After following your instructions on reinstalling my scanner software in your column on the 29th January 2000 I am still unable to use the scanner (the boot up error messages have gone though). When attempting to use the Scanner, I get an error message stating that the scanner is in use by another application. I don’t think it is but it is hard to tell by the cryptic names listed by the Task Manager. In attempting to fix this problem I tried another tact and went and tried the ‘Add Hardware’ wizard. When I selected the HP 5100C, a message appeared saying that the device is already installed but ‘the drivers for this device are not installed (code 28)’. On attempting to reinstall the drivers using the Windows 98 SE CD and the HP Scanner CD no drivers could be found. Any further ideas? (more…)

I have a problem with a Word 97 document (operating on Windows 95) which is 72 pages long, 1,549KB in size, is in two sections, and has a ‘Table of Contents’. This document contains a large number of tables which were originally cut from Excel files and pasted into the Word document. Out of the blue, this file has started to show the following warning message every time I open it: ‘This document may be corrupt. To preserve the contents choose ‘Select All’ from the ‘Edit’ menu, then choose ‘Copy’ from the ‘Edit’ menu. Create a new document, then choose ‘Paste’ from the ‘Edit’ menu’. When I follow this procedure the message persists when opening the newly created file. Even if I cut 2 pages from the document and create a new file the message persists. Despite this message, the file continues to operate in a normal manner. Can you advise me how to remove this message, please? (more…)

I currently run Windows 98, Office 2000, and Internet Explorer 5. Recently I downloaded Netscape Navigator from the web and installed it. Since then I have noticed that some features of Office now connect to Netscape Navigator instead of Internet Explorer and Outlook Express. Can you please advise me how to reset Internet Explorer and Outlook Express as my default web/email program. (more…)

I am commencing my honours year and I do not need the added stress of losing documents or having the system crash with details of assignments or my thesis. I own a KTX computer, Intel Celeron 366 processor, 64 MB ram memory, Windows 98 operating system, Lotus software, etc. The problem is that on a fairly regular basis, although not all the time, as I am exiting the system (I click on ‘Start’ > ‘Shut Down’ > ‘Shut Down’) this message appears: ‘Windows protection error. You need to restart your computer. Press any key to continue …’. One person advised that I need to reinstall Windows otherwise the system will inevitably crash. Another advises against us reinstalling Windows as things should be ok. I have done the disk clean up, disk defragment and scan disk functions to no avail. Help! What should I do? (more…)

Thank you for your responses to two issues I raised, published in the Canberra Times on 15 January 2001. Unfortunately, your suggestion for my second question didn’t work. Whenever I click the cursor on a hyperlink in the table of contents to jump to that page in Word, the Web toolbar still automatically appears. Do you have other suggestions as to how to stop the web toolbar appearing? (more…)