Home Computer Aid

Immediate Help

If you need immediate, realtime help with an urgent software or hardware issue, call your hardware and/or software vendor for support. If you don't have support, don't want to pay for support, or don't like waiting on the phone for support go to a forum like WindowsForum.org, or CNET Computer Forums. They can offer free help often within hours of the time you post your question. I like a smaller place like NeoPlanet, but some people like bigger sites like CNET. Those options are pretty useful if your computer is really in bad shape because of a virus, trojan, worm, or spyware or malware. If you want help from a forum, make a screen name, then ask your question with as much detail about your problem as possible. Look around a bit before you post and see how others have posted questions. If your computer is working well enough for you to do the things below, read on...

Update Windows and “harden” your system.

Even if you have your system protected by antivirus software, scumware scanning, and firewalls, your system can still be vulnerable.

Some attacks focus on windows flaws and can infect your machine before antivirus companies can find them and add them to their signature updates, and sometimes they can infect you even when your Antivirus is up to date if Windows is not.

Hardening your system

For most home users, hardening your system consists of removing unneeded software, patching what you have, and making sure you turn off services such as file, print, and Internet connection sharing unless you absolutely need them.

Service Packs and Patches

Keep your system up to date by doing all the Critical and Recommended updates and patches. Allow the system to create roll back information in case a patch adversely affects your system. To do Windows Update on a Windows XP system, go to Start, All Programs, Windows Update (it's way at the top of the All Programs menu).

I recommend allowing your system to alert you that updates are available, but not to allow the system to download updates on its own. You can go to Start, Control Panel and double click on Automatic Updates in XP and choose Download Updates for me but let me choose when to install them. If Windows Update isn’t working for you, you should still be able to update your system by going to the Windows Update site updating manually.

You should also remember to update Microsoft Office, if you use it, and check with vendors to update their software periodically.

Windows Tuning and Maintenance

Family computers tend to accumulate programs and temporary files unless you periodically remove them. Hard drives also develop problems which should be identified. Every few weeks, it is good to do the following:

Remove unneeded programs - Every program you install takes up hard drive space and adds things to the Windows registry. Some programs also run in the background taking up memory.

To remove unneeded programs, check in the start menu for an Uninstall option for the program you want to get rid of. If it’s not there, go to Start, Settings, Control Panel (Start, Control Panel in XP), and double click on the Add/Remove Programs icon. Scroll through the list of installed programs, select the one(s) you want to remove, and click Remove. An uninstall routine should run and remove the program.

The fewer programs you have installed, the less vulnerable your computer is.

Clean the registry - Every program you install adds entries to the Windows Registry; the Windows Registry is the central repository of information about your system. If your registry becomes cluttered, Windows gets slow and can malfunction. MaceCraft's Reg Supreme has a free trial period. After the trial, it's well worth the $12.95 to own it!

Control startup - Windows 98, Me, and XP come with a program called msconfig that allows you to control what runs at startup more easily. The program is available for Windows 2000 too. Download msconfig 2000 here. Save it to the C:\Windows\System32\ directory.

To run msconfig, go to Start, Run, and type mconfig in the Run box, then hit Enter. The System Configuration Utility will open. Click on the Start Up tab, and uncheck any programs you don’t want to run at startup.

Make sure you leave your antivirus software and firewall software checked, so they can run in the background.

When you’re done with your settings, you’ll be asked to reboot. After you reboot, you will get a pop-up window telling you you’re using msconfig, and asking if you want to continue using it. Say yes, and check the box that says not to show that message again.

If something doesn’t work, for example printing, go back into msconfig, and enable HP related stuff, if you have an HP printer.

Internet Explorer - There are numerous security problems built into Internet Explorer. I don’t address them here, but I will tell some settings you can use to make IE work better.

Windows XP Service Pack 2 - If you have Windows XP and you've installed Service Pack 2, it has a built in pop-up blocker, and makes Internet Explorer a bit more secure.

Temporary Internet Files - By default, Internet Explorer reserves a percentage of your hard drive for storing temp files. With big hard drives that can be hundreds of megabytes of temp files. I recommend reducing the size of the Temp Directory, and periodically deleting the files and cookies as follows:

• Reducing temp folder size and cleaning out old files - Open Internet Explorer. From the Tools menu, select Internet Options. The Internet Options window will open. On the General Tab, you’ll see the Temporary Internet Files section. Click on the Settings button and reduce the size of the Temporary Internet files folder to 10 MB. After that, click the Delete Files, check the box in Delete all offline content, and click Ok. Then click on Delete Cookies. This will not reset your Favorite sites, but it will clean a lot of junk out.



• History - In the same Internet Options window above, I set the Days to keep pages in history down to 10. You should also click on Clear history. Again, this will not reset your Favorite sites.

Reset Web Settings - You can try to get Internet Explorer back to its default settings by opening Internet Explorer, selecting Tools on the menu, then Internet Options. In the Internet Options window, click on the Programs tab. Click on Reset Web Settings, yes in the Reset Web Settings warning that pops up. If you like your present home page, and it's not MSN, uncheck the Also reset my homepage box. If spyware is keeping you from being able to do any of these settings, or they don't appear to have any affect on what you're trying to change, please see my Spyware Removal page and/or visit one of the forums listed there for help.

Alternatives to IE

Microsoft has made an effort to make Internet Explorer more secure with Windows XP Service Pack 2, but many aren't convinced that it's secure enough. You could try some free alternatives like Mozilla Firefox, Netscape, or Opera.

Clean your hard drive - Along with temporary Internet files accumulating on your PC, the operating system seems to collect temp (*.tmp) files too. You can get rid of them by running Disk Cleanup.

To run Disk Cleanup, go to Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Cleanup. I recommend selecting Recycle Bin, and Temporary Files. Click OK and you’re done! If you can’t get Disk Cleanup to run, you can manually delete temp files by doing a search for *.tmp files. Once the search is complete, click on the top file, scroll to the bottom file, hold down the shift key and clikc on the last file. This should select all of the files found. With all selected, hit the delete key. Say yes when asked whether you want to delete them.

98/Me hard drives - Go to Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Scan Drive. You’ll want to do a full surface scan. Select options that scan the drive and fix errors. It will take a while to run.

2000/XP hard drives - Double click My Computer, right click on the C: Drive, and select Properties. Click on the Tools tab, and click Check Now, under Error Checking. In the window that opens, select Automatically fix system errors, and Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors. You will probably get a warning saying the scan cannot be run now, and asking if you want it to run the next time the system reboots. Select Yes.

Backing Up Data

If you have any critical data, make sure to copy it to a CD, CDR-W, Zip Drive, or USB Memory Device. Data is information you have entered. There is usually no need to backup programs, because you can reinstall them from the CD's if needed. However, if you have programs such as Quicken, or use a word processing program, you will want to save the information you put into those programs (quicken data, or word processing documents) to an external source along with saving them to your Hard Drive.