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1) How Do I remove an Application within MS Windows?
2) Why does the program fail connecting to remote site?
3) What exactly is a Hard Drive?
4) How to tell what operating system you are running?
5) Should I Turn My Computer Off At Night?
6) System disk not found at boot-up?
7) How can I protect myself from a virus?
8) Optimizing your Windows 2000 / XP Computer
How Do I remove an Application within MS Windows?
- Click Start / Settings / Control Panel.
- Next double click on the Add/Remove
Programs icon. Highlight the program to delete.
- Then click on the Remove button.
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Why does the program fail connecting to remote site?
- First check the VPN tunnel icon in the bottom right hand
corner of the screen.
- This Icon should show 2 horizontal arrows pointing in
opposite directions. This icon should be a Green color.
- If not then you are most likely not connected to the
Internet. Reason is usually a problem related to the ISP
(Cable, DSL, DialUp).
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How to tell what operating system you are running?
- On your desktop, right-click on “My Computer”
- Left-click on “Properties”
- On the screen that opens up (usually to the “General” tab),
it will say what operating you are running (under “System”).
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Should I Turn My Computer Off At Night?
This is a widely debated issue. One camp believes that computers
should be left running all the time. They believe that by
not turning your PC off at night, you keep the electrical
components at a constant temperature and prevent hardware
failure caused by the constant cycle of heating and cooling.
(Please note: in no way does this pertain to rebooting your
PC, since the momentary powering off and on does not produce
any temperature change.) In addition, many feel that, like
a car, the electrical components have only so many starts
to them; that is, there is a finite number of electrical
jolts that components such as wires and power supplies can
survive, so by not turning off your PC at night, you minimize
the number of starts, thus lengthening the life of the computer.
However, there is plenty of rationale to turn your PC off
at night: Energy savings (although computers these days are
fairly energy efficient, so the savings are minimal), security,
and less wear on computer components such as fans, hard drives,
and monitor tubes. In addition, if a power surge occurs during
the night (maybe during an electrical storm), your computer
will not be affected. Computers today are built to deal better
with user shut downs and restarts (for example, you no longer
need to park the hard drive when you want to turn your PC
off), so many of the hardware issues discussed in the first
paragraph are not as relevant today as they were just a few
years ago.
After considering all of the issues, we make the following
recommendation:
If you are not part of a backup scheme that backups up your
PC during the night, turn both your monitor and CPU off at
the end of the day. This will save energy, produce less wear
on the system, and will ensure that you are starting each
day from a clean slate in terms of memory resources and default
settings. In addition, we believe this is better from a security
standpoint--people will be less inclined to fool with your
PC after hours and shutting it off at night will prevent
you from leaving any confidential information up on your
screen.
Another Point to consider is File Server backups. If your
PC accesses data from a central file server, the data files
(word processing, spreadsheet, etc), should not be open on
your PC while the Server Backup is being performed. Any files
open on your PC generally will NOT get backed up!
Please remember--when you turn your PC off at the end of
the day, do it correctly by going to START and SHUT DOWN.
Do not just press the power button--shutting down incorrectly
may cause file corruption and problems down the road.
The above being said, it will not harm your computer to
leave it on at night. If you need to leave it on as part
of a backup or if you are doing something that needs to run
overnight or if your PC needs to be on for any reason (printer
or file sharing or whatever), or if you just forget to turn
your PC off, that is fine. We are just trying to de-mystify
an issue that comes up repeatedly.
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System disk not found at boot-up?
When this happens, the most likely cause is that you have
a floppy diskette in your A drive. You PC looks in the floppy
drive for startup files before it looks at your hard drive.
This is a diagnostic behavior—in the event your hard
drive fails, you may be able to start the PC with a floppy
disk to recover lost data. However, if your PC finds a floppy
disk in the A drive that does not contain startup files,
it does not know what to do and reports, correctly, that
your system disk has not been found.
All you need to do is remove the floppy from you’re
A drive and restart your computer.
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How can I protect myself from a virus?
You can't. You can only take precautions to protect your
computer and the data it contains. First and foremost is
backup, backup, backup. You can't imagine the number of people
who have lost everything because 1) they never backed up
2) they never kept the backup current 3) they never tested
to see if the backup media and device were functional. And
this was before they were hit with a destructive virus.
If you computer functions as a workstation attached to a
central File Server then the File Server SHOULD be the main
concern for backup.
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Optimizing your Windows 2000 / XP Computer
Once a week:
Delete temporary files Run Disk Cleanup
Start -->
Programs -->
Accessories -->
SystemTools -- >
Disk Cleanup
Once a month:
Run Defrag
Start -->
Programs -->
Accessories -->
System Tools -->
Disk Defragmenter
When necessary:
Run AntiVirus
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What exactly is a Hard Drive?
Most computers have one hard drive, usually called
Drive C. The hard drive magnetically stores your data on
a stack of rotating disks called platters, and stores your
data files (documents, spreadsheets, graphics, etc.) in
folders or directories. The amount of information a hard
drive can store is measured in bytes. Today's personal
computers hold many gigabytes (GB) of information.
Most of us have had photographs developed at some point
in time. Imagine that you ordered 50 prints in 5 x 7 size.
Holding this set of 50 prints in your hand is approximately
equal to holding a common PC Hard Drive in your hand. This
component is not flexible like the prints, it is a metal
enclosure containing the stack of disks which record information.
Because the disks are constantly spinning while
your PC is powered up, the disks can become very hot, and
eventually fail to operate properly.
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