ItsGeekToMe.co
The official home of It's Geek to Me on the web!
Issue #18: November 22, 2007
Q: I have McAfee Security System installed on my home PC. I decided to switch to another brand of spyware and anti-virus, but I can’t get McAfee off my computer. I get McAfee pop-ups frequently and error messages when I try to uninstall the program. I found several other programs online I could buy to get rid of McAfee but buying one program to get rid of another just doesn’t seem right to me.
– T.C.
Niceville,FL
A: One of the things I don’t like about McAfee’s products is that there is generally a single installation that you run to get it onto your system, but there can be 3-5 uninstalls that you must run to get it off again. Before doing anything else, check your installed programs list for other products with “McAfee” in the description. If you can’t find anything else to uninstall, McAfee has created an automated removal tool that will eradicate all traces of 11 different McAfee products. You can download it here: http://tinyurl.com/mzk9z.
Q: The following message appears when we shut down a program on my husband’s Dell as well as on my Toshiba laptop (yes we’re networked). However, it doesn’t show up all the time and it’s driving me nuts! “The instruction at ‘0x600accc’ referenced memory at ‘0x600accc’. The memory could not be ‘read’. Click on OK to terminate the program.”
– Margaret S.
Crestview,FL
A: I had to do some checking to learn about this one, Margaret. If my research is correct, the memory address in your error is actually “0x6600accc” (two sixes instead of one). Everything that I read about this error points to the Yahoo! Toolbar as the culprit. You didn’t say whether you have that installed, but if so, try removing it and see if that helps.
Q: I have a Dell Intel computer that is about 3 years old, about 6 months ago my keyboard started skipping characters – alpha, number, space, tab and at times I could not get the computer to respond to any typed command. I thought I might need a new keyboard so I bought a wireless keyboard and mouse but I still have the problem of skipping characters and typed commands and at times “freezing up” not responding at all for several minutes. We do not eat or drink at the computer and my keyboard is not dirty. Any ideas about what is wrong?
– Barbara W.
Fort Walton Beach,FL
A: The only thing I can think of that could cause the combination of symptoms you mentioned is a Windows Accessibility feature called “StickyKeys”. When enabled, this feature lets you use modifier keys (such as shift, Alt, Ctrl, etc) by pressing and releasing them, rather than holding them in while pressing another key. It lets you enter combination keystrokes like Ctrl+C with only one finger. You can enable or disable StickyKeys by pressing Shift 5 times in a row.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.