Strange things have been happening with my computer

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Just recently I started getting a pop-up about five minutes after I go online that says WINDOWS UPDATE: To view this page correctly you must download Virtual Machine! Okay so I figure my computer is trying to tell me something, so I download it. Well it gets to the point where it’s downloading and begins to install, and then just quits, like it never even started. So I shrug and go on to the next website, and sure enough it pops up again!

So then I try to go into Microsoft Word 2000 by opening up one of the files that already exists, and MW won’t open… It starts to, then just freezes. So I try to open a blank document. Nope. Nothing. Now it’s getting personal… these are obviously documents I need to retrieve, otherwise I wouldn’t freaking SAVE THEM!

So I go to my neighborhood-friendly Gateway store and they tell me that I need more memory in my CPU (things have been running noticeably slower lately, too). So I go all over town looking for memory in all the wrong places (no, the Gateway store didn’t have Gateway memory cards) and finally I find one, take it back to GW, and have them install it. I get home… does it work? Nope. Everything else works fine… I can get online, I can listen to sound clips, everything else except open Word and get rid of that Virtual thing. I even tried reinstalling Word, and it’s still not working.

The reason this isn’t in The Pit is because I really would like to know if anyone has any suggestions on what’s going on. Obviously I’m going to go back to the GW store, but I won’t be able to do that until next week. I’ve been trying to fax out resumes from my computer and I can’t even do that because it can’t open the Word documents! Help, anyone?

2

Which operating system do you have?

3

I think you might have been had.

Some of those seemingly legit Windows pop-ups that claim that you need to update your system or that you have a message waiting or that your web connection needs optimising are fronts for spamware or spyware (Comet curser, Gator, etc.). Go here and download Adaware. It’ll tell you if you have inadvertantly installed some crapware.

Inky

4

Don’t go to your Gateway store for tech support advice. Those uys are SALESMEN and not techies. Of course they want to sell you more stuff. Call your Gateway tech support line and see what they say.

Does Word give you a message like “insufficient resources”? If so, search for the file named “normal.dot” It’s the default template for Word. if it gets corrupt, Word won’t open. Delete that file and reboot. Then click start, run, and type “winword /a” Word will start up asking you for your name and initials and it ought to work fine.

Let me know if this applies and/or works for you. I do it all the time for people.