Computer gektoids, my girlfriend needs you!

[TCO]

Ok...provocative title.

My gf is having some computer problems. I'm trying to help her remotely. She has been having crashes in Word and getting a kernel 32 message. I did a little net research and there is a virus mentioned that may be involved.

Would appreciate advice on the following:

1. Recommended paid or free virus checker.

2. Any info on this kernel 32 virus (to allow us to rule it out perhaps).

3. Any general troubleshooting advice.

4. Detailed troubleshooting (question by question) if anyone is willing.

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She is a very sweet girl. different from me. So don't worry that you are helping an evil troll. It will go over to a sweetie.

[DarthVeda]

turn off the auto-save feature built into word and see if that stops the crashing.

[Q Classic]

if she's got nothing really she wants to save...

wipe, reformat, reinstall.

[TCO]

Ok. I will have her do that. Why would that be making the program crash. Also, exactly how do I turn it off? I went to Tools/options/save. And in there there are seperate tabs for "allow background saves" and for "save Autorecovery info every". Do they both need to be off? And is this a feature of the document/template or if I turn it off in one document will it be off in all?

[Bereta_Eder]

you have a girlfriend? tell me she's not the one with the hat.

[TCO]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
if she's got nothing really she wants to save...

wipe, reformat, reinstall.

I had her back up two folders: "My documents" and "Files". I think she would still end up losing her bookmarks in IE and her messages/addresses in Outlook. Plus there is a decent chance that the virus would still be present in those two folders. So i still need a virus check solution.

[TCO]

Originally posted by paiktis22
you have a girlfriend? tell me she's not the one with the hat.

Yeah. I guess so. We haven't said that we are exclusive. But I stopped dating the other one. And she would probably be hurt if i dated another one. Plus things are pretty good here...

Hat?

[Bereta_Eder]

coffee shop? peacenick? hat? washington post?

[TCO]

I need poor 70% gay Ashie here. He is the best at this computer stuff.

[Proteus_MST]

If you get an Error Message with the Kernel32 mentioned, it could have a lot of reasons.

It would be interesting to know which PC she uses.

Maybe your Girlfriend hasn´t enough RAM so she gets Problems if she has too much Programs open?
Or maybe a Reinstallation of Word could help

[TCO]

Originally posted by paiktis22
coffee shop? peacenick? hat? washington post?

Could I have some of what you are smoking? Being sober holds me back from understanding.

[TCO]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST
If you get an Error Message with the Kernel32 mentioned, it could have a lot of reasons.

It would be interesting to know which PC she uses.

Maybe your Girlfriend hasn´t enough RAM so she gets Problems if she has too much Programs open?
Or maybe a Reinstallation of Word could help

Now we are getting somewhere. She didn't have a lot of programs open (although I guess there could be spies or people hacking in). The computer is a Pentium III. It has Win 98 with Office 97 on it.

[Q Classic]

if you're willing to shell out $30 or so, drive over to the best buy or circuit city in the burbs and buy norton av or mcafee av. i use norton, haven't had problems with it.

deep virusscans take a while, though. tell her to start it up when she goes to bed, and then when she wakes up, it'll be done with the check.

[Q Classic]

does she have an always-on inet connection? if that's the case, she ought to put up a firewall of sorts to stop people from hacking in; honestly, though, i doubt she's really being hacked.

[Bereta_Eder]

Originally posted by GP


Could I have some of what you are smoking? Being sober holds me back from understanding.

Sure

/me gives GP a GR.

it was a referance to that peacenick who you met in a coffee shop and commented at the article you were reading at the washington post and was wearing a funny hat.