TroubleFixers

Virus Effect Remover – Remove Virus Infections and Damage By Viruses, Trojans and Worms

Rohit — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:40:00 +0000

Trouble:

Virus infection is one such big issue for a layman computer user as it any virus infection may result in loss and corruption of important data. Even when a virus is removed form your computer by the antivirus installed on your computer the infections and other damages caused by the virus may still remain.

The infections which remains after virus removal includes invisible folder options in windows explorer, task manager still disabled, registry editing disabled and some autorun.inf files created by the virus in the root drive of each partition. In this article we will share the methods to repair such damages.

Fix:

Virus Effect remover comes to rescue in such a situation as it allows you remove al most all the virus infections caused by different types of viruses, you can do a lot more with this free tool on virus infected computer, to remove the virus also it could be of great help

Some Key Features and Functionalities include the following in virus effect remover

1. You can scan suspicious services

2. Kill virus process with this tool

3. Fix Disabled Task Manager and Registry Editing

4. Launch MSconfig

5. System File Checker

6. Show Suspicious Files

7. Enable the disabled Run prompt

Some process can be added to the blacklist so that they cannot be executed anymore, this setting could be required for the identified virus process

Download Virus Effect Remover

Lock Idle Computer Automatically After Some Time

Rohit — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:23:28 +0000

Trouble:

We just got a mail from one of our reader asking the following question,

Hey troublefixers, you guys has been doing a great job - I want to lock my computer automatically in my office after some time of inactivity – I want to do this on my office PC so that no one other than me can access or read my mails in my absence

This is quite a common requirement when you may want lock your workstation when you are working or left from your seat, as keeping your system unlocked can drag you in trouble of stealing some precious data or writing some party mails from your account.

Fix:

There could be different ways with which you can lock your computer after some minutes of inactivity, however the simplest way to lock your computer is by running any screensaver and click the option which ask for password when you resume from screensaver. Either is it Windows XP or Windows Vista you can use your absence.

For Windows XP

1. Right click on desktop >> click properties and click the screen saver tab

2. now select the screensaver and specify the time and check the option which says On Resume, password protect

3. click Ok and you are ready to go.

For Windows Vista or Windows 7

1. Right click on the desktop and select personalize

2. Click Screensaver

3. click the check box which says on resume, display login screen and click OK

Apply Restrictions And Prevent Users From Changing Files On Your Hard Drive – SteadyState

Rohit — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:35:40 +0000

Trouble:

One of our reader asked how can he revert all the changes made by user after the user log off or system restart, this is quite a custom requirement when the you want to remove all the changes being made to your computer made by your cousin or any other user who had used your computer once in a while may just for playing games.

Removing all the changes made by the user will remove all the created files by that user and software being installed by the user, you can more over apply certain restrictions also on the users using your computer, all this can be achieved by a free utility by Microsoft called Steady State

Fix:

Steady State is on such tool which allows you to set computer restrictions, schedule software updates, and protect your hard disk contents to get changed.

Computer Restrictions Includes

You can apply various restrictions like remove shutdown, turn off options from start menu, prevent users from creating folders on c drive and also prevent the use of USB storage devices to prevent virus infection

Protect Hard Disk From Changes

You can choose to changes done by the user at system restart or retain the changes temporarily

Download SteadyState

Naevius Free USB Antivirus - Protection Against Virus Infection via USB Storage Device

abhishek — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:41:31 +0000

Trouble:

It is quite common these days when your computer may get infected with a virus or trojan from the portable storage devices like pen drive, mp3 players and other USB storage devices. All these devices which includes USB Flash drive, removable hard disk, Memory card, SD, MicroSD, MMC, USB Camera, USB Audio player, Mobile phone, iPod, Iphone etc.

Naevius USB Antivirus can protect your computer your computer fro all these different viruses which come from these USB storage devices

Fix:

This small antivirus is completely free and easy to use and does not uses much CPU memory. As compared to other anti viruses you don’t need to update this antivirus program

It will automatically detect and delete any anti virus found on your flash drive connected as shown in the image above.

Download Naevius USB Antivirus

Stop User From Logging In Windows XP In Specific Time Interval

Rohit — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:36:08 +0000

Trouble:

We received a problem from one of our reader who wants to restrict logon hours in windows xp, on his son user account as his son keeps playing games on the computer all the time.

Playing games is always fun for children but this could be a great problem if it impacts their studies too much. In order to restrict logon hours in windows there is hardly any freeware but it can be easily through simple commands prompt.

We have covered the same topic for Widows Vista- Restrict Computer Usage In Windows Vista

You can use the following commands to restrict logon or access to windows for specific users in windows xp.

Fix:

1. Open Start Menu >> Run, type “cmd” and press Enter key on the keyboard.

2. Now suppose the username for which you want to restrict windows logon in between specific time interval is Harry

To set, the time limit the user “Harry” to login Monday - Friday between 8am and 5pm, then you would need to type the following commands at the command prompt

net user Harry /time:M-F,08:00-17:00

same as above, but if you are using a 12-hour clock then type

net user Harry /time:M-F,8am-5pm

here’s a more elaborative command to specify different times for different days:

net user Harry /time:M,4pm-7pm;T-TH,16:00-18:00;F-SU,11am-9pm

These commands restrict a user from logging on, however they do not force a logoff when a user is already logged in.

Note: These logon hours do not have an effect Administrator level accounts, so first make sure that the user account does not have administrative privileges.

Whenever you want to remove the time restrictions, type the following command at the command prompt

net user Harry /time:all

3. Exit from command prompt

Restrict Computer Usage In Windows Vista

abhishek — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:18:37 +0000

Trouble:

One of our readers asked a question :

How can I set the usage time on my computer, so that I can prevent my kids to use computer too much? It is impacting their studies.

It can be the case with teacher students, employer employee, or parents and kids where user wants to restrict the user of computer to other in some way.

To this I would answer that the best way to sort it out is to talk to your kids, but if that does not work in your case, we have a solution for you. Microsoft Windows Vista as a built in feature of setting the computer usage policy.

The feature we are talking about is Parental controls. In this article we are going to discuss how you can set the parental controls and how you can use it.

Fix:

In first place, you need to have an Administrator right account. After this create a user account for your kids with limited privileges. To create a new user, go to Control Panel > User Accounts and create a new limited account if it is does not already exist.

Set up Parental Control

1. Go to Control Panel > Parental controls as shown below:

2. On Parental control Screen, select the account you want to restrict.

3. Apply the parental control and set the usage settings as shown below:

4. You can set the Web Filter to filter abusive or objectionable websites. You can restrict games and certain applications like chats etc. You can also define hours of the day for which the computer use is allowed or for which it is blocked for the user.

See the example below, in which, there allowed usage is for 4 hours each day on weekdays and 6 hours on weekends.

Hope you find the article useful and kids please don’t hate us for it.

Ask TroubleFixers – Solutions To Computer Problems – #11

Rohit — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:42:13 +0000

This is part 11 of the Ask Trouble Fixers series, we have picked up five questions out of some problems we received from our readers.

Trouble 1 :

I click on Internet Explorer, it goes to open then immediately closes and the only way I can surf the Internet is with Firefox. Is there a way of fixing this problem? - Stan

Fix:

Internet Explorer crashes sometimes due to corrupt or malicious add-ons or some other file corruption problems. You can either disable the add ons or Uninstall Internet Explorer and Install it again.

See these articles for detail:

1. Internet Explorer Crashes With Message “Iexplore.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close”

2. Uninstall Internet Explorer Completely

Trouble 2 :

My laptop uses 100% CPU when I try to open any folder.And it does not show any thing. Computer almost hangs. Does not respond to any thing at all. - Gireesh

Fix:

This usually happens due to some virus or some other malfunctioning application. See this article to solve the problem : SVCHOST Using 100% CPU and Memory

Trouble 3 :

my pc displays a message windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \system32\hal.dll - Usha

Fix:

hal.dll is an important file needed for Windows. See this article to solve hal.dll problem -

Hal.dll is Missing or Corrupt in Windows

Trouble 4 :

I have dell d800 latitude laptop and that is protected with the admin password and i don’t know the admin password can you help me how can i removed the admin password ? - Adnan

Fix:

To reset the windows admin password, see our article on : Forgot Windows Password – Reset Windows Password.

Trouble 5 :

When I download a video the video plays but the screen remains dark. I can hear the video but cannot see anything. - Steve

Fix:

The problem seems like either graphics problem or codecs problem. See the two solutions below:

1. Can Not Play Video In Windows Media Player

2. Install Graphics Cards For Windows

Hope you find these solutions useful. You can submit your problems to us at Our Submit Problem Page.

Fastest Way To Take File Or Folder Ownership In Vista

Rohit — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:27:00 +0000

Trouble:

One of our reader asked us this simple question in his mail to troublefixers

what is the fastest way to take file or folder ownership in vista ?

What is file/folder ownership?

The answer is simple, when you have the ownership of a file or folder in Windows, you can open, modify, add or delete contents from files and folders. If you don’t have ownership of a file or folder, you may get access denied errors in Windows.

See this articles for detail : Remove Access Denied Error From Folder

The most conventional way to take the file ownership is either through command prompt or through windows explorer and both of them are quite confusing to most of the layman users. But there is a third easy way to take the ownership of any file or folder by adding the option Take Ownership on the right click context menu.

Lets discuss how implement this small hack to adding take ownership option in right click.

Fix:

In order to take ownership command to right click context menu, you just need to download the following registry key and merge into your windows registry by double clicking it.

Just in case if you want to remove the ownership option from right click context menu you can download and merge the registry key inside the zip archive.

Note: The registry key is inside the zip archive you will download

Download Take / Remove Ownership Archive [ Thanks HowToGeek ]

How To Delete The Dead Shortcuts In Windows Vista / Windows XP / Windows 7

Rohit — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:39:46 +0000

Trouble:

One of our reader asked on how can he remove all the dead shortcuts of all those programs he had uninstalled from his computer but some dead or unlinked shortcuts remain there on his computer.

Microsoft has added a small utility in windows server 2003 resource kit, the small program name is ChkLnks.exe and it works not only on windows 2003 but on xp, vista and windows 7 also. With this small utility you can remove the dead shortcuts from your computer.

Lets see how to find and eliminate the dead shortcuts from you computer with ChkLnks.exe

Fix:

Firstly download the utility from here and run the executable ChkLnks.exe, you will see screen like the one shown below

now check the dead links found and click finish to remove them.

Enable / Disable Change Of Date And Time On Windows XP

abhishek — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:34:30 +0000

Trouble:

We received a mail from one of our readers asking:

How can I disable change of Date and Time on Windows Xp computer? I own an Internet Cafe and I don’t want my users to change the date and time on my Computers.

There can be more than one ways of disabling the editing of Date and Time, but we tell you one easy and convenient way of doing it on a computer which is stand alone and is not a part of any active directory.

Fix:

To disable editing, you can set up a user with limited access, not Administrator access. Now with the method we describe below, you can allow only users with Administrator rights to edit the date and time, so the limited user will not be able to change the System date and time.

Follow the steps below:

1. Go to Start > Control Panel > Administrative Templates

2. Open Local Security Policy

3. Go to Local Policy > User Rights Assignments > Change the System time , double click to open it.

4. In the below window, you will see the options to add and remove user groups. Remove the limited users from this list and those limited users will not be able to edit date and time of this computer.

You can revert the above settings to allow the users to change the date and time.