Modern Widows Problems

Modern Windows problems

If you’re using modern Windows (Windows 95, 98, Me, or XP), you might experience the following problems.…

Windows doesn’t finish loading

When the computer starts going into Windows, if the Windows logo & clouds appear on the screen but never go away (so the computer seems stuck and you never see the Start button or icons), the computer is encountering a software conflict.
Cure:

Turn the computer’s power off. Go into safe mode, by following the instructions in the big gray box in page 347’s column 1. Finish the software-cleaning procedure, by reading from that gray box up through page 351.

Useless password request

When the computer starts going into Windows, if the computer unexpectedly asks you for a password, you probably told the computer you’re on a network (which requests passwords) or your computer is being shared by several people.

If you don’t know any password, press ENTER or the Esc key.

To prevent the computer from asking for passwords, follow the procedure to “Remove unwanted networking”. If that doesn’t get rid of the password requests, look in the Control Panel window, then do this: for Windows XP, click “User Accounts”; for Windows 95, double-click “Passwords”; for Windows 98 & Me, try double-clicking “Passwords” or “Users”.

Illegal operation

If the computer says “This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down”, a program is trying to use a RAM section it’s not allowed to.

That RAM section is being used by a different program, with which your program is having a memory conflict.

Cure:

Press ENTER. Then do the software-cleaning procedure, which makes memory conflicts less likely to occur.

Start button in wrong corner

The Start button is supposed to be in the screen’s bottom left corner.

If your Start button is in a different corner, you accidentally moved the Start button.
To move the Start button back, use one of these methods.…

Method 1: just “drag the taskbar to where you want it.” Here’s how:

One corner of your screen contains the Start button. Another corner contains the time. Running from the Start button to the time is a bar called the taskbar, (which is blue in Windows XP, gray in other Windows).

Point at the taskbar’s middle, in a blank area where there are no buttons. While pressing the mouse’s left button, drag to where you want the taskbar’s middle to go: the middle of the screen’s bottom.

When you start dragging, you won’t see the taskbar move yet; but if you drag the mouse pointer far enough, eventually Windows XP will make the taskbar hop; other Windows will make a gray (or red or yellow) line appear where you want to taskbar to be.
Then take your finger off the mouse’s button.

Method 2 (works just if you’re not using Windows XP): “restart in safe mode, then restart in normal mode”.
Here’s how:

Click “Start” then “Shut Down”. For Windows Me, click the down-arrow.
Click “Restart” then “OK” then immediately hold down the F8 key. Keep holding down the F8 key, until the computer says “Microsoft Windows Startup Menu”. From that menu, choose “Safe mode” (by pressing 3 then ENTER).

For Windows Me, close the “Help and Support” window by clicking its X button. For other Windows, wait several minutes until the computer says “Windows is running in safe mode”, then press ENTER.

Click “Start” then “Shut Down” then “Restart” then “OK”.

Start button missing

If the Start button is missing and so is the time (although the rest of the screen looks normal), you accidentally shrunk them.

The Start button and time are part of a bar, called the taskbar (which is blue in Windows XP, gray in other Windows). The taskbar is supposed to stretch across the bottom of the screen and be about half an inch tall. You accidentally shrunk the taskbar.

To solve the problem, first close all windows (by clicking their X buttons).
If doing that makes the taskbar reappear, your problem is just that you accidentally set your taskbar to “Auto hide”.

Stop hiding the taskbar, by doing this:

For Windows 95, click “Start” then “Settings” then “Taskbar”.
For Windows 98, click “Start” then “Settings” then “Taskbar & Start Menu”.
For Windows Me, click “Start” then “Settings” then “Taskbar and Start Menu”.
For Windows XP, right-click “Start”, then click “Properties” then “Taskbar”.

Remove any check mark from “Auto hide” (by clicking). Click “OK”.
If closing all windows does not make the taskbar reappear, look at the screen’s bottom.

If you see a gray (or light blue) line running across the screen’s bottom, that line is your shrunken taskbar; make it taller by doing this:

Point at that line’s top edge, so the mouse pointer becomes a black arrow (which has white edges and points upward). When pressing the mouse’s left button, drag up about half an inch. Suddenly there, you’ll see a gray (or red or yellow) line (or blue bar) stretch across the screen. Then take your finger off the mouse’s button.

If you don’t see a gray line running across the screen’s bottom (and you’re using Windows 95, 98, or Me), the line is running along some other edge and is too messed up to deal with, so just “restart in safe mode, then restart in normal mode”, by doing this:


If your keyboard has a flying-Windows key, press it. If your kyboard lacks such a key, do this instead: while holding down the Ctrl key, press the Esc key.

You’ll see the Start menu. Click “Shut Down”. For Windows Me, click the down-arrow.
Click “Restart” then “OK” then immediately hold down the F8 key. Keep holding down the F8 key, until the computer says “Microsoft Windows Startup Menu”. From that menu, choose “Safe mode” (by pressing 3 then ENTER).

For Windows Me, close the “Help and Support” window by clicking its X button. For other Windows, wait several minutes until the computer says “Windows is running in safe mode”, then press ENTER.

Click “Start” then “Shut Down” then “Restart” then “OK”.

Icons missing

If some icons are missing from the desktop screen (the main screen), they’re probably they’re just hiding behind other icons or past the screen’s edge.

To see them again, do this:

Close any windows (by clicking their X buttons). Right-click in the screen’s middle, where there is nothing.
For Windows XP, click “Arrange Icons By” then “Name”. For other Windows, click “Arrange Icons” then “By Name”.

If that doesn’t make the icons reappear, the icons might be in the Recycle Bin, so do this:
Double-click the “Recycle Bin” icon. If the Recycle Bin window shows one of the missing icons, right-click that icon then click “Restore”.

Dialog box too big

For the screen’s resolution, you can choose “640 by 480” or “800 by 600” or “1024 by 768”, by using a settings dialog box. If the settings dialog box is too big to fit on the screen (so the box’s “OK” button hides below the screen’s bottom), the computer is confused about what resolution you want. Instead of trying to click “OK”, press ENTER.

If pressing ENTER doesn’t work, do this:

Close the dialog box (by clicking its X button), then recreate the dialog box again, then choose a resolution again, then try pressing ENTER again.

Unwanted document

on menu In Windows 95 & 98 & Me, if you click “Start” then “Documents”, you see the Documents menu, which is a list of the last 15 documents you used.

That list might annoy you, for two reasons:

One of the documents might be embarrassing (perhaps because it’s pornographic or a private letter), and you want to hide it from your colleagues and family.
Even after you’ve deleted a document, that document’s name might still be in the Document menu.

If the Document menu annoys you, here’s how to delete documents from it:
The Document menu shows just the names of the last 15 documents you mentioned. Go use other documents; they’ll go onto the Document-menu list and bump off the older documents.

Another way to get a document off the Document menu is to erase the entire Document menu. Here’s how.…

Click “Start” then “Settings”.
In Windows 95, click “Taskbar” then “Start Menu Programs”. In Windows 98, click “Taskbar & Start Menu” then “Start Menu Programs”. In Windows Me, click “Taskbar and Start Menu” then “Advanced”.
Click “Clear”.
Classic Windows problems
If you’re using classic Windows (Windows 3.1 or 3.11), you might experience the following problems.

Window too tall

If a window is too high to fit on the screen, the computer is confused about how tall the window and screen are.
Since the window’s top line is higher than the screen and can’t be seen, you can’t use the mouse to move the window down.

To move the window down, use the keyboard instead of the mouse, by doing this procedure:

Press Alt then the SPACE bar then M (which means “move”). You should see a four-headed white arrow. Press the keyboard’s down-arrow key a few times, until the window is low enough to fit on the screen. Then press ENTER.

If that procedure doesn’t work (and you don’t see the four-headed arrow), it’s probably because you accidentally pressed the Alt key twice instead of once, so try the procedure again.

File Manager icon missing

In the Main window, you’re supposed to see a File Manager icon. If the File Manager icon is missing, you accidentally deleted it.

Here’s how to recreate it:

Open the Main window. Click “File” then “New” then “OK”. Type “File Manager” then press the TAB key. Type “WINFILE.EXE” then press ENTER.

Major icons missing

If some icons are missing from the Program Manager window, they’re probably they’re just hiding behind other icons or past the screen’s edge.

Cure:

Get the Program Manager window onto the screen, and close all other windows. Maximize the Program Manager window, so it consumes the whole screen. Click the word “Window” (which is near the screen’s top) then “Arrange Icons”. If that doesn’t make the icons reappear, reinstall the software.

Insufficient memory

If the computer says “Insufficient memory”, the computer is claiming you don’t have enough RAM chips.
You might have to buy more RAM chips (Windows wants you to have at least 8 megabytes), or run fewer programs simultaneously (run just one program at a time!), or edit your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files to make more conventional RAM be free (the conventional RAM is the first 640K of RAM, and at least 600K of it ought to be free, a goal you can accomplish by doing the “Cleaning classic Windows” procedure), or create more free space on your hard disk (since a full hard disk makes Windows get so confused that it thinks you don’t have enough RAM chips).

Microsoft Word problems

While using Microsoft Word (which is a word-processing program), you might experience the following problems.

Toolbar missing


Near the screen’s top, you’re supposed to see the standard toolbar (which includes buttons for New, Open, Save, Print, etc.) and the formatting toolbar (which includes buttons for bold, italic, underline, etc.). If a toolbar disappears, you accidentally deleted it.

Cure:

Click “View” then “Toolbars”. You’ll see a list of toolbars; make sure “Standard” and “Formatting” have check marks in front of them (by clicking). For details, read about
“Toolbars”.

Document disappears

While you’re typing a document, if the whole document suddenly disappears, you accidentally deleted it.

Here’s why:

You tried to type a capital A, but instead of pressing the SHIFT key you accidentally pressed the Ctrl key. “Ctrl with A” tells the computer to “select the whole document”, so the whole document becomes highlighted. The next character you type replaces the highlighted text, so the highlighted text is all lost.

Cure:

Immediately say “undo”. (The easiest way to do that is to press Ctrl with Z. Another way is to click the Undo button. Another way is to choose Undo from the Edit menu.) That undoes your last action. Say “undo” several times, until you’ve undone enough of your actions to undo the calamity.

Unwanted document on list

At the bottom of Microsoft Word’s file menu, you see a list of Microsoft Word documents you recently used. That list might annoy you, for two reasons:
One of the documents might be embarrassing (perhaps because it’s pornographic or a private letter), and you want to hide it from your colleagues and family.

Even after you’ve deleted a document, that document’s name might still be in the File menu.
If the document list annoys you, delete documents from it, as follows.…
The File menu shows just the names of the last few Microsoft Word documents you mentioned. Go use other Microsoft Word documents; they’ll go onto File menu and bump off the older documents.

Another way to get a document off the File menu is to erase the entire list of documents from the File menu. Here’s how. Click “Tools” then “Options” then “General”. Remove the check mark from the “Recently used file list” square (by clicking). Click “OK”. That erases the entire document list from the File menu. Afterward, let the computer create a new document list in the File menu, as follows: click “Tools” then “Options”, then put a check mark back into the “Recently used file list” square (by clicking), then click “OK”.