Q. (AskDacs) I have problems with getting a lot of popups when I am using Internet Explorer (5.5 on Windows 98SE). If I bring up Task Manager with the Ctrl-Alt-Del combination, I see an application named hostak.exe. I don’t know where it came from or how it got there. If I delete it the popups are reduced, but eventually they (and hostak.exe) comes back. Can anyone tell me what it is, where it came from, and how to get rid of it? A. Several had reported seeing similar, and all thought that it is related to a web browser add-on “Cool Web Search”. It is suggested that you run AdAware and SpyBot Search & Destroy, CWS Shredder and HiJack This – these are all programs that identify spyware, malware etc. With HiJack This, you will get a log that you post onto various online forums where you will get instructions as to what to remove. Q. I am having problems getting into secure web sites – I don’t get any pages that require HTTPS access. I get ‘timed out’ error messages only. I am using Charter Communications to access the internet, ZoneAlarm firewall, McAfee anti-virus. This has been for a week now. A. There were several suggestions: You may have activated the McAfee firewall with ZoneAlarm also running. You may have a worm installed that has hammered your TCP/IP protocol stack (usually implemented in winsock.32 or wsock32.dll) You may have SSL disabled (see TOOLS/ INTERNET OPTIONS / ADVANCED and work down to the SECURITY section and make sure that you have the SSL components turned on. Q. When I do a backup of my C: drive, I see hundreds if not thousands of files in TEMP folders being backed up. Shouldn’t these files have been deleted by whatever process created them? A. Yes. Any file in a TEMP folder with a create date prior to the time of your last boot is fair game for deletion. Programs should delete them, but seldom do. Most programs figure that Windows will do the clean up once the space consumed by temp files reaches the level set by your options. Additionally, your web browser will put many files in the cache in anticipation of your returning to the web page and thus needing the image files again. You can clean this up via your internet options (TOOLS / INTERNET OPTIONS / GENERAL tab click on the DELETE FILES to get rid of them. In settings you can control how much space to allocate to the cache. Q. Has anyone installed XP’s Service Pack 2, and if so, have there been any problems with installing it or with applications? A. Several had reported that they had done the download (about 80MB) and done the installation. There were no reported problems. Microsoft has a page that lists known problems: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=884130
Q. Lots of programs want to put their files somewhere within the “My Documents” folder. That’s on my C: drive which is getting crowded. I have a huge D: drive that none of them want to use. Can I change this? A. In Windows XP, right-click on the My Documents folder and select Properties. There will be a field which points to the actual location. Below that is a “Move” button which will let you change its location, such as to your D: drive. Alternatively, most programs let you control the default location via a properties page, which might be under the FILE or the EDIT or the TOOLS menu. Q. Not a question but rather a “you might be interested in this” item: I will be traveling with a digital camera and really don’t want to take a notebook computer with me. There is a new device by MicroSolutions called “Roadstor”. It is an all-in-one device that is a card reader, CD-burner, DVD-player. It can drive a TV for viewing. You have options of zooming, rotating etc. images as you view them. Q. I get a “Disk Full” message from Word 97 when there are several giga-bytes available. A. There are several things that are known to cause this. For example, if you are running AT&T’s mail it runs a task bgmail.exe, or if you have corrupted files on the drive. See KB article 137918. It can happen if you have corrupted image files as part of your document. But perhaps the first thing you should do is see if you have installed the service packs for Office 97—you can still get it at http://www.softwarepatch.com/office/officesr2.html. |
| Bruce Preston is president of West Mountain Systems, a consultancy in Ridgefield, CT specializing in database applications. A DACS director, Bruce also leads the Access SIG. Members may send tech queries to Bruce at askdacs@dacs.org. |
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