Troubleshooting Different Errors

Your computer restarts itself, or it is slow, when you open too many programs it hangs.

Sound familiar? Well maybe you have a virus, a trojan, or some spyware. Then again maybe your system needs a tune up!

Finding these errors require different approaches to fixing the problem that caused the errors.

I get this question asked of me in my e-mail and some of the forums I post to almost daily so here goes...

Troubleshooting Different Errors techniques:

• When your system gets infected with a virus, spyware, or a trojan one of the first indictors is the speed of your computer, it just drags.
• You open your e-mail and it take forever to finally open.
• You open your browser and all the sudden you have pop ups all over the place.
• You open your document in your word processor and as soon as the document loads the program either hangs or shuts down.

While troubleshooting different errors Observe ESD!

How do you fix these things?

Well first you need to have a reputable anti virus program, while your out on the internet looking grab a anti trojan and anti spyware programs also.

Troubleshooting Different Errors instructions:

Once you have the programs installed and the latest updates you need to restart your system, for Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and Windows 7 / 8 / 10 you should go into the 'Safe Mode' to clean up your system.

You get into the 'Safe Mode' by pressing the F6 or F8 key on restart. On some of the newer computers you have to be fast, as soon as the screen blinks from the BIOS start up into 'Starting Windows' splash screen press the F6 or F8 key.

You will know if you were fast enough a menu will display in black and white on your monitor. Select 'Safe Mode'. You will see a list of the drivers the Operating System ( OS ) loads behind the loading Windows splash screen, it will take a couple of minutes before the 'Safe Mode' screen shows up. You will have to say 'ok' to the fact that the 'Safe Mode' is running not the normal mode. Also you have to have 'Administrator' rights for your normal ID or know the Administrators user ID and password to log on in 'Safe Mode'.

Note: If you try three or four times and still can't get to the 'Safe Mode" you can modify the boot sequence from the Properties of My Computer and under the 'Advanced' tab, select the 'Settings' button in the 'Startup and Recovery' section. You can change the 'Time to display a list of operating systems' the default is 30 seconds but normally it will not display, changing  from the default to a higher timeout will give you time to press the F6 key and then select the Safe Mode.

Log on, wait until the desktop loads. Don't worry about the screen resolution, it is set for 800x600 by default. You can change the resolution but the next time you use 'Safe Mode' it will be back to 800x600.

The Self Computer Repair Unleashed 2^nd Edition Manual has more guidelines for Troubleshooting Different Errors

Now you can run your anti virus, spyware, and trojan programs and clean your system of infections. (Be aware this process will take some time to complete, you are scanning your system with three different programs).

When you are done cleaning up the infections you should do a defrag of your hard drive (DO NOT use the defrag program on a SSD it will corrupt the drive!) before going back to normal mode.

I will explain why you should do these cleanup tasks in 'Safe Mode'.

When you start the computer with the minimum resources the programs you are using can access device drivers, special programs, and other programs that are running when you start the system normally. When these are running the cleanup programs can not scan, clean, or move them because they are 'locked'.

When you have finished cleaning and defragging your hard drive you could complete your tune up with doing some optimization (Speed UP MY PC!) of your Operating System (OS) by following this link.

Something else you may want to consider after your install your new anti virus, spyware, and trojan software is increasing your security, by adding a router between your computer and the internet the router will stop viruses, spyware, and trojans from sending your data back to the thieves that infected your computer. It will also allow you to 'hide' your computer from hackers.

In this day and age of computers you can not stop all the malicious software that will try to invade your computer but you can root it out and keep it from sending your data back to the unscrupulous people that will rob you blind.

P.S.

If you have done all the above and still have problems short of reloading the Operating System you can try a Registry repair program. cleaning the registry will remove all the "holes" and excessive entries that uninstalling programs have left behind. A clean registry will load faster and the memory not being used will help with the speed, the processor not looking for missing files or devices will increase the speed...