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WSsj_ken
AskWoody LoungerLast week when this story broke, even though I do not have a Levano computer, I did a search on Superfish. I went to a couple of links for it which gave information to check if you are infected with Superfish. I looked in Control Panel/ Program and Features as instructed and did not find anything. The next time I turned on my computer and tried to open IE9 I got a message “program failed to load” and nothing would make it run. Luckily I had just done an Image backup so I was able to restore things back before I had looked into Superfish. I do not know how reading a posting on the subject or looking in the Program and Features section caused a problem, but it did. It is a dangerous world out there.
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WSsj_ken
AskWoody LoungerEasy way to fix the problem would be to backup you data, re-install the backup image from before the install of IE11, then reload your data, and you are back to where you were. I would go to the Windows Update page and turn off automatic install of updates. Then when the update for IE11 appears uncheck it and right click and hide the IE11 update so it will not ask again.
You are doing regular image backups and keeping several past image backup copies just in case something goes wrong, right? -
WSsj_ken
AskWoody LoungerThe current Malicious Software Removal Tool can be downloaded here :
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/malicious-software-removal-tool-details.aspx
I download it monthly at the Tuesday Windows Update time instead of allowing Windows Update to download it. That way I control when it runs and can run it once a week when I do my usual security scans.
Another good security tool from Microsoft is the Windows Defender Offline stand alone sweeper.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/what-is-windows-defender-offline
After downloading the program, you run it and it loads the scanner and current data file onto a USB flash drive. You boot off the USB flash drive and it runs from there. So every file on your computer can be searched. Careful to us a blank USB flash drive. The program formats the USB flash drive so nothing undesirable is on the USB flash drive. You should run the program to install the updated data file onto the USB flash drive before doing the scan.
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WSsj_ken
AskWoody LoungerThis seems like a need with a simple solution. Why isn’t someone selling a small air compressor/blower for cleaning computers? There are small vacuum cleaners available for cleaning computer key boards. A small compressor/blower would cost maybe $15-20, which would be a lot less than buying a can of air every month. Is there a conspiracy with the canned air makers to block anyone from making a small air compressor/blower?
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WSsj_ken
AskWoody LoungerTry the “MIT Guide to Lock Picking”. If you can’t stop spam, maybe just pick it.
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WSsj_ken
AskWoody LoungerI have had an HP Photo Smart ink jet printer for a couple of years. I do not print much and sometimes go a week or more without printing. I have never had the ink dry up. Maybe using cheaper refills causes the print head to clog? If so, the cost savings of using refills does not seem much of a savings.
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WSsj_ken
AskWoody LoungerIf you do not have the manual for your computer, just log in to the manufacturers web site and download it, or E-mail their support and ask how to get to the bios screen.
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WSsj_ken
AskWoody LoungerYou do not change the BIOS. You only tell it which device to boot from. When you restart the computer, as soon as the screen goes blank start tapping the F12 key. The start up process only gives you a second or two to jump in and change the order for booting(this time only, you are not changing anything permanently).
I routinely run the WDO from a USB flash drive. The USB Flash drive must be blank, the install process formats the USB flash drive, I guess to make sure there is no malware on the USB flash drive. Weekly I run a Norton Anti-virus full scan and a Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool( I download it from Microsoft monthly instead of having it run with the Tuesday updates so I can run it whenever I want). Then the Windows Defender Offline from the USB flash drive. WDO has twice found infections the other scans missed. Both times I re-installed from the last Windows 7 Image backup I had made. Then ran the scans again, with a clean machine. -
WSsj_ken
AskWoody LoungerTo find out the size of the drive, on the desk top click on the “Computer” icon. This will give you a list of your drives. Right click on a drive and select “Properties”. This will show you the size of the drive. “C” is the system drive. Any external drives will have later letters assigned to them.
A backup should not be on the same drive you are trying to backup. If the drive fails, you will lose everything. Seagate makes a good external USB 1 TeraByte drive that has lots of room for backing up you computer, and is reasonably priced.
Beside the regular image backup, you should also do frequent backups of the “Libraries” folders, My Documents, My Pictures, My Music,My Videos. With an external drive connected, click on the desktop “computer’ icon. A USB Flash drive of 8GBytes should be large enough for these folders. Click on the external drive icon to open it. In another window again click on the desktop “computer” icon. At the left of the screen is a list for “Libraries”. Just right click on the folders in the Libraries and copy them. Then, open the external drive and right click on the screen and paste the folder into the external drive. -
WSsj_ken
AskWoody LoungerI use Windows 7 Image backup all the time and no problems. I have even needed to use the Image once after a bad program installation, and back to where I was, no problem.
First, the image backup is big, like 50 GBytes. So you need a large drive to handle it. I use a Seagate 1Tera Byte USB external drive. An external drive is best since you do not want the backup on the same computer in case something bad happens. Also, it is good to do a backup of the data in the Libraries so if the computer has to be replaced you can copy the data to the new computer.
Also, when using the Windows 7 Image backup you need to do the “Create a system repair disc” once. This is for when your hard drive crashes or dies and you need to do a complete reformat or replace the drive. -
WSsj_ken
AskWoody LoungerHopefully when you unplug the drives you click on the drive and eject the drive. If you just unplug it maybe that is why the drive letters are still there?
You might try clicking on the drive letter and see if you can eject the drive. Maybe that will clear the drive letters? -
WSsj_ken
AskWoody LoungerI also get the problem. I have found that changing user and then back SOMETIMES makes the missing icon appear.
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WSsj_ken
AskWoody LoungerNo. You just have to be ready and fast with the camera.
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WSsj_ken
AskWoody LoungerI had a problem once where the error message flashed to fast to write it down.
Someone suggested taking a picture of the event with a camera.
With a picture of the error message it was easier to track down and fix the problem. -
WSsj_ken
AskWoody LoungerDoing a Windows 7 Image backup is great, and easy. It allows you to recover from a disaster back to a previous good state. Restoring your system after a disaster from the hard disk is easy. But you also need to make a System Repair Disk. This disk allows you to recover from a disk failure. Without it if your disk drive crashes you have no way to restore the image backup you made.
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Patch reliability is unclear, but widespread attacks make patching prudent. Go ahead and patch, but watch out for potential problems. |
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