FAQS! FACTS! FAX!  434 (28/09/04)

Q

When closing Outlook Express I get an error message reading "Some of the items in the Deleted Items folder could not be deleted. An error has occurred." Also, I am unable to delete e-mails by any process.
Paul Ashbee

A

Your Deleted Items folder may have become corrupted, in which case the best thing to do is drag and drop any messages you want to keep into another folder then find the location of your Deleted Items folder by going to Tools > Options, select the Maintenance tab click the Store Folder button and make a note of the location. Close OE then go to Windows Explorer, navigate your way to your Store Folder and delete the file ‘Deleted Items.dbx’. If it is not displayed go to Tools > Folder Options > View and make sure ‘Show hidden files and folders’ is checked. OE will automatically recreate a new Deleted Items folder the next time it is opened.

Q

When starting up my PC the desktop appears with the error message ‘Unhandled Exception, c0000005’. Am I in danger of destroying my Dell Dimension L933E?

Graham Lambert, via email

A

It looks as though your PC has been infected by an intrusive piece of adware called DelFin Media Viewer, designed to generate pop-up ads whilst you are logging on to the Internet. The problem and a solution, involving removing DelFin and editing the Registry, are outlined in Microsoft Knowledgebase article 811270 ( or type the number into Google).

Q

I have a laptop with Windows 98.  For the last week, whenever I turn on the computer, the My Computer box comes onto the screen, which is annoying.  It also appears at other times when I open other programmes e.g. Internet Explorer.  This problem started after I accidentally removed the PCMCIA modem card without previously disabling it with the eject hardware box

Colum Scott, via email 

A

The Windows Registry may have been corrupted when the card was removed. One way to find out is to restore a previous known-good copy of the Registry, which you can do by restarting the PC in MS-DOS mode (Start > Shutdown > Restart in MS-DOS). At the flashing C: prompt type 'scanreg' (without the quotes), then press Enter to Start. When the next screen appears press 'V' or use the left/right cursor keys to select View Backups. Using the up/down cursor keys select a backup dated before the problem occurred then select Restore, when it has finished reboot and Windows should be back to its former glory. By the way, you may have to reload any software installed after the Registry backup.

Q

I run Windows ME and have a directory C:\_restore\temp. This contains 6000 plus files. As you may imagine scanning of any type takes hours. Can you tell me what these files are and if they can be safely deleted?

David Coulson, via email

A

This is the System Restore folder used by, used to 'roll back' to a known good Windows configuration in the event of a catastrophic crash. You can’t delete the files but you can safely reduce the size of the folder, which should help to shorten scanning times. There’s a good introduction to ME System Restore in MS Knowledgebase article 267951.

Q

In the days of parallel printers, there was no problem in connecting two or more computers to one printer using a manual or intelligent switch.I cannot find any way of doing this with USB printers, other than networking the two computers, which I do not want to do. Any ideas?
David Walton, via email

A

USB printer switches are readily available for about £20, have a look at the Belkin 2X1 USB Peripheral switch at: www.dabs.com/uk/productview?quicklinx=3B7P

Q

My computer crashed recently and Windows had to be reinstalled. Since then on start up I get an error message, which says: ‘Please insert your CD-ROM with the Virtual Truck program’. Otherwise everything seems to work OK.
Vernon Seddon, via email

A

Virtual Truck Agent is a broadband installer program used by some Internet Service Providers and it can cause all sorts of problems, especially with AOL. Fortunately you are not alone and there are several web sites and forums with useful advice on workarounds and how to get rid of it. Start by looking at:

www.chetnet.co.uk/

and

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/

Q

I am aware of spyware and I use AdAware to clean up my hard disk from time to time. However suspect cookies always seem to be there. Rather than erase these cookies after they arrive on my system, is there any way of barring them in the first place?

Brendan O'Connor, Solihull, West Midlands

A

Internet Explorer has only limited cookie handling facilities that let you block all, accept all or ask before accepting (go to Tools > Internet Options, select the Privacy tab and click the Advanced button). If you want to block cookies from a particular web site I suggest that you change browsers. Both Firefox and Mozilla, which we looked at in Boot Camp 341, has the facility to selectively disable or allow cookies from specified web sites by going to Tools > Options, click the Privacy tab then click the Exceptions button.