FAQS! FACTS! FAX!  403 (24/02/04)

Q

From the password screen to the appearance of the desktop icons on my XP computer is about two minutes. The background picture and the Taskbar appear but no icons are shown. I cannot get at Task Manager and the hard drive LED shows no activity until the very end of the two minutes. Word can be started from All Programs but the desktop icons still take their time to appear. I have reduced the number of startup items to the bare minimum and eventually Task Manager tells me CPU and memory usage are both low plus I have plenty of space on all four partitions of the hard drive. What have I missed?

David Wiscombe

A

I would lay odds on you having Norton Antivirus 2003/4 on your PC and downloaded a ‘Live Update’ recently. There is a known problem and a fix, which you can download from the Symantec web site support pages. Go to: http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/

support_options.html; in the Search window type ‘XP slow Start’ and have a look at the first two documents. 

Q

I have taken a large number of photographs on a Fuji digital camera (because I can), downloaded them through Finepix Viewer and burnt them onto a disc using Nero. When they are played back on the DVD player they show in a different order to that in which they were taken, yet the order is preserved if the same disc is loaded on the computer. Is this a known problem and is there a solution?

Michael Warner

A

The order that images are played on a DVD player usually depends on the filename; most models display images in numeric sequence, or if the files are not numbered, alphabetic order. You should be able to force the player to display images in your required order by renaming them 001.jpg, 002.jpg, 003.jpg etc., before you burn them onto disc. Windows Explorer displays files according to your set preference, which is by name, date, file size or type, depending which of the column headers you’ve clicked.

Q

Whilst my computer recognises the existence of my 2 USB ports, devices connected to them do not work. I have removed the ports from PC Properties, turned off the power and on restarting the machine the entries have been rebuilt but there is still no recognition when connecting appliances to them. 

Juliet Swinbourne, via email

A

This problem often lies with a corrupt USB driver file. Try uninstalling them as before and when Windows reboots, when prompted reload them from the motherboard utilities disc that should have been supplied with your PC. You might also check to see if there's an updated set of drivers on the motherboard manufacturer's home page

Q

My husband and I have taken over the role of Hon. Membership Secretary for his Amateur Operatic Society. The previous Secretary passed a floppy to us with copies of the various standard letters including the headings.  When I tried to print them off they come out in bold square print instead of the "Brush Script MT" that appears in my font box.  Is there anywhere on the net that I can download the font that would work on my Windows 98 machine?

Margaret Brown, via email

A

You will find full installation instructions and a link to the font download at:

http://goliath.frostburg.edu/DRose0/fonts/brush.html

For the record, once you have downloaded the font file simply go to Fonts in Control Panel, click Install New Font, select the location of the downloaded file and click OK. It’s as simple as that!

Q

I wish to be able to ‘Print Screen’. I am using XP Home but the info in Help does not work for me. It says for an active window press Alt + Print Screen’ or to copy entire screen press Pint Screen. Nothing works? All I want to do is print my Address Book in a compact form, as on screen. Not as Windows does it in many, many pages!

H. A. Richardson, via email

A

The print screen (PrntScn) key is a hang over from the old days and it no longer does exactly what it says. Instead, when you press PrntScrn (or Alt + PrntScrn) a copy of whatever is showing on the screen -- either the whole screen or just the active window -- is sent to the Windows Clipboard. This is a special area of the computer’s memory that allows Windows applications to share data. In order to actually print the image it has to be opened in an image editor, a word processor program like Word or Windows Paint program. So, open the screen you want to print, Press Print Screen (or Alt + Print Screen) then open your image editing program (or Paint or Word), select Copy on the Edit menu (or use the Paste shortcut Ctrl + V) to display the captured image, then adjust and edit it as required and print it out in the normal way. 

Q

After upgrading from Windows 98 to 2000 I cannot now connect to the Internet. The message says "unable to detect a dialling tone" but I know it’s there when I plug a phone into the line I can hear it! The ISP help line (50p per minute…) have no idea. What can be wrong?
Derek Pitt, via email

A

First eliminate the obvious. The cable connecting your PC to the phone socket might have been damaged or maybe you’ve changed it, there are a couple of different wiring schemes. Substitute it for a known good cable, or plug the PC end of the cable into a phone. If the cable checks out uninstall and reinstall the latest driver software for you modem from the manufacturer’s web site (tricky, I know if you only have one PC with Internet access…) and make sure it’s the correct Windows 2000 type. Otherwise there may be a hardware problem, try reseating the card on the motherboard and if all else fails, replace it. Internal modems are very cheap, costing from around £10.