FAQS! FACTS! FAX!  458 (22/03/05)

Q

I have suddenly acquired about 50 or more folders lurking in my Windows folder. The names of most of these rogues take the form $NtUninstall*****$, and are printed on the screen in blue. Can you tell me what these folders are about, and whether I can delete them without doing any harm? I have in mind that I might transfer them all to the Recycle bin and see what happens - what do you think?

Stan Rothwell,  Stockport

A

These folders are created automatically by Windows whenever you install a service pack, ‘hot-fixes’ or security patches and are required if you ever need to uninstall one of them. You can safely delete them but personally I would leave them alone, just in case you need to remove one of these patches, in which case without the uninstall file you might end up having to reinstall Windows.  If you are short of hard disc space you really should consider installing a larger hard drive or a second slave drive.

Q

There is a useful, but apparently little publicised, technique in Word 97 for creating blank underlines. It consists of typing three hyphens, followed by pressing Enter, whereupon a thin black line streaks across the page from left to right margin. Sadly, I have recently lost this facility; can you assist me with a remedy or provide further guidance?

Jeff Lax, via email

A

You are in the minority and many users consider this a nuiscance. It’s called AutoText Borders and Microsoft has done its usual trick of giving it an obscure name and hiding the ‘switch’. To get it back (or turn it off) go to Insert > AutoText > AutoText > AutoFormat as you Type tab and under 'Apply as you Type' check or uncheck the item labelled 'Borders'.

Q

When viewing a slide show with Windows Picture and Fax Viewer using Windows XP is it possible to alter the time period that each picture is displayed? I’m sure that this adjustment must be easy and obvious, but I’m blowed if I can find out how to do it.

John Broadbent, via email

A

Not as far as I am aware, this is a very basic utility without any frills and you would be far better off using a dedicated picture viewer utility like Picasa. In addition to many useful image editing, management, printing and display facilities it has a configurable slideshow feature that lets you adjust the time each image is displayed on the screen (click into the image to display the toolbar).  Picasa is free (the program is now owned by Google) and it can be downloaded from: www.picasa.com/index.php

Q

I use Windows XP Home Edition with Outlook Express and Internet Explorer. When I try to print out an email or, for instance, a bank statement through OE get the following error message: ‘An error message has occurred in the script on the page,URL: res://C:\WINDOWS\system32 \ shdoclc.dll/preview.dlg’. I have no idea what this means as I am not a tech whizz-kid! My PC has been in my local repair shop and they cannot sort the problem. This started within the last month and I haven’t added any new soft ware.  I have uninstalled and re-installed my printer but I think the problem lies with IE and OE.

Paula Atherton, via email

A

It’s a ‘malware’ infection, caused by the Divago Surfairy and it mostly affects XP computers that haven’t been upgraded with Service Pack 2. You should be able to get rid of it by going to Run on the Start menu and type ‘c:\program files\surfairy\uninstall.exe’ and press Enter. You should also disable any other browser extensions, open Internet Explorer then go to Tools > Internet Options and select the Advanced tab. Deselect ‘Enable third party browser extensions’ and reboot. Follow that up with a clean up using AdAware, Spybot and MS AntiSpyware (all free, see Boot Camps 363 & 364 in the Connected Archive) and if you haven’t already done so install XP Service Pack 2. Incidentally, sorry to sound repetitive, but you can stop this sort of thing happening again by switching to a safer browser like Firefox.

Q

I have been using Word with Windows XP Professional for some while with no problems.  Recently however when I open a label template that I have created I can no longer see the 'ghosted' lines around the various boxes into which information should go.  The formatting is still there and by selecting Tools, Options, and clicking 'Text Boundaries' I can see where to put the text.  Until recently however these boundaries to the various boxes appeared automatically.  Have I inadvertently switched something off?

Gary Brown, via email

A

It’s easily done and as with so many Word problems the fix is simple, providing you know what you are looking for, and where to look. In this case it’s on the Table menu (of course…) and you should click the item ‘Hide/Show gridlines.

Q

I am running Windows ME and have tried to download Norton Internet Security. This failed to run correctly and cannot be uninstalled. I have tried to do a System Restore but these all fail irrespective of date. How can I erase all reference to this software?

Alan Bunce, via email

A

You need to remove all traces of NIS from the Registry so, at your own risk,  start by backing up all of your important data files, set a new Restore Point then delete the folder where Norton program and downloads are stored. Next run Regseeker (free from: www.hoverdesk.net/freeware.htm) and select the Clean the Registry option. This will search out and let you delete all of the redundant Registry files created by the Norton program, just make sure that the ‘Backup’ option is checked, before you run the Cleaner utility.