InBox highlights

Compiled by PETER SINCLAIR

Welcome to InBox, where we attempt to answer your internet questions.

Liane Sorrenson is puzzled: "My problem is, when I receive email with an attachment sometimes I can't open it. A box appears: "CONVERT FILE." I go thru all the options and it comes up "Unable to load graphics conversion filter. Continue with document conversion?" I click YES and all I get is a blank sheet. I am using Windows 98, although Word opens up as Windows 95 V.7. What am I doing wrong, or are these being sent on a more updated version of Word?"

Head Geek Don McAllister asked the right questions and tracked Liane's problem down: a Microsoft Word document won't open in Microsoft Works. Liane will have to tell the sender either to save the document in Works form, or just paste the contents into the e-mail.

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John Court's antennae are twitching: "After a WinMe upgrade from 98SE, I saw the file "rpcss.exe" in Windows/System dated 8/6/00. Wondering what that did, I ran it when online and got a ZoneAlarm firewall warning. Being cautious, I looked at its properties and saw Distributed COM Services. Who are they? I asked a friend for enlightenment, so he found the same file in his computer, ran it online with his Download/Upload meter turned on. A green flash indicated that data left his computer. Where did it go? What confidential data might have been spied upon?"

And I found rpcss.exe on my machine, too - Paranoia City! It took Microsoft's Tom Crozier to get things in focus: "the file in question is a system file that manages Remote Procedure Calls (RPC). This is what you use to communicate with other machines, it doesn't mean that your machine is always sending information, this service also sits and waits in case a machine tries to communicate with itself... for the second part of the question, what happens is there are services that send 'hello' packets out of your machine to see if any other machines are out there, these are called Network Browsing services... no private/personal data is collected by Microsoft, so you should not worry about this". Worried? Who was worried...?

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And Tom was able to sort out Mel, too: "I often have the problem of a message... in the inactive window saying, "res://\windows\sys\shdoclc.dll/dnserror.htm". I have tried to fix this problem by re-installing Explorer, but I still am unable to correct it."

Tom: "This type of error can occur when you can't get to [your internet service provider's] server for some reason. When Mel dials his ISP he should click on START - RUN and type in 'command' (without quotes); another window will open, and in this one type 'ping www.clear.net.nz' (without quotes); he should get something like: 'reply from www.clear.net.nz bytes=32 time=128ms'. If he gets 'Request timed out' he needs to contact his ISP to fix this."

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And finally, Bob McNamara with an oldie but a goodie: "How do I change my computer's clock to PM/AM from 24hr format?"

Click Regional Settings in Control Panel and select the Time tab, Bob. Typing h:mm:ss tt in the Time Style box will do it.

Links:

ZoneAlarm firewall


* More of your InBox questions will be answered Wednesday in CyberLunch, on air 12:00-1:00 with Murray Lindsay and Peter Sinclair on Classic Hits 97FM.

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