As my computer is booted the following message appears: “Time Executable has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience. If you were in the middle of something, the information you were working on might be lost”. It is common for this message to appear more than a dozen times a day, but it does not seem to have any adverse effects. I have done some research on this problem, and it seems that many other people are experiencing a similar problem. One user reported the problem stopped after uninstalling their printer. Interestingly enough my problem may also be related to the printer as I noticed that the message appears after every printing task. How can I get rid of this error message? The computer is running Windows XP Home Edition. (more…)

I have an HP Photosmart 2610 printer which is connected via USB to my main desktop computer, and the printer is also shared over the network (through a wireless G router) so that my laptop computer can access the printer. Occasionally the following error message will appear which prevents both the desktop and laptop computers from printing to the Photosmart 2610: “The print spooler was unable to connect to your printer. This can be caused by your printer being turned off, the cable being unplugged, or being connected to a VPN, which will block your access to your local network. Your document will print when the printer becomes available”. Sometimes this situation lasts a couple of days before the printer works again. At other times, print jobs sent from my laptop to the (shared) printer work correctly, while at the same time jobs from the desktop computer sent to the (locally connected) printer encounter the VPN error. There seems to be no rhyme or reason for this occurring, and it can be quite annoying. Both computers are running Windows XP. (more…)

Often when printing to my HP Photosmart 2610 printer the following message appears “The print spooler was unable to connect to your printer. This can be caused by your printer being turned off, the cable being unplugged, or being connected to a VPN, which will block your access to your local network”. I know that the first two suggestions are not correct, as the printer is turned on and the cable is definitely connected. This error can delay printing from the computer for a few hours or even days! Sometimes a restart of the computer fixes the problem, but most often this does not. Interestingly enough, my laptop (which is networked to the desktop computer through a wireless router) is not affected by this problem when printing to the HP Photosmart 2610. Both computers are running Windows XP SP2. (more…)

For some reason I can no longer update Ad-Aware with the latest definition files. In an attempt to fix this problem I tried downloading the latest version of Ad-Aware from their website, but I could not find the free download link, only links for the paid versions. At the moment I am just running the old version on the computer with no updates. A second question relates to 2000 slides which I would like to scan and copy to DVD. One of my friends purchased a Canon Pixma MP800 that scans slides, but this is also a printer and a photocopier. I don’t really like multifunction products, as when one function breaks you lose the entire product until that function has been repaired. Are you aware of any dedicated slide scanners, and do you know anything about the resolution and quality of the scanned slide? Finally, I am looking for a small portable printer that I can use in the caravan when camping. Do such products exist? (more…)

I have a Brother MFC215C printer connected through USB to my new Windows XP SP2 computer. When attempting to print from DOS programs (such as GWBASIC) nothing happens. I suspect DOS sends the print command to the LPT1 port as opposed to the USB port. So, how can I print to a USB printer from DOS? (more…)