Solutions For Everyday Computer Problems
By Jeffrey Livintoff
PTC Consulting
How’s your computer running? If you are like most people, it’s not running as fast as new and may be doing weird things. Windows pop up when you are online, your home page has changed or it’s running incredibly slow. Strong signs that you have a virus or spyware. To prevent these problems, you need antivirus and antispyware programs running. They need to be updated on a weekly basis. If you see something free online saying “click here to speed up my computer “or “click here to get a free virus check” , Do not open them. They may be a virus or spyware. Some spyware will pop up a window on your computer saying you are infected. They want you to go to their website and purchase software to fix your computer. This is a fake, and they will get your name, address and credit card number.
Once the computer is infected, running antivirus programs to clean it will not be effective. Most viruses and spyware disable the antivirus and anti-spyware programs from working. Professional cleaning from PTC can rid you of your infections. Another computer problem is having messages saying running out of virtual memory. This may be a sign of a full or failing hard drive and needs immediate servicing. Computers get full of junk. Every website you visit creates temporary files that get stored on your hard drive. Orphan files left over from programs that you uninstalled. Files on the computer often get disorganized and cause the hard drive to work harder finding the files it needs. We can install programs that clean your hard drive of unwanted files, fix windows errors and defrag your hard drive.
Computers are like cars, they need maintenance. If you neglect them, they will fail and cause you grief. What about the hardware? Most hardware problems are caused by bad power. If the power to your computer dips or shuts down all of sudden, it can cause major damaged. Power supplies, hard drives. Motherboards, memory, and processors can be damaged by sudden power changes. What is needed to prevent this is a UPS. A UPS is basically a surge protector with a battery built in. Power shuts off, the UPS kicks in. UPS come in many different sizes and power capacity. Most UPS have info on the box telling you which to choose.
Another big problem is when you computer fails and you need the data. Moving your hard drive to another computer as the primary hard drive almost always fails. The operating system (Windows) will crash because you have different hardware. In my opinion, this is done on purpose. They want you to buy new software every time you get a new computer. Or at least make you install the software with the supplied serial numbers, so that it cannot be installed on several computers. Of course you can copy your data (word files, pics, emails, music, etc) to a new computer. What about the programs? If you copy the program to another computer, it will not work. That’s because when you install a program, it makes changes to the windows registry. Windows needs these changes to know how to run the program. The companies selling software want to make sure that you only install the program on one computer. We at PTC have discovered a technique to copy an entire hard drive intact to another computer and keep all the data and PROGRAMS. It’s not something we can teach, but it is a definite service that we can offer.
There will always be computer problems. There will always be PTC to provide you with the Solutions and Friendly Service that we been providing for over 12 years.
Aloha
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