InBox

Q. Ever since Ian installed Norton Anti Virus 2006 two months ago he gets an annoying dialogue box appearing upon startup: "Preparing to install. Norton antivirus does not support the repair feature. Please uninstall or reinstall". He says the option is to cancel, which he does and XP starts normally. Then, when he tries to open any Office program, the same thing happens. It is more a nuisance than anything else, but he would like to get rid of it.

A. I had the same problem a while back with Antivirus 2005. In fact, I got so annoyed I removed Norton from two of my machines. Never fear - a solution has been found: first, run Live Update, as this sometimes fixes it. Reboot and try opening an Office application. If the error message still exists, do this: open Norton Antivirus/Options/Other/Miscellaneous - uncheck "Enable Office plug-in" then click OK. Close Norton and confirm the error is gone. Now reverse the process and re-enable the office plug-in within Norton. The problem should be rectified. If the message re-appears in the future, run this same solution again.


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Q. Mary writes that her computer's DVD drive has exceeded the number of times its region code can be changed, and now it is stuck on region code 1. She wants to know how she change it back to play discs from region 4, which is New Zealand.

A. So much for manufacturers attacking video piracy with jackboot technology. Luckily, some computer DVD writers can be reset or reprogrammed with unlock software from the internet. Just do a Google search for your DVD model number with "unlock region" after it to get results.

But beware - with this software being a hacker tool, it is possible its creator or supplying website has used the file to hide a virus. Use an up-to-date virus scanner to check the file before opening it.