Q. I have acquired a new machine that came with Microsoft Windows XP Home. I would much rather be using Windows 98. Can I un-install Windows XP Home and put Windows 98 on the machine. A. You can not actually uninstall Windows XP as it would leave you without an operating system. When you install an operating system upgrade' you are given the option of keeping the prior operating system available for restoration. If you really want Windows 98, then your only option is to just install it over' Windows XP. Windows 98 is likely to be able to support your hardware, there were no major hardware changes in the past few years that require XP. After saying all of this, we must still ask the question "Why don't you want XP?" If it is because you do not like the "look and feel" of Windows XP, you can trivially change XP so that it looks like the classic Windows' - right click on an empty area of the desktop, select Properties', and then select the "Windows Classic" theme. Lastly, you should be aware that as of Dec. 31, 2002, Microsoft will discontinue all support of Windows 98. Q. Last month I reported a problem with my dial-up networking to the internet in that the modem kept dropping the line, but Windows did not detect it. This month I report that having replaced the OEM modem with a name brand' modem the problem has completely disappeared. Can anyone explain why Windows did not report that the line was dropped? A. No, it appears that the modem just never got around to telling Windows that the line was dropped - probably a flaw in your hardware or associated driver. Q. Has anyone used PC TuneUp, and can report upon it? It claims to make PCs run must better. A. No, and few believe the hype that you often find in the e-mails or associated web pages that they link to. Q. I tried to cleanup my machine and run Uninstall various applications. The Uninstaller complains that the link to the uninstall information is broken. A. The uninstall information is usually stored in the application's folder (usually within Program Files/vendorname/applicationname). If you previously removed' the application by deleting that folder, then the uninstall information will be gone. This infomation includes, among other things, pointers to the entries in the registery that were placed there at installation time. The link to the uninstall information is one of those links. If you would feel better by having a clean list in the add/remove programs' list, take a look in the system registery at the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows \CurrentVersion\Uninstall. Alternatively, there are commercial products and shareware programs available. You might look at Unclean2, which you can find at www.pcmag.com Q. I run Netscape 7, and I get a lot of pop-up windows complaining about CERTIFICATES. What are these? A. Part of the HTTPS (Secure web pages) is authentication - making sure that a page comes from where it claims to come from. There are several certification authorities, such as Verisign, which will research an organization and upon completion, if appropriate, issue a digital certificate. If you go to a secure website, part of the process involves validation of the certificate. Your browser is complaining that it can not find proof that the certificate. In some cases, a certificate may be issued by a second-tier issuing agency, and for some reason it is not possible to traverse the chain between the second-tier agency and a primary. There isn't much you can do other than decide to go to a different page or ignore that the site may not be secure or validated. Q. My browser has been crashing a lot lately. Any suggestions? A. If the pages you are visiting have Java, it may be that you either have the Java Virtual Machine de-activated, or an older version of the Microsoft Java engine. (Microsoft's JVM was found to be in violation of the licensing agreement with Sun - the judgement forced them to roll back to a much older, feature-constrained version.) You might try to download the Sun virtual machine. Q. My Freecell is corrupted. How do I restore it? A. You can probably do it by going into Windows Setup (in Add/Remove Programs--central tab) and in the list of components find Accessories, and within that, find GAMES. Expand the list and delete Freecell. Exit Add/Remove to force the uninstall. Then repeat the process and install Freecell. |
Bruce Preston is president of West Mountain Systems, a consultancy in Ridgefield, CT, specializing in database applications. A DACS director and moderator of the Random Access segment at the monthly general meetings, Bruce also leads the Access SIG. |