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Voltzwgn
Trad climber
Sac CA
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Aug 29, 2006 - 03:41pm PT
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In reading so of the past posts you might ask or do it yourself run the Dell diagnostics for that machine. Set them up to loop and run like all night long. This should find or eliminate hardware problems as a source of the problem.
Comments about Symantec/Norton you'll never get rid of them doing the add/remove programs route, Symantec has notes on their site about how to fully remove their products, lots of manual steps.
You might see if you can get them to add avirtual machine to the pc or a second os install and just have on it a clean os and outlook and see how mail runs like that. If it runs ok maybe add office and see how that goes. If that works ok then you'll know it's not hardware and either corrupted files or conflicting software. Sorry to say it's not an easy solution. Not sure what image means in your environment but in ours you'ld have sort of lemon law rights if your having problems and we install a clean image and you still have problems we would replace hardware as the next step. One other thing you might ask them to do is if they have to image and then still install a bunch of stuff is for them to burn a custom image of your pc with all your programs so in the future if they need to re-image then it's save your critical/created files off and re-image and in 30 minutes to an hour your in business. When your supporting thousands of PC's you can't spend days even half days chasing down the little things that make life miserable for your customers. So you take the easy way out as trying to figure out some of this stuff takes days.
edit for clarity
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
one pass away from the big ditch
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Aug 29, 2006 - 03:58pm PT
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"Generally the machine refuses to turn off so I have to hold the power button down to do this."
this compounds the problem
reloading the os is a good way to fix this, unless the HD is bad, which is very possible.
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
St. Louis
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 29, 2006 - 05:08pm PT
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I had to walk away and go home before I had a total meltdown. I can no longer Synchronize. No more access to Outlook. No more access to Dreamweaver (I'm our webmistress). No more access to MyGateway (critical software for the academic environment).
And I have no tequila in the house to use to cope with this.
edit: I just 'stopped process' on avenger and I can now access this stuff.
Next step: set machine on fire.
edit again: Image, or reimage here means simple to reformat the entire machine. I hate this in that it takes days to get up and running again. and in the past when we've done it, it improves nothing. Not sure what other terminology is used out there.
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Shack
Big Wall climber
Reno NV
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Aug 29, 2006 - 10:19pm PT
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Crimpie...
Is it Outlook or Outlook Express giving you the problem?
Outlook comes with MS Office and Outlook Express comes with Windows XP.
They are 2 different animals.
If your using Outlook, you could try Express?
I'm with Werner on this...could be bad RAM,
or I/O issues with the MB.
In the mean time,
Use HijackThis to scan and post the log here.
You can download it here...http://www.merijn.org/programs.php#hijackthis
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Wonder
climber
WA
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Aug 29, 2006 - 10:26pm PT
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Leb, dont be coy. What's this energy sorce? Cough it up. Or link us.
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TradIsGood
Trad climber
Gunks end of country
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Aug 29, 2006 - 10:26pm PT
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Throw in the towel. Google now has spreadsheets, Calendar, GMail, word processing, etc. on line. Your files are available anywhere, even if you do not lug that silly laptop around with you.
They work on mac, windows, linux, internet cafe, ...
Ajax...
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Voltzwgn
Trad climber
Sac CA
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Aug 30, 2006 - 12:15am PT
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An image for us is the OS and the software packages the user uses. Once it's all on and configured at a general level, not normally user specific we take an image. Then if your re-imaged all you need to do for the most part is add your customization. We ask user to store created files on the LAN, but if they have them local we'll pull them off before a re-image using ghost we can rebuild a pc in about an hour. Then of course a user needs to customize adding colors, background and that stuff.
Depending on how they have mail setup it may or maynot be availible to 3rd party programs. Being it's academic my guess is they do pop mail so it should work with other but not knowing this I wouldn't make that claim yet.
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Voltzwgn
Trad climber
Sac CA
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Aug 30, 2006 - 12:30pm PT
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Should it come to a rebuild you may want to use restore points to allow you to save known working configurations/points in time that you can backup to if problems develop.
You could always take the big leap and be an early user of Vista.... I haven't even ventured to put it on a test box yet but will probably do so soon.
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Crimpergirl
Sport climber
St. Louis
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 30, 2006 - 03:55pm PT
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I experienced a Grade A meltdown today. No, not the machine, but me. This included a raised voice, cursing, throwing my phone (I don't recommend such violence), stomping down to the IT people, and shedding actual tears. Evidentally that is what I've needed to do for these past three years since they are ordering me a new machine. It should take a week to arrive. My choice in new machines is the following:
a. Dell D820.
b. Dell D820.
It was a hard decision, but I opted to go with the D820. God knows that machine cannot be worse than this one. Thanks for all your assistance.
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Forest
Trad climber
Tucson, AZ
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Aug 30, 2006 - 04:23pm PT
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Crimpie, for your new machine, avoid these problems in the future, and never never never even launch IE or outlook. You'll be amazed at how few problems you'll have.
Actually, you'll need to launch IE once. Go directly to http://www.mozilla.com/ to download mozilla and thunderbird) and never launch IE or outlook again.
At least, that's my advice.
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rwedgee
Ice climber
canyon country,CA
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Aug 30, 2006 - 04:40pm PT
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Crimpie, go with Shack on this one. Hijack this is the sh%t! You can get it and other free antispyware here http://www.aumha.org/secure.htm . Only do the scan and post it. It is an experts tool !! Don't delete anything if you're not absolutely sure what it is.
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Hardman Knott
Gym climber
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca
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Aug 30, 2006 - 07:22pm PT
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Hey, when you guys are talking about Outlook, do you mean the mail program?
If so, what's the deal with it? Also, any good one free ones to use with XP?
Good move Crimpy - life is way too short for that kind of bullshít...
The suggestions about RAM are very good. That's usually one of the first things I check
when trouble shooting. It is also one of the hardest things to pin down (bad pun).
This includes passing hardware tests––I've seen bad modules pass.
In a case where someone is running Windows XP or Mac OSX with a single 512MB
module, I strongly suggest investing $40-$50 (Dealram, Ramseeker, ect) on another 512MB stick to
bring the total to 1 GB. This makes a huge improvement in either OS, and is worth doing anyway.
So then you remove the existing stick and then use the new stick and see if that solves
the problem. If knott, your computing experience will be greatly enhanced with the increased RAM.
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Forest
Trad climber
Tucson, AZ
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Aug 30, 2006 - 07:27pm PT
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HK, this is just for Outlook on the PC. Outlook/Entourage on the mac is fine tho somewhat old. I'm told Thunderbird is a very nice mail program on the PC side. But the important part is that it won't propagate viruses. this is true of pretty much all mail programs except for Outlook for Windows.
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Hardman Knott
Gym climber
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca
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Aug 30, 2006 - 07:35pm PT
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Thanks Forest...yes I meant Outlook for Windows. It's on my Mom's PC.
What is the deal with it––what makes it propagate viruses?
BTW, I would never consider using Entourage for Mac. I've been way too spoiled
by the way OS X Mail integrates with other programs - and the rest of the OS.
Spoiled rotten, I am...
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Voltzwgn
Trad climber
Sac CA
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Aug 30, 2006 - 07:43pm PT
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Crimpie... you should be happy with the 820. I've got an 810 and an 840 and they've been fine so far. Only problem has been the batteries in the 810's but they'll be replaced soon. We've probably got 400 or so in the organization and very few complaints. Nothing like the gateways we used to run.
Would still recommend the restart points, once you get that new box and everything is loaded take a point, if it's doing good and you need to add software take another point before and after. That way you can always go back to a know working point anytime you like.
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Forest
Trad climber
Tucson, AZ
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Aug 30, 2006 - 07:45pm PT
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Sort of similar to IE. MS just gave outlook far too many "integrated" features combined with poking holes in the OS' security layers so that it can get quick cheap access to other services in the OS. If it weren't for these holes, the integrated features wouldn't be such a problem. Of course, they'd also be less useful in some contexts.
Note that by and large, the "integrated" things Mail does on OS X, it does through open APIs that any third-party mail application could also use if they wanted to.
Mostly, tho Outlook has a tendency to execute programs it receives in mail messages without asking your explicit permission, or at least having easily accessible modes to turn this behavior on.. This, combined with its access to your entire address book is a a recipe for mail viruses which, when they arrive, comb through the address book and send copies of themselves to all of your friends. Fun Stuff.
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Wes Allen
Boulder climber
KY
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Aug 30, 2006 - 07:51pm PT
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Good luck with your new Laptop!
Entourage for Mac works well with gmail for me.
And just for clarifaction, outlook, the exchange client, is not the same as outlook express which used to come with windows, and I think is now part of IE? If you are using an exchange server, and want the full features (scheduleing, global address books, forms, etc) then you have no other choice then the exchange client. If your exchange server supports IMAP, then you can use some of the other cool programs out there.
IE does suck, and firefox would be a good option. But, there are many other, better ways to keep the spyware off of your system, number one of which is to create a day to day user account with very limited rights. This can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but will pay off in the long run.
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Voltzwgn
Trad climber
Sac CA
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Aug 30, 2006 - 07:51pm PT
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All mail programs can propagate mail virus' those added as attachements unless you one either scan attachements with anti-viral software or just block attachements or at least the one's know to harbor virus' and the list is growing.
Microsoft products are a huge target (market share) so many virus' have targeted some of the constucts they use to help in the deliver of virus' such as pab's (personal address books) in the past. But today's virus' are way past that they scan doc's and html pages in cache and much more to harvest e-mail addrsses, many set up there own mail engines to distribute mail off your pc.
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Voltzwgn
Trad climber
Sac CA
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Aug 30, 2006 - 07:56pm PT
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Wes has a good point running day to day as a user who has no rights to install anything will foil move virus' and spyware programs. Then when you need to install something you switch users to your admin account and then switch back. A real PITA but maybe not so bad when faced with starting from scratch or spending hours and hours scrubbing the file system and registry trying to get of all the crap that finds it's way onto a pc. If you got kids you'll know what I mean all those fun games and add ons you get for free all come at a cost.
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Forest
Trad climber
Tucson, AZ
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Aug 31, 2006 - 02:58am PT
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All mail programs can propagate mail virus' those added as attachements unless you one either scan attachements with anti-viral software or just block attachements or at least the one's know to harbor virus' and the list is growing.
The case of explicitly forwarding the virus attachment by hand notwithstanding, this is flat out wrong. If someone decides that it'd be really cool to forward viruses by hand, then yeah, any email program can do that. Of course, nobody is going to do that except perhaps the author of a virus.
So far as I know, only outlook is susceptible to the *actual virus behavior* of self-forwarding email viruses. Thunderbird and all mail clients on Mac OS X most definitely will not propagate email viruses automatically.
Microsoft products are a huge target (market share) so many virus' have targeted some of the constucts they use to help in the deliver of virus' such as pab's (personal address books) in the past. But today's virus' are way past that they scan doc's and html pages in cache and much more to harvest e-mail addrsses, many set up there own mail engines to distribute mail off your pc.
Scanning email addresses off of a cached web page can only happen if the malware that does the scanning has a context in which to be executed. This requires software with a security hole that allows malware to execute arbitrary code. it's true that there's not really likely to be any software out that that is 100% uncrackable, but some definitely has a lot more vulnerabilities than others. This is not purely, nor even mostly, an issue of MS' products being more widely used and therefore targetted more. Outlook and IE are fundamentally insecure because of the design decisions that MS made when writing them years ago. Things like executing unsigned downloaded code, automatic execution of attachments by default, and encouraging extensions that are actually compiled code rather than something that gets run through a well-secured virtual machine.
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