Defrag trouble

q+a I have a Pentium-III and Windows 98. My defrag always stops midway with a notice saying “drive’s contents changed, restarting”. How do I stop this from happening? Also, Outlook is blocking the images in my email. How can I see the pictures?

Prasenjit Bhakat

Restart your computer in Safe Mode and then run Defrag. Make sure you disable your screensaver by right clicking on an empty area on your desktop; select Properties and then the Screensaver tab. Next choose None from the list of screensavers.

To be able to see your pictures in Outlook you need to edit the registry. Be very careful when you do this. Take a backup of your registry before you start. Invoke the Registry

Editor by going to Start-->Run and type regedit. Take a backup of the registry by going to File--> Export. Under Export Range select All. Save the file on your Desktop where you can find it easily. Next navigate to

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Outlook\Security

2. Under that key, add a new string value named Level1Remove. You do this by right-clicking on Security

3. For the value for Level1Remove, enter a semicolon-delimited list of file extensions. For example, entering this: .zip;.jpg;.tif would unblock zip files and pictures.

Slow WindowsXP

q+a How do I delete unnecessary registry entries and temporary files in WindowsXP ? How do I speed up my Windows after it becomes slow?

Saikat Kundu and Somnath Chakraborty

The Windows registry often gets clogged with wrong entries which may cause mysterious crashes or some other snags. To prevent this get Regcleaner v4.3. This utility cleans your registry of unnecessary entries. It can be downloaded fromhttp://

www.worldstart.com/weekly-download/programs/regcleaner.exe . The best way to speed up your PC is by using the Disk Cleanup utility that comes with XP. It shows you your Internet caches, temporary files and also some program files that can safely be deleted. In addition, to speed up your PC you should periodically run Disk Defragmenter. You will find both these utilities under Accessories--> System Tools

Formatting hard disk

q+a If I format my hard disk many times will it get damaged?

Kajal Mondal

No it won't. But why would you want to format it so many times? If your computer is running well and you take the necessary precautions to check viruses and spyware you will not have to format it at all.

Anti-virus download

q+a I tried to download the AVG anti-virus software from free.grisoft.com but the download stopped in between and my whole effort was wasted. Please let me know how I can download this program. How can I pay in US dollars for a software that I want to download from the Internet.

B.C.P. Pradhan

If your download stops midway, try to get a good download manager. These manage your downloads and if your connection breaks they can pick up from the point it stopped. GetRight is one such program. It is available from www.getright.com . If you have a credit card you can easily pay for any software that you buy over the Net. Indian credit cards are now accepted for dollar payments.

Update installation

q+a I have turned on Automatic Updates in my computer which runs Windows XP Service Pack 2. Yet after more than an hour of browsing the taskbar shows the message “installing updates 0%”. I tried to install the updates directly from the Microsoft site, but failed. I have a dialup BSNL internet connection. I also have Norton 2005.

Sourav Roy

Some of the updates have a huge size and on a slow Internet connection it can take ages to download these updates. My advice to you would be to get a broadband Dataone connection from BSNL. They are now offering you a free trial for two months. Why don’t you give it a try? It could solve your problem of not being able to install the updates. Alternatively, you could try to disable Norton and see if Automatic Updates work.

Microsoft XP error

q+a I have Microsoft XP Service Pack 2 as my operating system. When I try to open Local Security Policy under Administrative Tools in the Control Panel, an error message “Snap-in failed to initialise” is displayed. How do I solve this?

Joydeep Mukherjee

Right-click on My Computer, and then click Properties; on the Advanced tab, click

Environment Variables. Under System Variables double-click the PATH variable. Type:

%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\system32\WBEM. If other system variables appear, do not remove them. Click OK till you are done.

Unwanted dialogue box

q+a Every time I switch on my computer a ‘RUNDLL’, a dialogue box with a message “missing cmicnfg.cpl file” appears. How can I remove this dialog box from appearing every time I switch on my PC? Is it due to a virus attack?

Ranadev Singha

This is not due to a virus attack. The cmicnfg.cpl file is part of your C-Media based sound card system and it loads at startup. It’s not essential to the running of your system. You can disable it by going to Start ? > Run and typing ‘msconfig’. Click on the Startup tab and uncheck the file for your audio system applet. Alternatively, try reloading the drivers for your sound card.

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