When working with heavily formatted Word documents, often it can be useful to remove all the formatting. For example, to copy the plain text into another document or, if you want to start fresh and reformat the document, using your preferred formatting conventions. Manually removing the formatting from a document can be a time consuming and cumbersome process. However, there is a much easier way to remove the formatting. Select the entire document (using the ‘Edit’ menu > ‘Select All’ or CTRL-A) or select just the portion of text on which you wish to remove formatting. Then, press CTRL-SHIFT-N. This will change the style for the entire document to ‘Normal’ and in the process remove all formatting on the selected text. (more…)

My computer is connected to the internet through an ADSL model. Every time I install a Windows Update and reboot, my ADSL modem refuses to work and I am unable to connect to the internet. The only workaround for this issue is to disconnect the modem from the power source and USB, then use System Restore to restore the PC to a point before the update was installed. Then, after the PC has restarted, reconnect the ADSL modem. How can I stop this problem from occurring? The computer is running Windows XP Professional SP2. (more…)

My computer is infected with the ‘Smitfraud-C’ virus which came with a supposed antispyware program called Spyaxe. The Internet Explorer home page has been taken over, and there are constant pop-ups for gambling and other sites. Norton Antivirus 2005 does not detect the presence of this virus, nor does Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition or Windows AntiSpyware Beta scans. I have uninstalled the Spyaxe program but the virus remains. The computer is running Windows XP. (more…)

When attempting to copy files to CD through Windows XP the following message appears ‘D: Not accessible. Incorrect function’. However, I can read CDs correctly and also burn music to CDs (using CD burning software) with no problem. Why can’t I copy files to CD? (more…)

While my grand-kids computer was not working I allowed them to use my home computer to access the web. Following their use of the computer, there are two problems which are occurring. Firstly, the Internet Explorer home page has changed from my specified home page (Yahoo) to ‘about:blank’. When I attempt to change the home page back to Yahoo, I make the necessary change in Internet Options and click OK, but the change is not saved and instead defaults to ‘about:blank’. Secondly, the dial-up connection window appears approximately every 10 minutes. This is followed by Internet Explorer opening with the message ‘Web page unavailable while off-line’. The computer is running Windows 98 with PC-Cillin 2004. (more…)