Computer Tips

Stop Computer Freeze-Ups

A computer will freeze-up if there is a bug or virus infected in the system. These can be contacted as easy as opening an email or visiting a website. Four out of five computers are infected with some kind of bug without the user even knowing it. To cure the problem you must first find out what it is. Follow these steps:

-Make sure your wallpaper, homepage, internet settings, or any of your personal settings have not been altered.

-Check your programs in the "Add/Remove Programs" section of the Control Panel folder. If anything looks suspicious, look it up on the internet or another computer to investigate it. A couple of good sites are liutilities.com and doxdesk.com. They will tell you if it is important or to delete it. If unsure, leave it.

-Search to find any programs installed in the time frame since problems were occuring. Usually it would be an application. If found, repeat previous step.

-Using your System Configuration Utility, go to the Startup tab and uncheck any box that you are sure you don't need. You may need to consult a professional. If unsure, leave it.

-Update all antivirus software and install Ad-Aware by Lavasoft. This program searches and finds any bug in the computer and will delete it for you. There are many programs that do this, but most prefer Ad-Aware. Run the program and perform a full system scan. Run the antivirus software and perform a full system scan.

-Defrag and run Scandisk.

If there was a bug or virus, it would have been found. If your computer still freezes, perform system file checker, replacing any corrupt files, update internet browser, or add RAM memory.

Accessing Computer Registry

Before you try to make any changes to your computer registry, make sure that Windows XP's System Restore option is turned on. Some users disable this feature because it eats a lot of system resources, but it should be turned on if you're going to make registry changes.

To reactivate System restore, single-click My Computer with the right mouse button and choose Properties. If the box marked Turn Off System restore on All Drives is checked, System Restore is deactivated. Click the box to remove the checkmark.

Computer Registry Settings and Spyware Programs

Spyware programs are insidious little programs that sneak onto your system and transmit your surfing habits (and other personal information) back to the server that spawned them. By their very nature, spyware is meant to be hard to detect and hard to uninstall. If your Internet Explorer home page has suddenly been changed, and you can't change it to a different page, chances are you're the victim of a particularly nasty form of spyware called a browser hijacker. Browser hijackers actually alter your registry settings to disable Internet Explorer options.

Navigating Windows Regedit

The Windows registry, or windows regedit, isn't the most user-friendly portion of your PC, and with reason. Messing up your registry can seriously mess up your computer. Personally, I prefer to leave my registry alone whenever possible, trusting in regular PC health checks to keep the registry error free.

If you are navigating through regedit, it works on a tree system. Click on a plus sign will open more ‘branches' on the tree, while clicking a minus sign will close off branches. Be careful not to accidentally change anything as you navigate through the registry, and make a backup registry file before making any changes.

Importing a Computer Registry Backup File

Okay, so let's assume you tried making changes to your computer registry, and things just didn't work out. Fortunately, you exported a backup registry file first (at least, I really hope you did), so you can get your registry settings back to normal. Open the Registry Editor, and select the File menu. In the menu, single-click the Import open. Locate the backup registry file you made, select it, and click the Open button.

Remember, registry tweaking is tricky business. If you're not really sure about what you're doing, a PC error corrector is the best way to keep your registry running.