InBox

Jack recently purchased an NEC laptop with Windows XP Home Edition on it, and finds that when closing down it jumps to "Standby" by default. He wants to know how he can set it to "turn off" automatically, and thus save himself a mouse click.

You can control your laptop power settings, including the shutdown default, within Control Panel/Power Options/Advanced. Look for the section "When I press the power button on my computer" and use the dropdown to select "Shutdown".

Lisa wrote in with a further solution to Priscilla's forwarding mark problem from last week. Lisa has been using the free downloaded program Stripmail that clears the brackets and sorts text into correct sentences in a few easy moves.

Stripmail - a freeware download - can be found at www. freedownloadscenter.com/Email-Tools/Misc--Mail-Tools/Stripmail.html

Gren's computer has become slow to boot up, and it's also slow to open programs such as Word, Excel, Internet Explorer and Outlook Express. She is running Windows XP 2002, and has Norton Antivirus 2005, Spybot Search & Destroy, and Microsoft Anti Spyware installed. She thinks her symptoms sound like a virus, but all the antivirus software tells her that's not the problem.

Firstly, do an online virus scan at http://housecall.trendmicro.com. You'll have to stay online until it finishes. Next, check for spyware after getting the latest Spybot updates, plus run Adaware at www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/. Then, download and run Cwshredder at www.spywareinfo. com/~merijn/downloads.html. If you noticed the slowdown immediately after installing the Microsoft Update XPSP2, you may have to remove it. Microsoft tells you how at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;875350. If none of this works, try checking the disk. Go to Start/Run and type in chkdsk /f /r. You'll have to let it check the disk after the next reboot.

A Windows solution, suggested by Vic, is to convert to Linux. I'll be testing this option soon.