr Tribune

Q. The configuration of my computer is X86-based PC, Intel processor @ 400 MHz, Award modular BIOS v4.51PG, two hard disks- primary 40 GB (4 partitions - Samsung) and secondary 4 GB (Seagate), 96 MB RAM, SiS 6326 display card, Windows Me and Windows 2000 in C:

My problems are: 1) Whenever I try to open a folder, say ‘My Computer’ it takes much longer time to open. The message appears on status bar as "load: com.ms.activeX.ActiveXComponent can’t be instantiated." If this is due to some virus, kindly tell me name of anti-virus software, which could help me solve this problem. 2.) At times, my PC hangs and a blue screen appears with message as "an error has occurred - To continue Press Enter to return to Windows. Press Ctrl+ Alt + Del to restart your computer. Error: 0D: 08D7: 00001117"

A. A virus called mIRC/ Momma.565505 has infected your computer. This virus has been reported to return the error message mentioned by you. Please remove this virus from your system. You can search the sites of Trend micro and Symantec for more details about this virus and also about the method to remove it from your system. You can also park your PC for a free virus check up on various sites like www.trendmicro.com, www.pcpitstop.com etc. for confirmation of the same.

Regarding your second problem, the information provided is not sufficient enough to solve this problem, as you need to mention the complete error message. However, you may try solving this problem by running scandisk in thorough mode followed by defrag, If this does not solve your problem, then please write back with complete error message.

Q. I am having a problem configuring Outlook Express 6.0. I don’t know what to type in the field 1. incoming mail 2. outgoing mail. I have my e-mail account on rediff.com. I will be thankful.

A. You can use Outlook Express for any POP-based e-mail, which is normally being provided by your ISP or in case you have your own Website, and Hotmail. For other Web- based e-mails like rediffmail, you may not use Outlook Express. As far as the query about incoming and outgoing mail server is concerned, the incoming mail server is the POP address, while outgoing mail server is SMTP address. You need to fill this information correctly for configuring Outlook Express.

Q. I have Pentium IV processor, 128 MB RAM, 40 GB hard disk, Win 2000 and XP as my operating systems. I have connected sub woofers with my system and when I play songs, videos or any sound-related object, the sound of the system gets scratchy, distorted and abnormal. But when I shut down my computer and restart it, the sound gets normal. The problem goes only after shutting down the computer and occurs only after restarting. I don’t know what’s going on. Does this have any relation with the woofers that I have connected?

A. This problem has nothing to do with the woofer, which you have attached to your system. This normally happens when you install some games and it overwrites some of your sound driver files, which in turn could disable some of the features. Thus to solve this problem, all you need to do is reinstall the sound driver with an updated version and also make sure that there is no conflict in the sound driver and its settings. I am sure reinstalling updated version of sound driver would solve the problem.

Q. I have an assembled P 4, 1.6 GHz with 40 GB HDD, Samsung hard drive, Vintron via chipset motherboard, LG Studioworks monitor 256 MB DDR RAM, ATX cabinet, Samsung CD ROM and three partitions C:, D:, E: having 10, 20, 2.13 GB disk space respectively. Rest nearly 6 GB is taken by Linux 7.2. Win ‘’98 is installed on C: and Win XP on D:. I have HSP56 micro modem installed. I am having the following problems:

1) Whenever I connect to the Internet, the system hangs for a few seconds .It happens quite a few times after every two to three minutes. I have reinstalled modem again but that didn’t help. Please suggest a remedy.

2) Is it true that whenever the installed Linux is not used for quite some time it corrupts Windows files? I face this problem on my PC recently.

3) As Linux is not used in excess right now I am facing some problems in working with it. Please help.

4) I am not able to install drivers in Linux for sound and modem. It gives some error (not mentioned). Is there any special kind of method to install drivers in Linux? Please help.

A. Let me first clear the misconception that Linux can corrupt your Windows files, if not used often. This is absolutely not the case and Linux has nothing to do with Windows files. Moreover since Linux has been installed on a separate partition, therefore there is no question of corrupting any files.

Now coming to your first problem, there could be many reasons. First, there could be virus on your system, which is getting activated when you are online. Second could be that the modem driver you have installed is not correct. Sometime, if you install a wrong version of modem driver, then also this problem may crop up. In some cases, if V92 driver is also installed as part of general installation of modem driver, then this could also cause such problems. The most likely reason is that Linux has not been installed properly on your system. Since Linux runs on a different file system, it may cause problems if not installed properly. Exactly similar kind of problem has been solved by reinstalling Linux correctly or by removing it. Since your other problems are also associated with Linux, I would suggest you reinstall Linux correctly and if possible with upgraded version, like Red Hat 9.1, Mandrake 9.1 etc. These latest versions have the support for all recent hardware, which you have not been able to install.

Q. We are new in the field of landscaping of parks and other public places and use the skill of computer. In this connection, please provide the information whether any software is available. If yes, please also inform from where we can get it free of cost or can we download it. Your help in this regard is highly appreciated.

A. Here are some of the software sites, which offer landscaping software: www.primasoft.com/deluxeprg/goodx.htm, www.adkad.com/groundskeeper/freedemogkpro.htm, www.adkad.com/groundskeeper/freedemo.htm, www.taoherbfarm.com, www.thoughtfulsystems.com/industries/lawn.htm.

I hope these sites would be of help to you.

Q. My computer configuration is Cyrix M-II processor, 20 GB hard disk, 32 MB RAM, VIA motherboard and OS Win ’98 SE. Firstly, during Windows installation process, I receive a regular "SUWIN" error and installation does not proceed. Does my computer need upgradation? If yes, which component? Please suggest.

A. This is a known error in case of early Cyrix processors, with the hard disk size larger than 2 GB. As in this case, BIOS is not able to decode the .cab files, which are required to install Windows. Now for an effective solution of this problem, either you should upgrade the BIOS and then check out if this problem is solved or upgrade your system. Another option could be installing Windows ’95 on this machine.

Q. I have a PC with the following configuration — P III, 1100 MHz, 20 GB HDD with C:, D:, E:, 128 MB RAM and Win XP on D:, Win ‘98 on C: I have Samsung 52x CD ROM and LG 52x24x52x CD Writer. My problem is my writer’s speed is slow. It takes 6 to 7 minutes to write one blank CD. I also tried CD Writer on Win XP. When I try on Win XP, it gives writing speed of two to three minutes for one blank CD. But after writing 20 CDs, its speed becomes slow. Now it takes 7 minutes to write one blank CD. I also reinstalled Win XP but the problem persists. I am using Nero Express (version 5,5,9,9) for burning. Please solve my problem.

A. As you might have noticed after burning some CDs, the CD Writer gets a little hot and therefore slows down. There is nothing abnormal in it. These domestic CD writers are designed to be for office or home solutions, and not to be used in duplicators. As far as variation in speed in Windows ’98 and XP is concerned, it may happen due to free resources and lesser load on the particular partition. The writing speed of the CD writer may be affected, but this does not amount to a problem, as this is a result of many factors like free hard disk space, size of swap file, junk files present in the system in that particular partition, number of memory resident programs installed and running etc.

Q. I have P III PC with Internal modem. Incoming call number on our phone can be seen by the caller ID instrument. Can this be viewed on computer also? Is there any such software that does the same and if there is any, kindly let me know about it? Also, tell me from where can I get that software and at what cost.

A. The Internet is full of such software, which work as a caller ID instrument on your computer. We have mentioned several such software in the previous editions. For your benefit, some of sites offering caller ID software are as follows.

www.identafone.com, www.talkingcallerid.com, www.yes-tele.com, www.ascendis.com/callerid/callerid.php.

You can browse these sites for the caller ID and can search even many more on the Internet.

Q.  I have P IV, 1.7 MHz Intel processor with Intel motherboard, 128 MB RAM, 40 GB HDD. I have Win ’98 SE as OS on C:. My problem is when I scan C: thoroughly, it gives error that the contents of C: have changed and it restarts without being completed. When I defragment C:, it says drive is being used by another process in spite of all other processes being closed. I have scanned all other drives and they have not shown any error or bad sector on it. What do I do now? The speed of PC is decreasing day by day.

A. The problem in this case is that still some programs are running, despite your closing down. Please follow the instructions to close these running programs. First: Select none for screensaver, Powersettings to "Always on" Second: "Ctrl+Alt+Del" press only once Twice will restart computer and then "End Task" to everything except "Exeplorer" and "Systray" and then try scandisk followed by defrag. There is also one better, reboot your system to safe mode and then run scandisk and defrag. This will solve your problem.