FAQS! FACTS! FAX!  315 (28/05/02)

Q

Am I the only one on the planet using the Lotus SmartSuite word processor 'WordPro', because it certainly feels like it at times? Each time I receive an email that has an attachment, invariably the attachment has been written with Microsoft 'Word' and I am unable to open it.
B. Robinson

A

You need a utility called a Word ‘Viewer’, which you can download from the MS web site (http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/

2000/wd97vwr32.aspx), this will open any Word 97/2000 document, which you can read, or highlight, copy and paste into WordPro.

Q

I am writing to ask if you can suggest a printer type and make that will give good service. My HP 560c, lasted about four years, before a piece of plastic broke on the cartridge and I couldn't find anyone interested to repair it. I bought an Epson Stylus 750 photo, and that has lasted two years to the day. I am told, by the workshop that looked at it, that it is beyond economical repair, as the board has failed.  I am rapidly becoming a scrap printer collector. Is there a reliable make of printer on the market, either laser or inkjet that I could buy with confidence? As a pensioner, I cannot afford to keep wasting money at the rate that I am on substandard equipment.  I am using Win 98, with 128Mb RAM and a 233Mhz processor.

B. P. Stracey

A

I think that you have been unlucky HP and Epson printers have a fairly good reputation for reliability. I would have said that most ‘domestic’ printers, costing less than £120, say have a working life or around four or five years, after which they’re probably still working but by them most users will have replaced them with something, faster, cheaper and capable of even better results. They are essentially ‘disposable’ items, but that’s reflected in the price. If you want a serious workhorse printer that’s going to last then you should consider models designed for commercial and small office/home office (SoHo) applications, they cost a good bit more -- £300 upwards -- but they are generally built to take a lot more punishment.   

Q

notice that the Windows directory on my ME system has one sub-directory under "Temporary Internet Files", called "Content IE5", which itself has 20 subdirectories with apparently random 8 character names, such as 0XURGHUV and SKQWSN39. Before clearing "History" and "Temporary Internet files" from Internet Options in Control Panel, all these directories and sub-directories had 2,227 objects, all seemingly the same in each directory. After clearing both, all 22 directories and sub-directories have 39 objects, again all of which seem to be the same in each of the directories and sub-directories. Some are cookies and the rest are icons for specific web pages.

First question, is there any harm in deleting all 39 items from all 22 directories?

Second question, are any problems likely to arise if I delete all 20 of the random name sub-directories?

I may be imagining it, but I think these sub-directories may have been created when a virus, attached to an incoming e-mail, was detected and quarantined by my antivirus programme (Trend PC-Cillin). The viruses were kakworm, PE_Magistr, Badtrans and Klez.

Third question (sorry!), where else do Windows and Internet Explorer store cookies and other objectionable files?

A.H. Miller, via email

A

Those files are your browser’s ‘cache’, where recently viewed pages are stored, the theory being that they can be displayed quicker should you re-visit the page. The number of files in the cache have nothing to do with viruses and are created by Internet Explorer varies according to how often you empty the cache, and the amount of disc space allocated to it. You can safely delete the files via Windows Explorer or better still, from Internet Explorer, go to Tools > Internet Options and select the General tab. Click Delete Files and check the box, ‘Delete All Offline Content’. Most, if not all of the files will disappear but new ones will be created when you browse the web. It’s a good idea to limit the size of the cache memory – it’s mostly a waste of space – to around 100 to 200Mb, do that by clicking the Settings button (General tab again), and move the slider. Cookies are stored in the cache files and a separate file in the Windows folder, you can safely delete cookies if you have no need of them, but you may find that you have to re-log on to sites that require a password. Windows also stores details of all sites you have visited in a set of hidden files called ‘index.dat’ and these cannot be deleted by normal means. For more information about this and other security issues have a look at Boot Camp 132.

Q

Whilst trying to remove one of those very persistent ads that fill the screen so you can't delete them, I inadvertently removed the Internet Explorer shortcut icon from my desktop. I have tried several things to replace it but with no success. I find accessing it through 'Programs' tedious. I have Windows 95 and Internet Explorer 5.

H. Owen

A

There are several alternatives; right-click on the icon and select Send to Desktop as a Shortcut or hold down the Ctrl key (to make a copy), click on the icon on the Programs list (or the IE ‘exe’ icon in C:\Programs\Internet Explorer) and drag and drop it on the desktop.

Q

You advise not to open files attached to e-mails unless they have been run though the virus checker. I use McAfee and nothing has got past it in the last three years of extensive e-mail and Internet use. It seems to have dealt very effectively with e-mail viruses on three known occasions. I don't recall that any of them had attachments. McAfee has no user means of directly checking an email or an attachment for viruses. It acts automatically on any incoming e-mail but McAfee inform me that it will not check on an attachment until it is opened. Therefore, contrary to your advice, I have to open it, else go without a useful form of communication.

However, I can instruct McAfee to scan any specific file or files or a whole disk drive. But with IE.6, incoming E-mails seem to be compressed into one long file in C:Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook Express\Inbox. I cannot identify individual e-mails nor their attachments. I can scan that single file but I am not sure whether it would include the attachments, which are normally of Word, Excel or Graphic origin. It would also be a tiresome business to have to apply it to every attachment I receive.

If I want to retain an attachment after opening it I give it a file name and store it to a directory of my own making. But until I do that, where are incoming attachments stored and in what form?

Richard Collins, Dorking.

Q

Attachments are kept in the Inbox and are almost impossible to identify individually by any conventional means, however you can easily save a copy of an attachment, to a ‘quarantine’ folder, simply by right-clicking on the icon in the read message window, and from there you can scan it with your virus checker.