FAQS! FACTS! FAX!  197 (03/02/00)

LOCKED OUT

In Boot Camp (January 13), under Privacy and Security you assert that the password features of Windows can be defeated by most ten year olds. As a seventy year old who put an easily remembered, since forgotten, password on his taxation computations in Excel just to see what happens, is it possible to share the remedy and save several hours of work?
Dennis Body

Let that be a lesson to you! Always write down your passwords and keep them in a safe place. Several companies specialise in recovering password-protected data and there are quite a few shareware programs that can also do the job. Most of them employ the ‘brute force’ method, which simply means they go through all the possible letter number combinations – several million per minute – until they stumble on the right one. You can find out more from the following web sites:

http://www.passwordservice.com/faq.htm

http://www.elkraft.ntnu.no/~huse/xlpassword.htm

http://www.lostpassword.com/msofpass97.htm

CHILDS PLAY

On a computer at school, two children pressed reset at an obviously inopportune moment and now all the windows and displays in the screens as well as the mouse pointer are very large.  The Windows screens in the start-up sequence are OK but once the Windows 95 desktop screen comes up it is huge so we only see a small amount of the screen.

I assume I need to do a change to the Settings window in the Display part of the Control Panel.  I can get into this but cannot get down the window to do what I assume is the necessary change.  Scrolling or page down has no effect. Am I right in my assumption and if so is there any way I can get down this screen?  Is there another way of correcting the problem?  Or do I have to reload Windows 95 and so lose all the work stored on the hard disk?

Geoff Cordingley

Even if you can’t see actually the selections in Control Panel you can access them by pressing the down arrow on the keyboard, try them one at a time, pressing the Return key each time, until you get to the Display option. Alternatively restart the PC in Safe Mode by pressing the F8 key during the boot-up sequence. Windows will then load with ‘standard’ display setting and you’ll be able to get into a normally sized Control Panel.

PRIVATE VIEW

With reference Boot Camp 'Top Traumas 2' (Connected January 13),

under Privacy and security you refer to the encryption of folders using programs, which can be downloaded, from quoted shareware sites.  Unfortunately you do not name any of these programs.  

John Greenham

There are many to choose from but Pretty Good Privacy or ‘PGP’ is generally reckoned to be one of the most secure and it’s quite easy to use.

LOST FRIENDS

I see on the Boot Camp page (January 20) you are showing "Friends" wav files for the article on zip files. Would it be possible to tell me on what site they are on or, where they came from?

Len Guppy

What sharp eyes you have…The file used to illustrate the item was in fact a Friends desktop ‘theme’, containing Friends-related images, icons and sound files, to customise your PC. You can find this one, and countless other themes, screen savers and similar time-wasters at: http://cinemadesktopthemes.com/

FASTER EXIT

I have recently started using Windows 98 and one of the little irritations that I have come across is having to press "Start" on the task bar in order to shut down.  Is there a way of putting a shortcut icon for shutting down on the desktop?

Jean Goss

Yes there is, just follow these instructions. Right-click into an empty area of the desktop; select New and then Shortcut from the Menu. The create shortcut wizard starts and in the Command Line box type: ‘c:\windows\rundll.exe user.exe,exitwindows’ (omitting the quote marks of course, and watch the punctuation and spaces). Click Next, clear the name box and type in your own name for the shortcut, something like Quick Exit, then click Finish. Incidentally, the keyboard shortcut Alt + F4 is another quick way to close applications and get to the Windows Shut Down menu.

MANIC MODEM

I have a 333Mhz Pentium II PC running Window 95, with an external modem. The modem and the telephone/answering machine are plugged into the same BT socket using a two-way adaptor. There are no extension phones on the line, just the one BT phone/answer phone.

If I power-off my PC in Windows 95, but leave the modem switched on, when the telephone rings it automatically powers on the PC. If I switch-off the modem this also automatically powers on the PC. Any idea why?

Shirley Osborne

There are several possible causes for this behaviour, including buggy motherboards, which you can’t do anything about. However, it’s worth checking Power Management in Control Panel, look on the Advanced tab to see if there’s a checked item like ‘wake up on modem ring’. If not have a look at your PC’s BIOS, (basic input output system -- the program that configures your PC before Windows loads) this is normally accessed by pressing the Delete key (or a combination of keys) during boot up, there’s usually a message, something like, ‘to enter set-up program press…’. When the BIOS menu appears look for the Power Management menu, (follow the on-screen instructions to make selections). Be very careful not to make any accidental changes, you’re looking for an entry like ‘Power up on modem’, and disable if necessary.

QUIET CAPS

I followed your instructions to get an audible warning for the caps lock key (F!F!F! January 20) but it did not work when I later went into Word. I know there is nothing wrong with my speakers and volume controls. Could it be that sounds need to be activated within my Word software? I use Microsoft Office 97 Professional. Another annoying problem is that when I power on my computer my number pad key lock doesn't automatically come on. Any ideas?
Stuart Robb, Crowborough, East Sussex

Several readers had trouble with this one, it’s all to do with the fact that the caps lock bleep is not very loud and it comes from the PC’s built-in speaker – the one that bleeps when you first switch on -- not the main system speakers. Some PCs do not have this speaker fitted or connected, or it may be switched off in the PCs BIOS or disabled with a utility like Tweak UI.

To enable Num Lock at boot up use WordPad (Start > Programs > Accessories) to open Config.sys, which is in the root directory of the c:\ drive. Add the following line:  numlock=on, then Save and exit WordPad and the next time you boot up Num lock will be on.