ItsGeekToMe.co

Q: Please send instructions for searching your archives; otherwise, here is my question.  I am using latest version of Firefox. Have recently been experiencing pop-up ad windows even though I have disabled pop-ups. From what I understand from Firefox help, these ad are windows, not pop-up ads, and they can’t control them. Is there another […]

Q: We use Quicken for banking. Every time I close it, a new Quicken icon appears on my desktop. I must have about 50 now.  When I double click one, it opens and says Quicken will back up this file and has a back up form with a blank for a selected program.  How do […]

Q: I gave my older friend an old laptop with XP on it that she used on a DSL connection with good results until the old unit died. After it died, she purchased an HP laptop with Windows 7. She sends lots of ecards and email is the major uses. Question is the new unit […]

Welcome to Issue #260 of It’s Geek to Me.  Why is that significant?  Well, if you divide the number of issues published to date by the number of weeks in a year, you’ll discover that you are reading I.G.T.M.’s 5th anniversary edition!  Unfortunately, we were forced to forgo the wild parties and celebrity appearances at […]

Q: My Mom, who lives in Ft. Walton Beach, gave me your e-mail address.  My computer has a virus (sbchost.exe).  At least that is what a technician told me.  How can I remove it?  I have Norton and MyCleanPC, but they do not remove it.  MyCleanPC wants an additional $215 to remove it!  I do […]

Q: Really love your column and look forward to it each Sunday morning. My question is: Suddenly, when I receive a hyperlink and I click, up comes WORD program. Cannot figure out why suddenly this is doing this.  I don’t receive any error messages, it just goes into my program WORD, which of course shows […]

Q: My problem appeared several months ago and I’ve tried almost everything to correct it.  I’m using Windows 7 with Microsoft Outlook.  When I click on a link in an email I received, the following message pops up “This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. Please contact your system […]

Q: When I use my laptop, at times the curser will jump around on its own, particularly when typing emails.  I will look up and be typing in the address bar or nowhere.  It doesn’t always happen-sometimes it is worse than other times.  I have a Toshiba that is a little over a year old.  […]

Q: Can I remove the older MS Visual C++ Redistributable files (2005 to 2008) that I find in the Control Panel? – Terry P. Fort Walton Beach, Florida  A: These “Redistributable files” are software written by Microsoft, that is used by other software that was built using a Microsoft programming tool.  Microsoft gives permission to […]

Q: I just found that my laptop has 18 Rootkits. Tried Google for help, but not sure which advice to follow?  I understand that these are serious kits. Any help you can suggest will be appreciated. – Jerry B. Fort Walton Beach, Florida  A: You sound like you have almost everything you need to get […]