Monday, February 9, 2004		Dr Tribune

Q Recently, a virus attacked my computer, and re-registered my computer, since the virus, and before my computer re-registered, a windows saying: "System shut down, C:\ \ WinNT\ system32\ services.exe...." due to code 128. I have about a minute to close everything, and shut down my computer. If I don’t, it is difficult to work on my computer, and will not let me shut down or restart without pushing the button, or literally pulling the plug out of power socket. Could you please help me find the answer to fix this problem? 

Brooke Burton

A This problem occurs if the KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ System\ CurrentControlSet \ Services\ Lanmanserver\ Shares registry key contains references to non-shared objects. In order to get rid of this problem you may have to do some registry editing. However, before you attempt to edit registry, I would recommend you take a back up of your registry. To solve this problem, restart your computer and when it finishes the memory check press F8 key. From the list of options, you get on your screen, choose Safe Mode option. Once you have logged on to Windows, use Regedit.exe to navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet\ Services\ lanmanserver\ Share.Now press Export Registry File on the Registry menu and then type Share-backup into the File name box and press Save to have a backup. Now for every Value Name in the right-hand window, make sure that the Path= value is a valid, existing, shared object, either printer or folder. If the Path= value is not valid, delete the Value Name for this REG_MULTI_SZ data type. Once you are done, close the registry editor and restart your computer normally. This will solve your problem.

Q Recently I purchased an assembled PC (P-IV, 2.4 GHz, 256 MB RAM, 40 GB HDD, 845 GVAD2 motherboard, Windows XP professional). Since few days, the computer has started demanding a password. Previously it worked fine. I have not protected my system with any password and am unable to use my computer. Please help.

A Please make sure that you have a genuine copy of Windows XP. Windows XP needs to be registered within 30 days of installation in order to use it beyond 30 days. The registration is quite simple and can be done online on Internet or on with customer support in Microsoft office in India. Only after duly registering the product, you can start using it beyond 30 days. You have mentioned that your system worked well some days before, probably indicates that you were running in the grace period. Now in order to use your system you will have to register your Windows XP first.

Q I have a Celeron Pro. with energy motherboard & 40 GB HDD. I am unable to open the site, mail.yahoo.com. When I fill my username & password, it shows a message, "Unfortunately, we are unable to process your request at this time. We apologise for the inconvenience. Please try again later." When I try it to open through Yahoo! Messenger, it shows: "Illegal operation. The computer will be shut down." When I open this site from cyber caf`E9, it opens easily. Please solve my problem. I have a glide connection.

A Please uninstall the Yahoo! messenger and download and install the latest version of Yahoo messenger on your system, hopefully this will solve your problem. As far as the message of not opening the mail page of Yahoo is concerned, It’s not a problem of Yahoo! and does not reflect problem in your system. It does happen sometime, when there is either server updation or the server is too busy.

Q I have an assembled PC with the configuration- P III-1000 MHz and Windows 2000 professional with128 MB RAM. I have Motorola SM56 PCI modem installed. My problem is whenever I connect to the Internet through the BSNL connection, a blank page appears and I have to click refresh again and again to open Yahoo! and that too sometimes in vain. At the same time, I receive a message, "svchost.exe has generated errors and will be closed by windows. You will need to restart the program." And when I want to disconnect, it doesn’t allow me to do so. I have to directly shutdown my PC. Please assist.

A It appears that you do not have the necessary security patch installed on your system, which is causing this problem. Please check out that you have all the latest and up-to-date security patches installed on your machine. I am sure this will solve your problem. However, there are also some chances that you have Sobig or MSBlaster worm in your system. Kindly scan your system thoroughly with a clean bootable anti-virus CD. Alternatively, you can also check out the virus online at www.mcafee.com or www.trendmicro.com.

Q I have various PCs on a LAN network and the operating system is Win XP but a virus has surfaced in one or two PCs. that is affecting Win XP. There comes a screen that shows certain message and a countdown starts. Then the computer restarts. After that that virus restarts the computers in the network. Sometimes it restarts again and again in all networks. I have installed McAfee anti-virus and have detected the virus but I can’t clean or delete it. I installed Win ‘98 and virus has not affected it. Help me find the right solution.

A Your problem is similar to the one mentioned above. Your system is affected by MSBlaster worm. You would need security patch from Microsoft’s Website to fill the security hole, which spreads this virus and would need a virus removal tool ‘Fixblast’ from www.symantec.com or www.mcafee.com to remove this virus from your system. Since Windows ’98 is not affected by this virus, therefore it is working fine.

Q My PC configuration is P4, 1.5 GHz, 128 MB RAM, NVidia TNT2 Model 64 Pro, Avance AC’97 Audio, WinXP Pro on C: Drive, Pinnacle PCTVPlus TV Tuner Card, 20 GB HDD with two partitions, C: and D: Drive, Cyber Multimedia Twin Shock 2-in-1 [Game pad/Joystick], LG 52x CD-ROM Drive, LG 48x16x48 CD-Writer and LG 48x24x48 Combo Drive.

I have a few queries:

• My CD-ROM does not read any type of disks but in the Device Manager it displays working properly. Tell me how can I prepare my own Lens cleaner disc?

• How do I write CD’s more efficiently? That is CDs take more time to burn then they actually should.

• How can I optimise Win XP for basic computing, i.e., Web browsing, typing documents, etc.

• Is there any way I can directly record my MP3s onto an audiotape without having to burn a CD?

A Regarding your first query, You cannot prepare your own lens cleaner disk as it has some brushes on it made of special material, which cleans the lens, while the CD rotates inside your CD ROM. You can buy these lens cleaner CDs very cheap in the market. Regarding your second query, try using good quality CD at the first place to burn them more efficiently and faster. Also, make sure that DMA mode is enabled for CD ROM and also ensure that the CD writer is connected to Secondary master rather than Primary Slave. I think taking care of these points could optimize your CD burning experience.

For optimising Windows XP, you should have at least 256 MB RAM and also you should not run too many memory resident program at the same time.

For recording MP3 on a audio tape directly, You should use a stereo audio connector, one end of which should go to the Audio Out or Speaker socket of your sound card and the other end should be connected to the audio in of your Cassette player. You can simply play and record at the same time.

Q I have a Gateway with Pentium III 800 MHz, with dual booting, RedHat and Windows ’98 Se. When I boot to Linux, the screen display is okay. But when I boot to Windows, the screen goes blank after the initial Windows logo. However, the system boots, since when I enter the password, the system runs and does the auto virus check. Unfortunately, I do not have the system rescue diskette. Please let me know if there is any solution as I have some applications whose original diskettes are not available with me.

A If you are able to boot into Windows, then there should not be any problem for making a rescue diskette. As you can simply go in Control Panel and then click on Add / Remove programs and then select the option Windows Setup and create a rescue diskette. However if you are not able to open Windows at all, this is what you want to say, then I would suggest that you start the system in safe mode, by hitting F8 at the startup and choosing the option of Safe mode from the list of various options for booting. Safe mode would start your system and you would be able to make a rescue diskette. Also, from the list of options mentioned above you can also choose to boot by the Last known good configuration. This may also solve your problem. However, I would suggest that you start in Safe mode and make a recovery diskette.

Q My Windows ’98 SE randomly freezes, especially when I use the Internet. I have an Intel Celeron PII 450, 192 MeGS RAM, a 20 gig hard drive and use Internet Explorer 6.0. Several reinstalls, including three low-level formats of the disk and clean reinstalls have not been able to shake this problem. I don’t believe that it’s a hardware problem, because I have a second hard drive that runs SuSE Linux, from which I am writing you. That system works fine.

I’ve tried Microsoft’s solutions, which are few, and which have not worked. The freeze locks the entire computer, and it does not allow for Ctrl +Alt + Del, I have to turn off the machine and turn it back on, or hit reset.

Help would be appreciated. I hope I have given you all the details that you need.

A. Thanks for providing all the necessary details. The basic problem I see in your case is of service pack of Internet Explorer. All you need to do to solve your problem is download and install service pack(s) from Microsoft’s Website and restart your system, I am sure this will solve your problem.

For all your computer-related problems contact Dr Tribune at drtribune@tribuneindia.com