Many Windows PC users don’t know their computer has a virus until their system starts to act funny. Maybe everything seems to be fine, but there is something that doesn’t seem quite right. Their computer might seem a little bit sluggish or a favorite homepage has suddenly been replaced by something else. Worse yet, their default browser can’t get access to the internet. When this happens to you, what do you do? » Read more: Does your Windows PC have a virus?
Archive for the ‘Tech Support’ category
Does your Windows PC have a virus?
June 4th, 2010Dust bunnies will kill your computer if you let them
February 16th, 2010Those little dust bunnies aren’t cute, they’re little killers. Consisting of dust and pet dander, they like to latch onto air vents, cooling fins, and anywhere there is moving air. Where you find one, you can bet you will find more. They like to congregate in warm places, especially around electronics cooling components. One thing that will adversely affect your computer’s performance and shorten its life is dust and animal dander. Your computer relies on proper airflow to stay healthy. If you’ve noticed your computer fan seems to be running louder or more frequently than it has in the past, it might be a sign that your computer is overdue for some basic maintenance. » Read more: Dust bunnies will kill your computer if you let them
How to: Use Fog Creek Copilot an alternative to Remote Assistance
August 30th, 2009I’ve known about Fog Creek Copilot for some time now, but I never really tried it before. I knew there was an offer to use Copilot for free on the weekends, so I decided to try out Copilot today.
The method for setting up a Copilot help session is as follows:
- Step 1 – Helper initiates help session
- Visits Copilot.com
- Clicks on Help Someone tab
- Enters name
- Clicks Go button
- Enters the email of the person being helped
- Downloads and runs Copilot Helper program
- When Copilot Helper runs, it establishes a session with a remote server that will connect the two computers together.
- Step 2 – Help Receiver accepts help session
- Email invitation received from Fog Creek Copilot Support
- Or Receiver contacted by phone from the helper
- Receiver accepts invitation
- Visits Copilot.com, clicks on the receive help tab, enters a 12 digit code the helper was given.
- or Visits embedded link which automates the previous line
- Download and Run Fog Creek Copilot
Once the session is established, the Helper can quickly access the issue to be resolved.
The helper can use Copilot as follows:
- Navigate through the Receiver’s system to take appropriate action.
- Copy files quickly from the Receiver’s system to Helper’s desktop
- Copy files from Helper’s system to the Receiver’s desktop
- Perform ctrl-alt-delete to reboot the system – the copilot gives the option of reconnecting automatically after the reboot occurs.
A few notes about Copilot:
- The window displayed session remaining information in the window Title bar, so you can see how much time is left
- The Copilot software allowed creating a session with one PC, then allowed a session with a completely different PC. That was very useful today when I needed it.
- I can definitely see the value in this service. Only 2 steps and you’re connected and no worries about whether the System will allow a Remote connection or not.
- Transferring files to/from the Helper/Receiver is easy. Helper can do it all.
- The pricing on this service seems reasonable, when I was doing Tech Support as part of my job I could have used a tool like this. It would have really made my life so much easier.
I spent a couple of hours today working with someone who needed help with a PLESK control panel. The Copilot software made the Tech Support session pretty painless. When the connection process takes only two steps, it’s really easy to explain.
If you’re looking for an alternative to Remote Assistance why not give Copilot a try for free on the weekend. You never know, it might be exactly what you’ve been looking for.
Remote Assistance must be permitted
August 29th, 2009Last week I wrote a blog titled “Technical support using Remote Assistance“ In this article I described the reason why you would need Remote Assistance and how to get it started. However, there was one little thing I neglected to mention.
Invitation Not Allowed
Your computer settings must permit Remote Assistance. Otherwise you will get a message that “Remote Assitance is not permitted”
Here’s how to grant Remote Assistance:
- Control Panel method
- Click Windows Start Button
- Select Control Panel Menu
- Select System Control Panel
- Click Remote Tab
- Enable Remote Assistance invitiations by checking the Allow checkbox
- Click OK
- System Properties method
- Right click on My Computer
- Select Properties Menu
- Click Remote Tab
- Enable Remote Assistance invitiations by checking the Allow checkbox
- Click OK
Once the person who needs assistance enables the Remote Assistance invitations, then they can send you the invitation to get started. Read the “Technical Support using Remote Assistance” blog for more details on sending an invitation.
Opt-Out changed my computer – removing unwanted software artifacts
August 27th, 2009This the last of three blogs in the Opt-Out series. The first blog was on “tips to avoid and fix unwanted changes“, the second was “restoring my Home page” and the last one is “removing unwanted software artifacts”.
The primary focus of this blog is undoing changes made to your computer because you didn’t Opt-Out or uncheck the suggested default actions.
In this blog, we cover:
- Removing unwanted desktop shortcuts
- Removing that unwanted software/ IE browser toolbar
Removing unwanted desktop shortcuts
This is one of the easiest annoyances to resolve.
On the computer’s desktop:
- Click-drag method
- Find the Recycle Bin icon, this is the destination of the shortcut file
- Find the shortcut file, this is the file you want to discard
- click and drag the shortcut file into the Recycle Bin
- Right click on Recycle Bin
- Select Empty Recycle Bin menu
- Delete key method
- Find the shortcut file, this is the file you want to discard
- Click mouse on shortcut file
- Press delete button on keyboard
- Click yes button on “Confirm Delete File” dialog
- Right click on Recycle Bin
- Select Empty Recycle Bin menu
Removing that unwanted software / IE browser toolbar
The Internet Explorer toolbars are basically applications that have been installed via an installer. This is good news, because you can uninstall them pretty easily.
To remove IE Toolbar:
IE Toolbar list
- Launch Internet Explorer.
- Right click in the toolbar or tab area of your Internet Explorer.
- You will a list that looks something like this.
- The items that have a check next to them are enabled. No check means disabled.
- Note the name of the Toolbar you want to remove. Write it down, this is the name of the Application that you will be removing.
- Close Internet Explorer. It’s always a good idea to close down a program when you might be removing a resource it might be using.
- Follow the directions below to remove an Application from your computer.
- Relaunch Internet Explorer and you will find the unwanted Toolbar should be gone.
To remove an Application from your computer:
- Navigate to Add or Remove Programs Control Panel.
- Press the Windows Start Button. (lower left hand corner of screen)
- Select Control Panel menu.
- Open Add or Remove Programs Control Panel.
- In the Add or Remove Programs window.
- Select program to remove.
- Click Change/Remove button.
- Answer Yes to Uninstall “Application name”.
I hope the Opt-Out series was useful to you. If not for yourself, then maybe it could be used for helping out someone else who is a victim of the Opt-Out check box in the future.
Please let me know what you think of this article by adding your comments.
Opt-Out changed my computer – Restoring my Home page
August 26th, 2009On Tuesday, I wrote the blog “Opt-Out changed my computer – tips to avoid and fix unwanted changes.” But, you already hit the continue button and you didn’t notice there was a checkbox that allowed the program to change your beloved homepage. Now what are you going to do?
NOTE: The following directions are for restoring your Internet Explorer home page
Here’s how to restore you home page to the desired location:
- Find your homepage
- Using History
- Click the Favorites Button
- Click the History Tab
- Click the Day you remember seeing your home page
- Click the Site that corresponds to your home page
- Using Favorites
- Click the Favorites Button
- Click the Favorites Tab
- Click your favorite site
- Navigate to your desired home page
- Click the Favorites Button
- Click the Favorites Tab
- Click your favorite site
- Click one of these favorite links
- Enter your own URL
- Using History
- Set your Internet Explorer Home page
- Using Internet Explorer
- Find your Home page
- Make sure Internet Explorer window with your Home page is selected
- Select Tools menu
- Select Internet Options
- In the Internet Options window
- Click on General tab
- You will see the current Home page address or addresses
- Click on Use current button just below Home page address
- NOTE: The Use current button, will clear the previous Home page and change it to whatever website is being viewed in the selected Internet Explorer window. If you have a recent release of Internet Explorer that shows multiple tabs in the same window, you might end up with multiple entries for your home page. Don’t worry, you can select the pages you don’t want and press the delete key.
- Click the Apply button
- Click OK button
- Using Internet Explorer
Internet Options with unwanted homepage
After following these directions, your Home page should be available whenever you open Internet Explorer or click on the little Home icon.
BTW: Do you have one of the Home pages I listed? Do you use a different one all together? Please share your comments.
How to: Provide Technical support using Remote Assistance
August 23rd, 2009When family and friends have computer issues, who do they call? Many times its their personal IT support person. They call him or her up, then try to describe the issue(s) they’re having. Depending on the circumstances, this can either be a short conversation or a long drawn out one.
A picture is worth a thousand words
Finally, after the attempt to describe the issue. The IT person tries to make a best guess at what the problem is, then tries to walk the person on the other end of the phone through the steps to resolve the issue. If only the IT person could see what’s going on, they’d make an observation and make an informed decision on what was really happening with your computer. What could have taken the IT person 2 minutes to do in person ends up costing them 30 minutes or more trying to explain what to do over the phone. Not that we don’t love talking to you for that long. It’s more like we’d rather spend that time socializing with you instead of trying to describe how to fix an issue without seeing what’s happening.
I have a suggestion to avoid the frustration of your tech support person. Use Remote Assistance to give your IT person remote control of your computer. They can usually solve your problem quickly and help both of you avoid a lot of grief.
Remote Assistance to the rescue
Remote Assistance is basically a way to allow a remote user to see what’s going on with your computer. When you first connect, they are in monitor only mode. Your IT person can ask for control of your computer to make the necessary changes to your computer’s configuration. Once you permit access they will see your computer in a window. All mouse actions and keyboard strokes are sent as if your tech support person were right there.
How to setup a Remote Assistance session
One note before we begin. This usually works better if you have high speed internet like Cable Modem or ISDN. If you have dial-up you might NOT want to try this.
- Press the Computer Start button
- Select the Help and Support Menu
- Select Invite a frind to connect with Remote Assistance
- Click invite someone to help you
- Type email address
- Invite this person
- Enter your name in the from text area
- Enter your problem detail in Message text area
- Click Continue > button
- Set Invitation Expire time. Default is 1 hour. Set it to an appropriate time that will allow you to notify your IT person that you need the tech support. Don’t forget, you will need to permit control of your computer.
- Enter password and password confirmation.
- Click Send Invitation
- When the IT person receives the email, they will open the attachment and type the password to connect with your computer.
- They will press the Take Control button on their Remote Assistance screen
- Click the Yes button when you see a dialog asking if you want to allow Control of your computer.
- When they have finished, you can press the Disconnect button on the Remote Assistance page.
Note: Your invitation will still be good until it expires. So if you set the expiration for two hours, it will be good for two hours. Make sure you delete the invitation once you are done.
- Press the Computer Start button
- Select the Help and Support Menu
- Select Invite a frind to connect with Remote Assistance
- Select View invitation status
- Select Invitation
- Press Delete button
I realize there have been many articles written on Remote Assistance. I had to do a tech support call tonight and decided to include the direction here. Then I could reference this blog for future tech support calls.
The directions in this article provides one way of many to connect with another computer via Remote Assistance.
