I received a question from Adam, a Terry’s Computer Tips web site visitor recently, who was having problems with two of his computers:
Hey Terry, just read your XP SP3 woes, got another one two for you. i have a small home network running with shared internet connection. When SP3 came out [...]

Sherrill Kerbaugh wrote about a major problemm she and her husband were having on both of their computers:
Hi, Terry… We have a major problem…. My husband has been unable to delete daily e-mails for a few weeks now….we can’t figure out what in the world is wrong!?!?!?! Now, all of a [...]

Like many of the other downloadable programs that are designed to scan and fix computer problems, Optimize 2.0 from PC Pitstop is a program that can be run on schedule to routinely check for and fix problems, or can be run on request to fix and find problems.
Of course, the most significant value will be [...]

Reader Russ Tinley wrote about a strange problem he was having:

Terry, My computer is connected to a Verizon DSL Modem, and everytime I connect the modem to my PC I get a blue screen and the system reboots. I called Verizon and they replaced my Modem but it still does it. [...]

I’ve done it. I’m sure you have, too.
We’ve all installed a program that arbitrarily grabbed certain file extensions (such as .doc, .jpg, .mp3) and changed Windows’ settings. Now, the new program is the default for opening that file type.
Sometimes, it’s our fault — many programs that can handle multiple file types will give us an [...]

I received an email recently from someone who was having problems with a Windows dialog box. In this particular case, she was trying to put a registration code into software, but the field for the code extended outside the box — and she couldn’t input the whole code.
It really sounds to me like a font-size [...]

One of my forum readers in my Windows XP /2000/etc forum (which are now shut down thanks to too many spam posts) wrote about a problem he was having.
He wrote:
IE6 SP1 browser..links take long time to download
My computer contains: Athlon 3200gb, 1 gig Ram, I have WinXP SP2 Home, and IE 6 SP1. When I [...]

AP has a good article about yesterday’s “Patch Tuesday” updates from Microsoft. Microsoft releases almost all updates on one day each month — the 2nd Tuesday of the month.
This time, there were 6 crifical updates, including one for the “malicious software engine” that powers Windows Defender, including on Vista.
What kind of problem? [...]

One of Microsoft’s attempts at “user friendliness” is that recent versions of Windows are set to hide file extensions. What’s a file extension? As an example, it is the “.exe” that is at the end of a program’s name.
Unfortunately, Microsoft decided that we don’t really need to know what file extensions are. Even worse, they [...]

I answered a question from a new Firefox user about font sizes. She had just installed Firefox and noticed that the fonts were smaller than those that she was used to seeing in Internet Explorer.
The “problem” is that we, as users, can change our default fonts and font sizes in our web browsers. Firefox even [...]