A computer virus can really put a damper on anyone's day – or week, depending on how bad it can be. If you have ever had a virus on your computer before, then you know just how annoying they can be. When faced with a virus, many people think they must immediately run off to the local computer repair shop to have it taken care of. While that is certainly a viable option, it can get expensive! If you don't have the money or the inclination to get outside help, though, don't worry – you can learn how to fix computer viruses yourself, and it is not as hard as you might previously have thought!

Read more...

For each hardware component you have in your PC, Windows requires a small program called a driver to make it work correctly. A driver is a piece of software that basically tells Windows how to run the hardware – sort of like telling it how to drive it or control it, hence the name “driver.” Without the proper drivers, Windows cannot use your hardware, so these little programs are very important. If you are experiencing malfunctions with your hardware, you may find that updating a driver or reinstalling it will correct the problem. If you are installing new hardware and it won't work, then you may have forgotten to install the driver.

For most hardware components that you buy brand new, you will find a disk in the box that has the necessary drivers on it. In this quick tutorial, we will go over the steps involved with installing a driver from a manufacturer's disk.

1.) Pop the disk into your ROM drive and wait for it to spin up.
2.) A menu should appear asking you what you want to do – if you see an option for “Install drivers,” choose that and then follow the instructions it gives you.

If no menu appears, then follow these steps:

1.) Go to the My Computer icon and right click on it. Select Properties.
2.) On the window called System Properties that will appear, click on the tab at the top called Device Manager.
3.) Find the appropriate device in the list of devices on your computer.
4.) Click on the device, and then click on Properties for it.
5.) Find the Drivers tab and click on Update Drivers.
6.) Let it know where to look for the driver in the Specify a Location area – in this case, your ROM drive.
7.) Install the appropriate driver and then reboot your PC.

Following these steps will allow you to install a device driver from a disk provided by the device's manufacturer.

If you own a computer, part of keeping it running well and smoothly is to keep all of its software current and up to date. Software upgrades, driver upgrades, security patches and more need to be installed when available to keep your computer safe and running great. You will also need to update your anti virus and anti spyware software regularly, as well as update your firewall, and even update things like your instant messengers.

Read more...

Most people would love to be able to solve a computer problem themselves, rather than having to take the computer out to a computer repair technician to fix. Taking a computer for repairs in a shop can get expensive, and often, that expensive bill is just covering a simple fix that you really could have handled on your own! If you have ever wanted to learn how to fix your computer yourself, then you will be pleasantly surprised by how easy it actually can be.

Read more...

Digital cameras and other devices that take or manipulate images in some way are becoming more and more common. On top of the regular digital cameras out there, you also have video cameras that can take still photos, hand held gaming devices that can take photos, cell phones that can take photos, and more. With this technology, everyone can snap as many photos as they want without having to pay for film and developing costs. But taking so many photos also takes up space when it comes to your hard drive or other storage device. An image file can be huge in terms of file size – not just the actual length or width of the photo itself – and that means even a single image can take up a huge amount of your precious storage real estate.

Read more...

A driver is a piece of software that basically tells Windows how to run the various hardware components of your PC – sort of like telling it how to drive it or control it, hence the name “driver.” Without the proper drivers, Windows cannot use your hardware, so these little programs are very important. Each device or hardware component will require its own driver.

If you are installing new hardware and it won't work, then you may have forgotten to install the driver. But if you are experiencing malfunctions with your hardware that was working before, you may find that updating a driver or reinstalling it will correct the problem. In this case, you may find that you have to remove the old driver before you can get the newer version to work correctly.

Here is how to remove old drivers from your computer system via Device Manager.

1.) Go to the My Computer icon and right click on it. Select Properties.
2.) On the window called System Properties that will appear, click on the tab at the top called Device Manager.
3.) Find the appropriate device in the list of devices on your computer.
4.) Click on the device in question.
5.) Click on the driver for the device in question.
6.) Click on “Remove.”
7.) Reboot your computer.


You can now go ahead and install the same driver or install an updated or newer version of the driver in order to get your hardware working again. If the device is still not working, check for conflicts in Device Manager and if you find any, correct that problem. To learn how to resolve conflicts in Device Manager, please see the Be Your Own IT article on that topic for a walk through!

Hard drives have moving parts, so like all things with moving parts, they can break down and degrade over time. This eventually causes your hard drive to fail – but even if wear and tear do not take your hard drive out, other things can. Power outages and power surges can harm your hard drive. Improper shut downs can harm it, too! If your hard drive goes on the blink and dies, then you risk losing any data you had on it, so it is important to keep your hard drives in good repair as long as possible and always make backup copies of your data!

Read more...

Sometimes you will run into a problem where a device installed in your PC is not working correctly. This can happen if you have recently installed a new device that you have never used in that particular computer system before, or it can happen if you have installed a new device to replace an old one of the same make and model. And sometimes, it can happen when you have made no changes to your system at all – seemingly for no reason.

Whatever the cause, one of the steps you should take in order to attempt to correct the problem is to check Device Manager for any device conflicts. Computer components do not always play well together, and if your device is having a problem with another device in your system, then it can cause one or the other (or both!) to fail. The Windows “plug n play” feature was designed to cut down on this issue, but it can still happen. Device conflicts usually occur when two devices are trying to share the same “space” on your computer system, much like trying to plug two radios into the same electrical socket. There's just no room to do it. Though Plug N Play is designed to find available open space and put a new device there, Windows can get confused and try putting it into a space that is already occupied.

To resolve conflicts for devices in your PC, follow the steps below:

1.)    Go to the My Computer icon and right click on it. Choose Properties.
2.)    When the System Properties window appears, click on the tab at the top that says Device Manager.
3.)    When the Device Manager opens, scroll through the list, looking for any yellow triangles with exclamation points (!) on them. You may need to expand the various lists to check each and every device. If a conflict is present, the exclamation point will be displayed next to the device having the issue.
4.)    Click on the device that is having the issue once you find it. If there are more than one devices with issues, then click on the first one.
5.)    When the small menu pops up, click on the Properties button.
6.)    When the window for the device appears, click on the Resources tab towards the top.
7.)    Towards the bottom of the Resources window, you will find a box called Conflicting Device List. This will let you know which device the conflicted device you are looking at is having an issue with.
8.)    Uncheck the “Use automatic settings” box.
9.)    Click on the box next to “Setting based on” and then select each of the configurations in the resulting list until the Conflicting Device List says no conflicts are present. Then click on OK.

Reboot your PC and then repeat the process for any other devices having conflicts as needed.

The Windows Registry on your computer system holds just about all of the most important information about your system, like what kind of software is installed on the system, what kind of hardware you happen to have installed, as well as your Windows settings and how you have Windows set up. If you are experiencing unexplainable crashes, system freezes and other odd behavior, you could be having registry troubles. For example, each time you install a new program on your computer, it creates a registry entry. If you uninstall that program, and then decide you want it back again later, so you install it again, you could end up with entries in the registry that confuse your computer.

For this reason it is important to keep a good, clean back up copy of your Windows Registry, preferably made at a time when your computer was running really well. If you start to experience crazy computer behavior, you can just restore your registry from that back up file, and it may solve the problems for you! We will show you two ways to restore your registry from a back up file you have previously created. One way is simple and easy, but you run the risk of messing up your machine even more if you are not careful. The other method is more involved, but more effective and safer for you.

The first method: simply go to your back up folder, highlight all of your back up files, and right click. Select copy. Then close that window, open up your C drive folder where the original system.dat and user.dat files are located, and right click. Select “paste.” When it asks if you want to overwrite the files, choose “yes.” And you are done! Just be sure that you are not removing files from the C folder or anything, or you could end up with a huge mess on your hands.

The more complicated but more effective method involves booting into Command Prompt Only mode. On start up, press F8 before the welcome screen, to get to the options list. Choose “Command Prompt Only” and when that opens, type the commands below (the ones in bold font) exactly as you see them here, in this exact sequence, to restore your registry.

cd c:\windows
attrib user.dat -h -r
attrib system.dat -h -r
cd c:\backup
copy user.dat c:\windows
copy system.dat c:\windows
copy win.ini c:\windows
copy system.ini c:\windows
cd c:\windows
attrib user.dat +h + r
attrib system.dat +h +r
Once you are done with that, you should have restored your registry correctly. Reboot the computer and see how things are doing!

Having more than one monitor can certainly be handy. Running multiple monitors at once expands your desktop, in essence, giving you plenty more work space in which to perform your tasks and increasing your productivity. Windows XP allows you to set up and run up to 10 monitors at once – and if you need 10 monitors going at one time, then you are a busy person indeed and can use all the help you can get! Having more than one monitor configured at once time allows you a crazy amount of flexibility. You can be working on Word documents on one monitor while keeping an eye on server activity on another. You can read the news on a third monitor, have the latest news reports from overseas streaming live on the 4th, and have a giant Excel spreadsheet stretched across the 5th and 6th monitors.

Or you can play 7 different video games at once. Whatever floats your boat.

Here is how to set up and configure multiple monitors at once.

1.)    Decide where all the monitors are going to actually live. One monitor will always be the primary monitor, where programs you launch are generally going to first appear, and where the logon boxes and Windows welcome screens are going to display when you first boot up the computer, so it is probably a good idea to have that monitor right in the middle. You can connect multiple monitors to individual video adapters of their own or to a single adapter with multiple outputs. Once you have everything arranged how you like it, you can move on to the next steps.
2.)    Go to Start, then choose Control Panel.
3.)    Click on Appearances and Themes.
4.)    Choose Display.
5.)    Find the Settings tab and then click on Identify, which will show you all of your monitors with large numbers assigned to each.
6.)    Click on the monitor icons and drag them into position to tell your system how you want to be able to move items from screen to screen.
7.)    Click OK or Apply and view your changes.

Drag the icons into position according to how you want to be able to move your stuff around. For example, if you want to be able to drag a window from the main monitor to the next one in line by dragging it left or right, put the icons side by side. If you want to do it by dragging things up or down, stack the icons in the appropriate order. This is purely up to your personal preferences. You can also select different resolutions and settings for each monitor, if you so choose. For example, a monitor that you plan to use for graphics work could have a higher resolution than a monitor that you just use for spreadsheets or other document work.