dacs.doc electric

Random Access
May 2002

Bruce Preseton, moderator

Members who are unable to attend the General Meeting may submit questions to 'askdacs@aol.com' by the day prior to the meeting. We will attempt to get an answer for you. Please provide enough detail, as we will not be able to ask for additional information. Q. (AskDacs) - Running Windows 98 with IE 6 - I am having a problem with doing a disk defrag because an application called RNAAPP keeps running. How do I stop it? A. RNAAPP is a component that supports dial-up networking (among other things) and should not, on its own, cause defrag to stop. However, if we get a little paranoid here, you may have an application that is running invisibly that is making use (or trying to make use) of RNAAPP--such as the ElKERN worm which usually is installed by the W32.Klez virus. It reproduces by sending itself out through your internet connection. Make sure that you have scanned for it with an up-to-date anti-virus tool. Q. I have loaded Windows XP Home Edition on my machine, but would like to be able to boot Windows 98 as well. Can I do this? A. When you installed Windows XP, if you had an available partition, it would have asked you which partition to put it onto. If you had put it onto a different partition, then XP would have also loaded the boot manager that would let you do selective booting. This is essentially the same boot loader as used by Windows NT and Windows 2000. However, if you did not have or specify a separate partition, then the installation would have replaced your Windows 98 such that you can not boot it. Q. I have a laptop that has McAfee anti-virus with some subscription time left on it. I received Symantec Norton System Works with my scanner--can I install it without the anti-virus and then install the anti-virus later so that the subscription doesn't time-out? A. The installer might let you install without the anti-virus, but the registration process doesn't really care which components you installed. We are going to guess that the anti-virus subscription will start as soon as you install. By the way, two points to consider: first, the subscription renewal is only about $7/year, and second, by the time you do get around to it, there will probably be a newer release out there anyway. Q. I am running Windows 98, and received an e-mail which has two untitled attachments. I don't want the attachments, but I can't seem to delete them either. I am using Eudora 5. A. The attachments are usually located in C:\Program Files\Qualcomm\ Eudora Mail\Attach. They should have created time stamps equivalent to the inbox timestamp. Note that if the attached files have a name the same as a file that you have already received, the filename will be ‘bumped' with a numeric sequence number. Also, if the e-mail was authored by certain Microsoft mail agents a native-mode file may have been included. Check by looking at the time stamps. Q. I have an [Windows] XP laptop machine and [Windows] Me on another machine. They arbitrarily grab the dial-up networking adapter and try to dialout. What is going on? A. Several products, including those by Intuit and Symantec/Norton have components that look for updates. For Intuit's Quicken and QuickBooks products, I believe it is QAAGENT. If you dig into Options you can find where it can be disabled. Alternatively, a utility such as StartStop (or Microsoft's MSCONFIG for later versions of Windows) will let you disable the auto-startup. Another possibility is that there are some programs that fall into the category known as "Spyware"--which monitor your internet "click" usage and record it and then periodically send this data to the ‘mother ship' where it supposedly is used (supposedly anonymously) for statistical purposes. If you visit the Gibson website (www.grc.com) or look at this particular page: www.grc.com/optout.htm Another way to identify them is to run a personal firewall product, which if properly configured, will warn you if an application tries to connect to an ‘outside' system. Q. I am running IE 6 and getting lots of pop-ups. Can I prevent them? A. You might start with POW! which has been well-reviewed. Q. Is there an equivalent to MSCONFIG in Windows XP? A. Yes, but it is done via a different mechanism. XP is based upon Windows NT/2000 and is setup for multiple user profiles, etc., where MSCONFIG is system-wide for Windows 98, 98SE and Me. You will probably find what you want if you investigate the Microsoft Management Console, or "MMC". Q. I have an old Windows 95 computer with 24MB of 72-pin memory. I want to run with a newer web browser and think I need more memory. Is it available and inexpensive? A. For old machines, your memory SIMMs must be in pairs in size, and all memory must be the same size. Some of it will be expensive. You can run IE 4 on your machine as it is currently, but for the newer features you would need more. Alternatively, if you need a ‘light weight' web browser (meaning not all of the bells and whistles and/or Microsoft-specific capabilities) you might look into the Opera web browser. If you are still using the original Windows 95 Dial-up networking, you should get the MS Dial-UP Networking 1.2 patch.