Replies

If Microsoft Security Essentials is being offered as updates, this concerns me! I run Norton Internet Security 2011 in my Windows 7 laptop and Symantec Endpoint Protection on my XP Professional desktop. Both are exquisite and very complete security suites! I am concerned that these Security Essentials updates will begin to interfere with the proper operation of these security suites. It has been my experience that these Microsoft updates have a nasty habit of messing with other peoples stuff, especially if it is better than theirs! Sorry but I pay for my security, I don’t trust anything that’s free. There is just to much stuff that the free stuff misses. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to reinstall an entire computer because they were running free software which just couldn’t cut it!I do not want one of these updates to overwrite the firewall I’ve paid good money for and unfortunately every security item I’ve gotten by accident from Microsoft has mucked with my installed security suite and I’m not about to go through all that again! I’m hoping that the Security Essentials is an optional update so I can chose not to download it! I’d rather stick with what I have, it’s clearly way better!

This is a problem found in high frequency radio transmissions, multipath! What is happening is that the radio signal is arriving from the router directly and at the same signal strength from a reflection off of some internal metal in the house itself. the result is the wireless NIC in the laptop receives a packet from the router but it arrives again a split second later. Now the card becomes confused. Repeat that for thousands of packets flying on multiple channels 20 MHz wide and you have a wireless card that can’t make head nor tails of the signal! In that room there is a powerful reflection that is as strong as the signal from the router. It’s like picket fence on an FM radio signal. If you stop in one of these areas where the distortion occurs, the signal is unintelligible, (totally garbled) .You can try moving the router so that this serious reflections affects another area where you do not take the laptop, but you may never be able to get a decent wireless signal in that room because of this.

I just thought of something! In most laptops, the wireless card is separate of the NIC card. I had an Intel ProWireless card that was a separate entity. Unfortunately right now I just realized that you can’t get contact with a USB dongle either and so that returns me to the original problem which has to be in the Super I/O bus. Maybe this will convince you of the importance of keeping your security up to date even if it does cost money on a yearly basis! 2000 viruses is pretty serious and the fact that laptop survived as well as it di is amazing. I know people who have lost their equipment completely with a lesser infection!

2 and 1 are Windows 7 machines and they can talk to each other. The problem does appear to be in the XP Service Pack 3 machine…Hmmm, maybe you can’t use a Homegroup and a Workgroup together? Grasping at straws here but maybe…

Oh-oh I’ve been there and done this! Wireless radio chip in the wireless router is going out! When that happens the network disappears completely from the cue and then comes back. I had two routers do this , one a Belkin, (which was so flaky I’ll never run another one!), and one of those flat pancake Linksys routers which had a tendency to overheat. I would replace your wireless router, the fact it disappears from wireless networks is a sure sign it’s the wireless radio in the wireless router.

Never have had OpenDNS work properly at all! It’s just a big headache I got rid of some time ago. I am back on the Cox west DNS servers and my browser runs like lightning now. Let your operating system decide this dynamically and leave well enough alone. Besides if Cox DNS servers don’t know the answer to a request they consult with other DNS servers that do. OpenDNS was flaky and unreliable for me so my suggestion is don’t change!

Okay, I changed out a router on my mom’s system and made all the settings identical to the previous router and noticed that when I logged on, (which happened seamlessly), the network name was the same and everything but Windows 7 asked if the network was a Home, Office or Public network and when I finished logging on, it was listed as Network 2. This could be because 1. The MAC address of the device changed, (layer 2 Data Link), or the IP address, (Network layer 3), changed. Windows 7 definitely knew there was a difference, between the previous configuration and the new one. From past experience with this Windows XP didn’t notice the changes when these kind of changes were made. So using this, eith an IP address is changing for some reason or it is seeing different Mac Addresses when it is booted. When Windows 7 doesn’t understand something it blocks network access! While this makes things much more secure, It makes shaky variable access network completely unusable. I suspect it’s the virtual devices causing your problem. Perhaps you should remove these from your network andf it then might work!

It sounds like something attempting to apply policy on your network and apparently it’s loading into RAM. It’s also very possible your network security has been compromised! That’s a huge and scary process going on! I would get a hold of your Network Administrator immediately and tell him about this, in fact have him come down and see this for himself. There is something very bizarre going on and that’s not normal at all! Hackers have gotten to the point where unless a Network Administrator is diligent there is a good likelihood the network will be compromised. This is so whether they run Windows or Unix/Linux servers. It might be even a denial of service asttack of some sort. Why your machine is being targeted is a big question! You need to contact your Network Administrator immediately, your network could be compromised from either outside or worse yet inside.

NETBIOS is not routable! It will only stay within it’s particular subnet. Why are you using NETBIOS instead of TCP/IP? NETBIOS is long dead dude you should be using TCP/IP particularly on 802.3 Fast Ethernet. It was designed for TCP/IP as it’s native protocol. The switch will pass NETBIOS because it operates at Layer 2, the Data Link layer but it will not work on Layer 3 devices, (Network Layer), like your router. Dump the NETBIOS dude and go TCP/IP! Problem solved!

Is File Sharing turned on in the machine you can’t see? Check that in the Network and Sharing Center. Also see that Network Discovery is on in both machines. That’s under Change Advanced Settings.Betcha anything one or more of these is turned off! Check and see.

The XP machine requires that you set up a Workgroup. They will not communicate without this! In the Windows 7 machine go to the Control Panel and select System. The bottom portion shows the workgroup name. Go to Change Settings and name it the same as what it is in the XP machine. Note don’t use the default name in XP, it’s a security risk, change it! I think the Vista machine works more like Windows 7 in this area, I could be wrong however. Whatever the case may be you must have a joint Workgroup name for the two computers to be able to talk to each other.

Hah! Speedtest requires Adobe Flash to work! Are you running the 64-bit browser? There is no Flash for that yet. Find the 32-bit version in your start menu and run that instead. You should have Flash in that. It sounds to me like you have a Flash problem to me! The Internet Explorer 64-bit browser has a version loaded in the x86 32-bit layer as well. Try running that next time.

I have the same set up as you do! My desktop runs Windows XP Professional and the laptop runs Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. I can easily exchange files back and forth, although I have file sharing set off in the laptop to avoid penetration on public networks. Here are a few facts you need to look at: When communicating with an XP machine you must set up a Workgroup not a Homegroup. If you don’t have both machines set up in a Workgroup they will not see each other! To set up aWorkgroup in Windows 7, go to Control Panel and select System, (this assumes you’re using Small or Large icons instead of Catagory View). At the bottom half, the Workgroup default name is shown. Click Change Settings and name your workgroup to what it is in your XP machine. The two will see each other and when you map your network in the Network and Sharing Center you will see an icon for your XP machine. I dragged it out onto the desktop so when I want to access my Windows XP Professional computer I can click on it and see all my folders which have the file permissions specified on that computer. I can read/write and do all the things I need to do by just dragging the files either way from the open windows that I have “snapped” side-by-side. It works great and this is probably your problem! Note: hopefully your wireless router assigns the same IP address each time to your desktop computer otherwise your link on the desktop will be invalid. If you run into this problem assign a static IP address for the desktop in the wireless router and your laptop will see that computer every time it logs on to your network. Also you have to use Home or Office network settings otherwise the Windows 7 machine will place severe restrictions on what can happen over the network. Do not use these two settings if your wireless network is unsecured! That’s asking for it! I recommend WPA2 PSK using AES for security. It’s pretty darn tight! Also the Windows XP machine needs Service Pack 3 or an update that you can get from Microsoft for Service Pack 2 to use the new much more secure AES. I hope this helps!

What? Why not use the inputs on your HD television? With a Windows 7 machine, or even a Windows XP machine with graphics card and and HDMI output you can directly connect an HDMI cable to that set and use it as a huge monitor for the computer and get audio too! There would be no restrictions, you bring up what you want to watch on your computer and it displays, frequently at the highest resolution right on your big screen TV! Yes you have to go over to your computer but no big deal there! I see no benefits to running the Apple or Google TV boxes at all. In fact, I find the product somewhat laughable myself! My system is modularized, the computer has direct audio connection to a 100-watt per channel Sony AX301 amplifier and if I had the HD TV it would be connected to that computer through HDMI connector too. These products are basically designed to censor what you watch based upon whether a company has paid an exorbitant fee to either one of these guys! It’s one of the stupidest ideas to come out in recent years! This kind of product makes me laugh it is such obvious censorship for profit! My advise: Drop the thing in the trash and directly connect your TV to the computer, you’ll be so happy you did! May I ask, what does this article have anything to do with Windows? She’s shown as an administrator and I think she needs to be cued in that this newsletter is about Windows and not Apple! I do not own a Mac, IPod, Ipad or Iphone, nor will I ever use ITunes because of their totally proprietary-for-profit nature. My sytem runs Winamp and it’s got so much it does compared to that ITunes thingy, especially when connected to a serious stereo system! I burn my music to my drive, I don’t buy it, especially from ITunes! Personally if you’re going write about an Apple product, do it elsewhere, us Windows users could care less actually!

The Internet Explorer 9 64-bit browser does have two versions, one installed in the x64 layer and the other in the x86 layer. I had two icons perched on my desktop for IE8, one for the 64-bit and one for the 32-bit browser. Both worked correctly after the install of IE9! The icon for your 32-bit browser is in the start menu and you can pull it out onto the desktop. Make sure to change the icon so it looks different. That way you can see at a glance which browser you are starting. I renamed both icons as well so that I could see which is which. If when you start the browser and there is no flash, that’s the 64-bit version. Look for your 32-bit version in your start menu and you’ll have the flash items all there! Note: the Google Toolbar and other Flash items do not need to be changed from those used in IE8. They should be the same and work the same…at least in theory! There are differences however! No broweser crashes as of this point, the software does seem to be stable! I still feel some work has to be done to get the “look” of the interface a little less “utilitarian” which it does definitely looks that way now.