Q: I have recently received notification that my Outlook mailbox is full, and that messages cannot be delivered, I’ve never had this in all the time that I have been using Outlook. The email message indicates that this may be as a result of receiving large files that have used up my quota, and that to remove the problem, all I had to do was delete the messages I don’t need from my “Inbox”, “Sent”, “Trash/Deleted” etc. The email also provided the following details:

Quota Type: bytes in the message

Quota Available: 10485760

Total Quota: 10485760

have deleted all but 761KB of folders and emails, and yet I am still receiving the same message. I have removed and re installed MS Office 2007 that includes Outlook, and note that the few folders that I left in Outlook before the removal and re installation process re appeared. The only thing that may have changed was that I installed Internet Explorer 8. All other system and program files remained the same. I cannot find any guidance as to how to clear the mail box, can you guys help?

A: This message isn’t coming from Outlook at all, it’s coming from your ISP, in this case Virgin Media. The clue is in the Quota Type part of the message. Virgin imposes a maximum single message size of around 10MB and a maximum limit on space on the mail server of 30MB.

What’s happening here is either that someone has sent you a message that exceeds the 10MB limit or that your Outlook is set not to delete files from the server after downloading them, so that you’ve exceeded your total quota. It’s most likely the former, in which case if you scroll further down the notification email it should identify the message that’s causing the problem. The solution is to sign into your account via webmail and delete the messages from there. That should clear the blockage and get Outlook working again.

Having said all of that, Outlook can begin to suffer performance issues when its .pst file becomes too large, but we’re talking 2GB or more before that starts to happen.

You can find out where Outlook’s data is stored by going to Tools, Options, Mail Setup

Originally featured in PCU126

Q: Please can you explain why when I send the files shown in the attached screenshot – Great Pictures and Road Trains – to other people some of them can’t open them? I sent my USB stick down to my grandson so he could see the road trains, but he could not open it. He could however open the music folder. No doubt there will be a simple answer to this.

A: The icon that’s displayed on your Explorer screen indicates that you don’t have a program associated with the file type. This may indicate that the file is in an obscure format which needs a particular program to open. More likely is that it’s been saved without an extension (the three or four characters after the dot). In either event Windows doesn’t know which program to use to open the file. We’d guess that these files are compressed in some way? Windows can only open standard .zip format files, if you’ve used a different compression format like .7zip or .rar then some additional software will be needed to open them. If they’re simply missing the extension – you can check by right-clicking on the file and choosing Properties – then all you need to do is rename them to put it back.

Unassociated files will display the mini-window icon

Originally featured in PCU126

Q: I have installed Norton Internet Security 2010 on my Advent 9003 computer running Windows XP Home. When I power up sometimes the icon is missing on the taskbar. How can I get it back? I check with Windows Security Center and it indicates antivirus is on. Sometimes I get a message saying Norton idle time scan is running. I just want my icon back. Will I have to uninstall and re-install?

A: The first thing to do is check the taskbar configuration. Right-click on a blank area of the bar and choose Properties. On the Taskbar tab in the Notification area box click Customize. Select your Norton program and make sure it’s set to Always show.

Thanks to Windows 7’s introduction of a separate hidden icons area, many newer applications now hide their icons by default and this sometimes affects their behaviour on earlier operating systems. You can force the system to reset all tray icon activity with a registry hack. Run Regedit and go to the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\TrayNotify select IconStreams and on the Edit menu click Delete, do the same with PastIconsStream close Regedit and reboot the PC.

In Windows 7 many of the icons that used to appear in the system tray are hidden in the notification area

Originally featured in PCU126

Q: Why does the system restore not work in Windows 7? I’ve tried to carry out a restore, but get the error message – System Restore Error (0×80070057).

This appears to be a fairly common error as a quick visit to Google will demonstrate. However some of the workarounds coming out of Microsoft are quite appalling, and none of them work. What’s suggested is: uninstall your antivirus software and then run system restore. Do the above but in addition use Safe Mode and then do system restore. Or run CHKDSK/R.

How is it that every time Microsoft produces a new version of Windows that something serious happens? You don’t get much more serious than being unable to run a system restore. My install was a totally cold load of Windows 7 Ultimate. Everything else appears to be working fine. Any help would be appreciated or even better an update patch from Microsoft to solve the problem.

A: Up to a point you have to sympathise with Microsoft. Operating systems are complicated things and it’s impossible to reproduce in testing all the conditions they’re likely to encounter on millions of different user configurations. And this isn’t unique to Windows, you only have to visit a few Linux message boards to see the number of workarounds and tweaks required to get various systems working.

The 0×80070057 error is fairly generic and can have various causes so it doesn’t really give you a clue as to how to pin down the problem. In many cases this seems to be a conflict with antivirus software, however, there are some other things to try. First of all turn off system protection for the drive. To do this click Start, right-click on Computer and select Properties. Click System protection over on the left, and in the Properties window click the System Protection tab. Select the drive, click the Configure button and turn off protection. Check to see if you still have a problem. Turning off system protection will prevent Windows from automatically generating restore points, though they can still be created manually.

It’s also worth running the System File Checker to make sure none of your Windows system files are corrupt. To do this go to Start, All Programs, Accessories, right-click on Command prompt and select Run as administrator. In the command window type sfc  /scannow. The scan will take a little while to complete and should automatically fix any errors.

System Restore can roll back your OS and application settings to a particular point in time

Originally featured in PCU126

Q: I’m running XP and recently upgraded AVG antivirus 8.5 to 9.0. I downloaded the recent update for AVG 9.0 today, 29th March, and since then I have had Firefox crashing or not responding. I tried to restore my computer to a previous setting and it wouldn’t let me do it. I have now uninstalled AVG 9.0 and the computer works fine again. So there seems to be a problem with the recent update for AVG 9.0.

A: This seems to be caused by AVG’s Safe Search plug-in for Firefox. To fix it, once you’ve installed AVG 9.0, open Firefox, go to the Tools menu and select Add-ons. Click the Extensions button, locate AVG Safe Search, disable it and restart your browser. It’s also worth checking for other AVG add-ons like Link Scanner and disabling those too.

Disabling add-ons can often help to resolve problems with Firefox

Originally featured in PCU126

Q: After many years of use of my old PC and failure of a graphics board then my separate working hard drive I decided to upgrade to Windows 7 (from Windows XP) but  found some of my old programs would not work. I am particularly miffed because both my scanners (Musteks) are not supported by Windows 7 and having recently invested in a new printer now realise I maybe ought to have bought a printer/scanner.

As I have an external hard drive USB unit into which I have put a larger hard drive successfully could I not now put the OEM installed drive from the old PC with Windows XP on it  into this unit and use it when I need to scan? If so how would I go about booting this drive up as Wndows XP without compromising my existing Windows 7 PC?

A: Most relatively modern PCs should allow you to boot from an external USB drive, check the boot sequence settings in the BIOS. However, you may have problems getting the older XP operating system to recognise the hardware in your new machine.

You should be able to fool Windows 7 into accepting Mustek scanners using the XP drivers. Download the latest available drivers for your device from www.mustek.com. Empty your C:\Windows\Temp folder (you’ll need administrator access for this) and create an empty folder elsewhere on the disk – it doesn’t matter what you call it. Make sure the scanner is unplugged from the USB port, then run the driver installer. At the point where it says Select Language stop and copy the contents of the Temp folder to your new folder. Now plug in the scanner and when prompted to load drivers point the installer at the new folder and let it load them from there.

The Add Legacy Hardware option in Device Manager may help you install older, non plug and play, devices

Originally featured in PCU126

System: AMD 3000, Gigabyte GA7NNXP motherboard, 2GB Kingston PC2700 DDR Memory, PNY 6200 GeForce 512MB graphics, 160GB Maxtor 7200 hard drive, Samsung SyncMaster 245B Monitor

Q: I have searched all through the back issues of your magazines to help me find a solution to my current problem, but no joy I’m afraid, so I’m hoping you can help. I recently decided to put together a PC using all the components that I still have from upgrading my own PCs for all the games I have enjoyed over the years, some new and some old. Ranging from Grand Theft Auto and many simulation games to the old NES/SNES games everyone works fine.

That is with the exception of one – there’s always one – an old snooker favourite of mine Jimmy White’s Cueball World (for XP). The game installs OK, but when it’s launched it goes into overdrive, the game runs so fast even Jimmy White himself couldn’t play it. I’ve checked the game settings and adjusted the hardware acceleration, I have all the latest drivers installed for the PC, I’ve also tried the game on my other PCs but still I have no joy.

Forums on the Internet suggest graphic plug-in settings but I do not feel comfortable tampering with these settings unless I know what they are. I have tried Speed Gear which does work but I’m left with two mouse cursors, one working and one stationary. I have had this game running in the past on slightly lower spec PCs with no trouble at all. I’m sure it’s probably something simple that I’ve overlooked, but I can’t think what.

A: Games from a particular era tend to be closely associated with hardware from the time. So transferring them to a newer, faster machine can quite often lead to them running too fast because the system has faster CPU, memory and graphics clocks than the software is expecting.

If you don’t want to mess about with the hardware settings, the easiest way around this is to fool the software by slowing down the PC. There are several programs that you can use to do this. You’ve already tried Speed Gear but there are other alternatives such as CPUKiller this isn’t free but you can download a trial. Alternatively try the open source winThrottle.

Programs like CPUKiller can slow down your PC so that you can run older games

Originally featured in PCU125

System: Lenovo N500, Vista Home Premium

Q: This is an annoyance more than a problem, but every time the battery on my laptop starts to run low and I plug in the charger whilst the machine is switched on it makes a really loud beep. Since I often use the machine in the library I’d like to stop this but I can find any way to do it. Can you offer any hints?

A: This is a feature of Lenovo laptops, it’s the machine letting you know that it’s properly connected and beginning to charge. However, we agree that it is annoyingly loud. The beep is generated by the system speaker rather than the ones used to play audio and that’s a clue to fixing it. Go to Control Panel and select Sound, then in the Playback tab select the sound device (Conexant high definition) and click the Properties button. Select the Levels tab and you’ll see some volume bars, mute the one labelled PC Speaker and then reboot the machine. This should turn off the system beep without affecting playback of media files.

You can adjust the individual levels for different audio devices from Control Panel

Originally featured in PCU125

Q: Please can you help me with security problems? I am using AVG and Malwarebytes, (both full versions) for my security. When I scanned for infections the two programs found nothing. Then I installed Spybot from your cover disc on to my computer. When I scanned for infections the program found four malware and three potentially unwanted programs. Please can you tell me why my security programs are not finding the infections and Spybot is? Is it worth me spending money if the programs don’t find all the infections?

A: Anti-malware tools seldom agree with each other on what constitutes a threat. It all depends on how you define what malware is. One person’s infection is someone else’s cookie or advertising-supported application. Plus, because developers constantly revise their databases, what is and isn’t defined as a threat can change from day to day and program to program. This inevitably leads to the odd false-positive where a legitimate piece of code is detected as malware. If you want to see how the big antivirus providers perform in different situations pay a visit to www.av-comparatives.org.

Generally speaking if you have an up to date antivirus program together with an anti-spyware tool and you keep Windows updated with the latest patches then you’ll be okay. You need to practise safe surfing by not installing downloads from locations you don’t trust and not opening links or attachments from unsolicited emails. It’s easy to become paranoid about security but there’s really no need. Whatever you do there’s always going to be a slight risk but if you take the above precautions the chances of picking up anything really nasty are minimal.

You can get a second opinion on malware infections by running an online test like Panda ActiveScan

Originally featured in PCU125

Q: Emails are being automatically sent from my Hotmail address to contacts contained in my Hotmail account contact list while my computer is off. The website attached to these unsolicited emails is of an organisation that calls itself ‘Canadian Health and Care Mall’. What do I need to do to stop these unsolicited emails from being sent out?

A: Welcome to the world of spam email. There are several possibilities here, the first is that these messages aren’t actually coming from your account at all, they simply have spoofed headers to make them look as though they’re from you. There’s not a lot you can do about this. The fact that messages are going to people in your address book, however, would suggest this isn’t the case.

The second possibility is that someone has hacked your Hotmail (now Windows Live) account password. This can occur via a ‘brute force’ attack trying different combinations, or more likely via another less secure website where you’ve used the same password. We’d recommend changing your security details by going to https://account.live.com. Change the password to something containing a mix of upper and lowercase letters and numbers. The third possibility is that you have a virus that’s accessing your account details and using them to send mail. You need to perform a complete scan of your system with an up to date antivirus program. It’s a good idea to do an additional scan using an online tool such as TrendMicro Housecall or Panda ActiveScan which should pick up anything your installed antivirus may have missed. Once you’ve detected and cleaned up any infection it’s worth changing your mail account password too.

Similar attacks have appeared on Gmail accounts in recent weeks too (more information on Bill Mullins’ blog here). The same security precautions and clean up techniques apply.

It’s a good idea to change your Windows Live password occasionally to protect your account

Originally featured in PCU125