Computer problems/solutions

wetibbe · #1 02-22-2012, 10:16 AM

As a good Samaritan I will relate some of my computer problems for benefit of others.

I have been involved with desk top PCs since the inception. In fact I attended the very first IBM introductory sales promotion in about 1983. That was the 8086 with 5 1/2 inch floppy disks. There wasn't any software. I bought a computer for my company. The IBM salesman was accompanied by a software writing company which I contracted with. All in all the experience was a disaster.

Since then I have either bought or supplied many computers both for personal use and business. Each year I watched new developments, new innovations is hardware and software. Remarkable achievements. But many problems too. The computers proved to be very reliable. Virtually no hardware problems. Few software problems. Most of the problems came from outside third party hackers, worms, Trojans, spy-ware.

Anyone who runs a computer will eventually, over a few years, encounter two problems. #1. The rapid advances in technology and software will obsolete the old computer so that it no longer has the speed, memory, processor to deal with the modernization. #2. The computer will gradually get loaded with extraneous spy-ware, worms, invaders, hackers until it runs slower and slower and gradually many functions will become immobilized.

When upgrading operating systems to the newer version I would buy the upgrade disk. That has proved to be a mistake. A fresh, new disk with full features contains features that can analyze and repair whereas the upgrade does not.

I learned some costly lessons. I ordered some remedial software on line that was supposed to clean up my system. It did not. It made everything worse. Eventually things got so bad that I had to order recovery disks from the manufacturer. They take the computer back to the day it was purchased. Any files, after sale software, word processing, is/are costly. It is necessary to re-purchase new which costs hundreds of dollars. Now I keep a duplicate back up computer. I have also installed two external hard droves where I store duplicates of everything.

Over the past month things went from bad to worse. My Windows security wasn't working, I couldn't complete my taxes with Turbo Tax, couldn't download the State forms, Couldn't make Adobe Reader work, couldn't download updates for Quicken and several others. I spent hours on the phone with various Tech Support. Did not resolve the issues. Finally I phoned Norton, my backup security software. They recommended "Guruaid" a specialty company that resolves issues. I subscribed to the annual maintenance program, $159.99, unlimited support for all software, Norton recommended and Microsoft approved.

On the first session two days ago the Tech resolved all problems but one in minutes. The unresolved issue was windows firewall. Yesterday I went on line in a chat session with Shawn Smith. He took over my computer remotely and resolved the issue in minutes. Absolutely amazing. Now everything is working fine, I boot up twice as fast, the various browsing is faster, no glitches.

The interesting part is that I regularly ran Norton scans, Used Windows Defender and Windows firewall. The scans said there were NO issues, no problems. Guruaid told me that they found many problems embedded and cleaned them out. They also said the Norton software was immobilizing windows firewall and conflicting. Presently Norton and windows firewall are both functional and apparently at peace with eachother.

I won't post the Guruaid web address because this site apparently doesn't want advertising or HTML's but I will suggest Googling them. Based on my experience I will recommend them. These are serious professionals who get results.

wetibbe · #2 03-01-2012, 07:29 AM

Following up from February 22nd.

Everything working like a fine Swiss watch. Boot up in a flash. Browse here and there easily. Play You Tube and other videos, food preparations, flint napping, fishing, how to, equipment demonstrations, documentaries and on and on.

Windows firewall is working fine as is Norton. Regularly receive automatic updates.

I even went back to the Turbo-tax file that was messed up from the original disk *( I also did my taxes on line on the Turbo-tax website ). Down loaded the State forms, completed all and stored it on an external hard drive. So I have two files, on my external drive and on the Turbo-tax website. Next year the data will be available for fill in for 2012 taxes.

Ayatollahgondola · #3 03-01-2012, 07:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wetibbe

Following up from February 22nd.

Everything working like a fine Swiss watch. Boot up in a flash. Browse here and there easily. Play You Tube and other videos, food preparations, flint napping, fishing, how to, equipment demonstrations, documentaries and on and on.

Windows firewall is working fine as is Norton. Regularly receive automatic updates.

I even went back to the Turbo-tax file that was messed up from the original disk *( I also did my taxes on line on the Turbo-tax website ). Down loaded the State forms, completed all and stored it on an external hard drive. So I have two files, on my external drive and on the Turbo-tax website. Next year the data will be available for fill in for 2012 taxes.

OK; Now you're just bragging

Norton is not the only fish out there. But, most of what you describe is true. Norton takes over as the firewall when you install it, and if you look at it afterwards (the firewall), it says it's off. But...when you let the firewall run everything, and let exceptions to it through, Norton won't catch anything harmful after that until it's already taken root. Norton will do its' job, but most of us allow things through just to have them. Once you allow them, they aren't seen as threats anymore, and then they get bigger and more consuming without you knowing about them until they overburden your operations. I'm always removing stuff from the startup menu, and then afterwards, run registry check again, because if it's still in there, the boot up will still do something with it, even if it's just taking extra time to examine or resolve it. But the bottom line is, microsoft and other programmers are always designing new stuff that won't be very compatible with old systems. that's their way of making us all obsolete if we don't move with them at their insistence.

wetibbe · #4 03-03-2012, 03:52 AM

Now I have received E-mail confirmation from Turbo Tax that my refund has been processed. That is for the original disk shipped in November 2011. So I only paid once and for the on line processing on their website plus electronic filing.

Good things have happened since Guruaid got involved.

wetibbe · #5 03-07-2012, 08:46 AM

A couple of little glitches became exposed:

* Microsoft Streets and Trips: Software with maps and driving directions. I couldn't open the site. However, I had saved some of the data on my hard drive and external drive. The desk top icon said insert the disk. That wasn't supposed to be necessary. Whatever went wrong I don't know. However, I re-installed the software and it straightened out everything. I can now open the program as normal. All files were also saved.

* Adobe Reader: Avery http://www.avery.com/avery/en_us/ produces many paper products for a variety of requirements. These products are sold in stores such as Staples. I had been printing my own business cards and had saved the cards on my computer. During the above described event, before Guru-aid resolved issues, I tried to print more cards. Avery has a feature allowing the saving of customer items on their server. You must have an account and log in. Since I couldn't print more cards I tried the free download again and got an error message that I already had Avery on my computer. Couldn't' download. So I deleted Avery Reader and tried again., No - couldn't download. Apparently my saved files in my computer were lost. I did download Avery Air and Avery Chrome.

Being stuck I phoned Avery Tech support and we went through the problems. As it turns out the reason I couldn't access my account on Avery's site, or re-register and sign in, or download my card file, was because I didn't have Adobe Reader installed. So I downloaded. *( This was after Guru-aid fixed my problems ). Happily the download was successful and I printed more cards without problems. I now have a file on Avery's computer and saved the file to my hard drive and external drive as well. And placed an icon on my desktop. There is more involvement but it is probably too potentially confusing to explain in detail. Basically, whenever I tried to open the Avery file, before the fix, I would open Turbo-tax. That had to be changed too. After downloading Adobe Reader that problem resolved itself. Apparently the computer searched for some program to open the business card file and since Turbo-tax was a PDF it went there incorrectly.

Since Guru-aid fixed my problems I now have two different Hot-mail display formats. I have an HP 2159m wide screen monitor which allows two pages to display side by side simultaneously. One Hot-mail display shows my incoming mails and has a feature that, when I place my mouse arrow in a message it displays the content side by side on the monitor. By sliding to the next message it displays the content side by side.

The other display is my normal display that I had before, simply listing the messages. I really do not know what happened. Since my fixes I am regularly receiving automatic download updates from everyone so I cannot separate/ attribute the improvements to Guru-aid or to the updates. But overall there have been some very impressive improvements.