Inbox

Compiled by MICHAEL FOREMAN

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

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Every time Carol Henderson starts up her PC she gets the following message: "textbridgeclassic 2.0\Bins instant access.exe has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down." She wants to know how to stop it: "I tried the Ctrl+Alt+Del trick, and it went away but then came back again the next time I started up."

Try going to Start/run, type "msconfig" without the inverted commas, click Enter and under the General tab choose Selective Startup and clear the tick against the instant access program. Click Apply, OK and Restart.

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Defragging (contd): Thanks to all readers including Shirley, Beryl, Michele and Alan, who gave their feedback on the Power Defrag program.

All who have run it said Power Defrag worked very well, and one reader reported that it performed about 10-15 per cent faster than Windows' defrag program. But Michele complains that when she tried to install the program, all she got was the message: "Installation was unsuccessful". We reckon the problem may have been caused by a conflict with another program that was running while you attempted the installation. Close all programs then try restarting with Start/shut down/restart and run the Powerdefrag installer again.

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"Recently my teenage son attempted to download a sex site dialler program on to my work computer and now I can't get rid of it," writes Sharon. "I've tried to uninstall through the control panel but a message comes up to say that uninstallation was unsuccessful. How can I get rid of this awful thing that I assume is taking up room on my hard drive?"

How embarrassing. Badly behaved applications like this are a common problem and sometimes require a bit of detective work to remove. First, when the dialler is running, press the Ctrl, Alt and Del keys at the same time, which will bring up a list of all programs that are running. Make a note of the most likely candidate, it might be called dialler say, then click "Cancel". Now go to Start/find/files or folders and do a search for that name. This will reveal the location of the offending program - probably in a folder named after its maker, somewhere in the "Program Files" folder. You will need to delete this file, and any other files in the same folder, but before you do, make a note of the main program's (eg, dialler.exe) creation date, which will be revealed if you right click on it and then click "Properties". Now do a search for other files created on the same day by going back to Start/find/files or folders and clicking on the "Date" tab. Finally, delete any files that were created within a couple of minutes of the main program.

Links:


Power Defrag


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