All Computer Knowledge FAQs

By demand, this page was created to list all FAQs on a single page so some people who dislike searching or thumbing through multiple pages of indexes can just look on one page for everything. We aim to please.

How Do I? FAQs

• How to Read a Product Page There are tricks to reading Internet product pages. Some of them are discussed in this article.
• How Do I Find Visual Basic Runtimes? Frequently a program downloaded from the internet or obtain from other sources requires a file of the form VBRUNxxx.DLL in order to run. Sometimes these files are distributed with the program; sometimes they are not. Here is where to get them if you need them.
• How Do I Use My Browser for FTP? You don't need to have an FTP program to download files from an FTP site. Just use your Web browser.
• How Do I Remove Add/Remove Programs Entries? Sometimes if you use the Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs tool to uninstall programs some of these uninstalls will leave program names behind which, when clicked on, either produce errors or no action. You can remove these invalid entries using the method described here.
• How do You Register/Obtain DLL or OCX Files? Sometimes a DLL or OCX library or module will become unregistered for the program it supports. This FAQ describes how to fix that.
• How Do I Find Out What a DLL File Does? Sometimes, you might want to know about a particular file; not a data file, but a particular .DLL or .EXE file. There are sites to help.
• How Do I Set a System Restore Point? Before changing your system settings you should always set a System Restore Point in order to make recovery easier.
• How Do I Respond To Identity Theft? Identity theft is increasing in its instance. While prevention is still the best way to manage it, prevention does not always work and you could wake up and find some bill collector calling you about a bill someone else ran up in your name.
• How Do I Find Autostarting Applications? Frequently when Windows starts a number of other programs start with it. But, how do you find the command that starts them?
• How Do I Run Older Programs Under Windows XP? Many older computer programs may not run correctly if you just click on the program's executable file in Windows XP; this is particularly true of older game programs. There can be many reasons why.

What Is? FAQs

• What Are Electronic Communication Acronyms? To simplify text communications a number of acronyms have been developed. This page expands some you may encounter.
• What is a Country Code and Top Level Domain? The last characters on a domain name are usually either a country code (e.g., .ac, .br, etc.) or a top level domain (e.g., .com, .org, etc.).
• What Was That Error? An error message flashes on the screen, and everything comes to a screeching halt and/or your system restarts. But, what was that error?
• What Do Those 404 and Other HTTP Return Codes Mean? You try to access a web page but all you get is a mysterious code number. What do they mean?
• What are Emoticons? Emoticons are ASCII glyphs originally designed to show an emotional state in plain text messages.
• What are HIBERFIL.SYS and PAGEFIL.SYS? These are system-generated files. They are used by Windows for hibernation and virtual memory control.
• What is a File Named Tilde (~) on the Desktop? A file named with the single tilde character (~) appears on your desktop. What is it and why is it there?

Why Does? FAQs

• Why Aren't Different Display Colors the Same on Different Monitors? Often computer users complain that images viewed on one computer do not look the same when viewed on another.
• Why am I Having a MSN MAILHOST/DOWNLOADHOST Problem? Now and again the controlling DLL file(s) for MSN becomes unregistered and MSN users receive MAILHOST and/or DOWNLOADHOST problem messages and can't connect to their mail. Here's how to fix this.
• Why Does a File of the Form TFTPxxx Try to Run at Startup? A file of the form TFTPxxx (where xxx = numbers) attempts to run at system start and Windows does not know how to do that. Why does it happen?
• Why Can't I Copy a Large File Despite Having Larger Free Space? In these days of extra large hard disks many try to copy large files from a DVD but find that can't even though there is plenty of free space on the hard disk. Why not?