Q. About two days ago I received a message in a box that popped up in the middle of the screen that said that I had spyware on my PC. The message went on, “To get rid of it click here and download this [for free].” I clicked on and downloaded. Well, I later talked to my nephew who is real good with computers. He said I had no idea what I was downloading and shouldn’t have clicked on anything unless it was from Microsoft. My question to you: Is it possible to find out what I downloaded and where it is stored? My nephew told me to look in program files, but I looked and it wasn’t there.
— Marcia Love @msn.com
A. No! No! No! Please join me, Ms. Love, in sounding the alarm that taking a computer online puts one in a dangerous and unregulated place filled with malicious predators who get their pathetic jollies by tricking folks into clicking on their virtual land mines. Whenever a box pops on the screen keep your fingers off the mouse and tap Alt + F4 on the keyboard. This command closes the most recently opened window and so eliminates these kinds of trick bag message boxes. To get a solid view of the big picture check out www.spywareinfo.com.
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Chances are strong that you can find and destroy whatever that unfortunate click planted on your machine using the free introductory software AdAware (www.lavasoft.de). Another free pop-up remedy is Pop-Up Stopper (www.panicware .com). A third worth mentioning is the $25 Spy Subtract by Intermute Inc. (www.intermute.com).
The endless tide of attacks are made possible through features Microsoft wrote into the Windows operating system to let publishers of Web pages offer visitors things like cute animations and other services. The idea was that users would download applets (small programs) that would run on their computers and do their stuff.
Unfortunately, vandals can use these same features, called the remote procedure call and ActiveX, to get victims to run software that does everything from delete files to monitor one’s computer activity. There are other ways for malicious programs to insinuate themselves, of course, such as opening innocent-looking e-mail or even playing booby-trapped music files.
As your computer-savvy nephew told you, there are a very few of these small applications that one probably should agree to run, especially those clearly from Microsoft that do things like update the operating system. Also in the trusted category are the initial pop-ups from Macromedia Inc. that run innocuous slide shows under the name of Macrovision Flash.
So, as this column has said before, whenever you get an e-mail inviting you to open something or when you confront a pop-up, be sure you know the source. Even if the file is from a friend, unless he or she is computer-savvy the file may be tainted. The watchword should parallel the advice given to beginning newspaper reporters: If your mother says she loves you, check it out.
Q. My question/problem stems from when I installed AOL 9.0. When I’m using Internet Explorer and try to e-mail from a Web site it no longer works. When I go into Internet Explorer, Tools, Internet Options, Programs, it has nothing listed for e-mail. It used to have Yahoo listed until I installed that intrusive AOL 9.0.
— Lynna Bart @yahoo.com
A. I don’t know how you lost your browser’s e-mail setting for Yahoo but I can tell you how to get it back, Ms. B. Microsoft built convenient features into the Microsoft Internet Explorer that let one either use the File/Send To command or the mail icon in the toolbar to call up a default e-mail program directly from the browser. But each provider must supply a small program to tweak the browser code and register itself as an optional e-mail service. Here is where Yahoo posts its program: http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/ext/e xt-11.html.
You should first of all go back to the Tools/Internet Options command in the Microsoft browser and use the little down arrow in the e-mail box to see what is there. Once you run the Yahoo applet you will find Yahoo on that list.
Q. I am using a Sony Mavica MVC-FD camera, and whenever I hook it up to my Dell 8200 computer I get an error message that says “Cannot install this hardware. There was a problem installing this hardware Sony DSC USB Device. An error occurred during the installation of the device. The file name, directory name or volume label syntax is incorrect.” I talked to the Sony tech support and they told me to install the USB driver, which I did. I got the same error message. I called Dell support I was transferred to three techs. Then I was transferred to the advanced hardware tech and then I was disconnected. Do you have any suggestions?
— Rodney Hanson, Polson, Mont.
A. We need to go beyond what those tech support folk told you and talk about removing USB drivers and forcing them to restore themselves, but first a tad of happy news: I am delighted that your problem involves that particular Sony camera because it stores images on floppy disks as well as on the Sony Memory Stick, the company’s proprietary memory cards.
So you have other ways to get images to the computer: via the floppy drive or by acquiring one of the many memory card readers that include Memory Stick slots, such as the ImageMate 8 in 1 Card Reader/Writer from SanDisk (www.sandisk .com).
Here is the drill to make sure the computer recognizes the drivers that were on the disk that Sony included with the camera.
It is a technique that can be used with scanners, printers and other devices as well as USB cameras when their driver software goes amiss.
The idea is to remove the driver software that supports a device and then force Windows to restore the software in an uncorrupted state.
Right-click on the My Computer Icon and find your way to the Device Manager. In Windows XP this is done by clicking on Properties and then opening the Hardware tab. In Windows 98 there is a Device Manager tab in the Properties display itself.
Now find your USB hub for the camera, select it and pick the Remove option. When you reboot the computer the machine will try to find the device and then reinstall the drivers as they should be done.
This almost always works, Mr. H., but if it doesn’t the only recourse is to open the System Registry using the Start/Run/regedit command, and is not for amateurs. If you do go the registry route use the camera’s name as a search item and remove all references to it in the registry using the Find and Find Next commands. As always, be sure to first use the File/Export command to make a registry backup before doing the surgery.
If I were you, I’d probably stick to the floppies or get a proper card reader rather than dip into the registry.
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Contact Jim Coates via e-mail at [email protected] or via snail mail at the baiduhai, Room 400, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago 60611. Questions can be answered only through this column. Add your point of view at chicagotribune.com/ askjim.