Everyone has been to PC Hell at one time or another. It's that place you visit when your personal computer is driving you insane with problems, glitches, and so on.

To try to soothe the frustration, we'll provide some tips, hints, and troubleshooting remedies to help you get out of PC Hell.


Can't Open Attachments in Outlook Express 6

"OE removed access to the following
unsafe attachments in your mail."

If you are receiving this error message when viewing an email in Outlook Express, here is how to fix it.

With the introduction of Outlook Express 6, Microsoft has added an additional feature to prevent customers from infecting their machines with viruses. Outlook Express uses the Internet Explorer unsafe file list and the Confirm open after download setting in Folder Options to determine if a file is safe. Any e-mail attachment with a file type that is reported as "unsafe" is not downloaded, and access to the attachment is removed.

However there are times, you may want to view an attachment that Outlook Express has deemed as unsafe. In these cases, follow these instructions to allow Outlook Express to show the attachment.

1. Start Outlook Express.
   
2. On the Tools menu, click Options.
   
3. Click the Security tab, click to clear the Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus check box under Virus Protection, and then click OK.

To better protect yourself from viruses, its a good idea to leave this option checked unless you definitely want to open the attachment.

Another way to help protect yourself from email viruses infecting your computer if you use Outlook Express is to disable the Preview Pane. There are certain viruses that will infect a computer even if you just preview the message. To disable the preview pane:

Start Outlook Express.

Click on View, Layout
Uncheck the Show Preview Pane, and then click OK.

Outlook Express Backup Genie, a handy email backup utility that works with the top 9 popular Email Clients such as MS Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, Netscape Messenger, IncrediMail and PocoMail. It allows you to save your messages, address book, settings, mail and news accounts, message rules, blocked senders lists and the signatures, which can be easily restored when necessary.

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Internet Tip
Google is arguably the most popular search engine on the Internet. However, many users do not take advantage of all the other features it offers. Features such as a calculator, news headlines, price lookup, spell checker, travel information, and web page translation are just a few of the numerous features Google has available.

Other Google services / web pages:

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Block Messenger Spam Pop-Ups
Many of my customers running either Windows 2000 or XP are complaining that while on-line they are getting “spam” pop up messages like this one.



These hackers are exploiting a Windows service (Messenger Service) intended for large corporate offices. Messenger Service is un-needed in the home (and really ANY) environment.

In Windows XP you disable the Messenger Service through the Control Panel. Navigate to Administrative Tools | Services. Look through the list of services for Messenger. Double-click on Messenger and click on Stop. Then set the Startup Type to Manual or Disable. Click on OK and the pop-up spam will be blocked.

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Keeping your machine in great condition
Periodically do a disk cleanup. Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Disk cleanup. Check all the boxes EXCEPT "Compress old files" and click Ok.

Defragment regularly. The entry level defragmenters built into the different versions of Windows are painfully slow. We recommend using Executive Software's DiskKeeper. Their website has a FREE trial version that is excellent. The full version gives you scheduling so you don't even have to remember to defragment.

There is no perfect defragmentation schedule that will fit everyone. Rule of thumb is that the more you use a computer the more you should defragment.

Cleanup your startup folder. A large number of programs will place a program in your startup folder. Everything in the folder will be run when the computer is rebooted. The more items in the startup folder the slower your boot time will be.

Remove old software and unnecessary software. Every PC gradually accumulates at least some software 'clutter'. The 'cleaner' the machine the faster it will run. Remove any old applications and games that you no longer use or need.

Remove slow software. Anything that runs in the background will slow you down. Some software is especially notorious. See the section "Software to Avoid and Why".

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Software to Avoid and Why

Kazaa
Even though you may no be actively running the program. Kazaa runs a second program called P2P networking. This program will slow your computer by 15%-20% for no apparent reason. In addition, the Recording Industry of America has been taking legal action against the worst offenders for illegal swapping of MP3 files.

Weatherbug
This program will help slow your internet connection. It has to continuously check the web to pull the temperature. Its also a great way to get pop-up ads and spam. Other weather programs also behave in a similar fashion.

AOL
Any version of this software can drastically slow your PC.

Microsoft FindFast
This program creates an index of your hard-drive so Windows can pull up your MS Office documents faster. However, when you reboot, the program re-indexes the drive. Microsoft's intensions were good but the program spends more time thrashing the disk drive than the time its supposed to save. Findfast can be disabled by removing the icon from the Startup folder.

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