Computer Problem - help, please

johnnyboy · Sat 30 Jul, 2005 10.14

My PC's being doing this for a few weeks now, and it's very frustrating.

Sometimes, it seems as if the taskbar freezes (is that the correct word? The place where all the open program, the start button, etc, is displayed).

I click to try to open a program and it simply doesn't respond.

I have to CTRL+ALT+DEL and click on "Task Manager" to get it to work again.

It's very inconvenient when I'm trying to do work from home, and I'd appreciate any ways you might have to solve this.

TIA.

Pete · Sat 30 Jul, 2005 11.01

mine does this, I press the start buton on my keyboard and it comes back to life.

Oddly I've just spent two days trying to fix WMP (which was not putting out any sound). I've used system restore, downloaded and reinstalled it several times.

I enventually fixed it by grabbing the volume bar in WMP and dragging it down and back up again.

URGH

J.Christie · Sat 30 Jul, 2005 17.49

johnnyboy wrote:My PC's being doing this for a few weeks now, and it's very frustrating.

Sometimes, it seems as if the taskbar freezes (is that the correct word? The place where all the open program, the start button, etc, is displayed).

I click to try to open a program and it simply doesn't respond.

I have to CTRL+ALT+DEL and click on "Task Manager" to get it to work again.

It's very inconvenient when I'm trying to do work from home, and I'd appreciate any ways you might have to solve this.

TIA.

What OS do you have, and when did this start happening?

johnnyboy · Sat 30 Jul, 2005 18.51

J.Christie wrote:What OS do you have, and when did this start happening?

Cheers for responding JC and Hyma.

I run Windows 2000 Professional Edition (all my home and business computers are networked, either directly or over the Net).

It started around 2 or 3 months ago. I thought it might be a problem with the mouse, but I have since replaced it and it still happens.

I don't run anything unusual on it, I think. Just MS Office, Corel, a couple of mail servers, and that's about it. I use Opera as my browser as I believe it is the most secure option available.

Any thoughts?

ADDITION: I run TightVNC and logmein.com on it quite frequently as on all the PCs. Occasionally, I have to connect to my home PC when I'm at work and often forget to switch it off. Could that be related?

J.Christie · Sat 30 Jul, 2005 19.31

johnnyboy wrote:
J.Christie wrote:What OS do you have, and when did this start happening?
Cheers for responding JC and Hyma.

I run Windows 2000 Professional Edition (all my home and business computers are networked, either directly or over the Net).

It started around 2 or 3 months ago. I thought it might be a problem with the mouse, but I have since replaced it and it still happens.

I don't run anything unusual on it, I think. Just MS Office, Corel, a couple of mail servers, and that's about it. I use Opera as my browser as I believe it is the most secure option available.

Any thoughts?

ADDITION: I run TightVNC and logmein.com on it quite frequently as on all the PCs. Occasionally, I have to connect to my home PC when I'm at work and often forget to switch it off. Could that be related?

I don't know if Windows 2000 has this, but ME does and it never worked, but now having XP it's a dream.

All I can currently say is try a System Restore if 2000 has it, but for you, I'll ask anyone I know to help you, because that's what friends do. Right?

Chris · Sat 30 Jul, 2005 19.45

There is no system restore function on Windows 2000.

Fireboy · Sat 30 Jul, 2005 19.53

Chris wrote:There is no system restore function on Windows 2000.

And even for an OS with System Restore, it isn't exactly ideal.

James Martin · Sat 30 Jul, 2005 21.20

You can manually restore the registry on 2000 or 9x.

Never understood why SR wasn't put on Win2k.

J.Christie · Sat 30 Jul, 2005 21.26

Chris wrote:There is no system restore function on Windows 2000.

Ahhh, shit.

Fireboy wrote:
Chris wrote:There is no system restore function on Windows 2000.
And even for an OS with System Restore, it isn't exactly ideal.

It can be actually, I have saved myself about 6 times from a a reformat.

I've heard it had the features of XP but looked alot like Windows 98.

johnnyboy, I have emailed by cousin who knows his stuff, when he replies I'll tell you what he says.

Fireboy · Sat 30 Jul, 2005 21.37

James Martin wrote:You can manually restore the registry on 2000 or 9x.

Never understood why SR wasn't put on Win2k.

Because Windows 2000 was a different product line, and it came out before Windows ME. Remember that ME was written quite quickly and System Restore was probably written too late to add it to Windows 2000 as it would have to be modified to work with the system (Windows 2000 not being DOS based, unlike ME).

Fireboy · Sat 30 Jul, 2005 21.44

J.Christie wrote:
Chris wrote:There is no system restore function on Windows 2000.
Ahhh, shit.

Fireboy wrote:
Chris wrote:There is no system restore function on Windows 2000.
And even for an OS with System Restore, it isn't exactly ideal.
It can be actually, I have saved myself about 6 times from a a reformat.

I've heard it had the features of XP but looked alot like Windows 98.

johnnyboy, I have emailed by cousin who knows his stuff, when he replies I'll tell you what he says.

My experience with System Restore wasn't exactly perfect. Very unpredictable and only worked half the time. I turned it off after about a year. Although the idea is quite a good one it was a bit premature and much more space was needed to get a good enough range of restore points. Hopefully Windows Vista will have a better version of System Resture.