I need computer help!

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packcrush

The Fly
Joined
Apr 1, 2005
Messages
285
Location
Derry, Ireland
Okay; this is my problem.

I am the proud owner of a laptop; I have had it for about a year. Recently I've been having alot of popups and all that crap and today; when I turn it on; and after windows has loaded up fully; I get a window explorer message, stating "Windows explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience" with all the "tell microsoft about this problem" stuff at the bottom. So when you let windows explorer close; everything, including the start bar; but not my desktop background, vanishes.This is for a few seconds;then everything slowly comes back. However; a few seconds will pass; and the windows explorer message will come back. And the cycle continues. This has made my computer quite unusable :sad:

Does anyone have any idea what I can do? I know I'm being pretty vague; but I'm quite computer illiterate.

I suppose I could completely restart my computer with the disc that came with it; but this would mean loosing ALL my itunes/music/U2 bootlegs that I have built up. I share my bootlegs on the UnderABloodRedSky hub; and I don't want to loose them. It would honestly take me ages to get these files back. Which leads me to my second question:

Using the correct cable; how in the name of God can I send these files (they're big; in th Gb range) to my OTHER computer; temporarily; for me to fix my laptop; and then return them?

This probably seems very confusing; I'll try to explain anything further if it will help. Could anybody who understands computers please help? Thanks,

Gavin.
 
Every computer needs reformatting every 6 months. Does no end of good. I have a twin operating system and a ghost copy of my initial setup with all my main programs already installed so when things start getting messy I just ghost the image across, obviously backing up any emails that I have first of course. Can't go wrong!:wink:

Also just reading about your setup, if you have a lot of important files then you should use another hardrive to back them up to. Just connect your laptop to your PC with a crossover network cable and transfer the files to your PC or another hardrive. Makes sense cos like you said you don't wanna lose them, and a word of warning.....I had an IBM Deskstar 60gb hardrive that has just failed on me and I got it going again but it had lost a certain amount of data which really pissed me off. Don't let it happen to you!:wink:
 
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Right..assuming you are running Windows XP

Start Menu>Run.. Type Msconfig and hit enter. A configuration window should pop up...click the Startup tab.

Disable everything that doesn't look like anything to do with your antivirus or firewall software, assuming you have one or the other (or preferrably both). Just uncheck the boxes and hit OK/Apply and then close.

(You can always re-enable these things later by running Msconfig again, checking the boxes and rebooting)

It will ask you if you want to reboot now or later.
If you've unchecked everything in the Startup tab then I suggest taking your computer offline for when it reboots so it is not completely exposed to the web.

Rebooting now will just load windows with the default services. DONT open your browser, Internet Explorer etc as this is where most of the spyware and ad-ins will kick in if there are any, and could crash Windows Explorer again. Possibly re-installing the startup entries for the spyware programs! :no:

I'm hoping that disabling the stuff in the Startup tab will make your copy of Windows usable so that you can install and run a spyware removal program, and then do a virus scan while your at it.

You will need to get a copy of Spybot / Ad-aware now while you're online because you won't want to open your browser after you reboot and when your computer is offline :wink:

Hope this helps :)
 
Make sure you have a firewall enabled...this is crucial....I learned this the hard way! (This was because I had to re-install Windows, but didn't re-install Service Pack 2...which is critical for initial release versions of XP)
 
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