Crash-Happy / Net Threats

Crash-Happy

My computer was acting up for a few days. I was tired of MS Messenger interfering with my firewall and other programs so I disabled it - as per the check boxes in the program. (I did this before with out a problem but a recent update reactivated it.) Messenger was hidden away but still caused problems. My email program slowed to a crawl. I was not happy.

I uninstalled Messenger, since I never use it, and both the email and browser were fine. However my cd-rom couldn't recognize game discs and Windows got crash-happy. I finally got things stable and I can play computer games again.

Messenger is not an essential Windows program but it intertwines itself with other programs. Such mingling means that even 'proper' uninstalls can have a cascading effect on other programs. Sometimes I wish Windows programs weren't so interdependent.

Net Threat #1

Yesterday I was bored so I surfed the net for a bit. I should have turned off the computer or paid more attention to what I was doing. One moment I am in normal cyberspace and the next I am in porno-land and trying to close pop up windows by the dozens. To complicate things I get a virus alert and I couldn't delete the cookie causing it. I managed to shut down my browser without crashing Windows and then I ran my virus scanner and deleted the virus. I ran the scanner again and it was gone.

You can never let your guard down online.

Net Threat #2

I'm glad I take a pro-active approach to security. Some people's computers are so open they attract all of the viruses. Today I had two suspicious emails that I shredded. They came from unknown or Microsoft email addresses and yet their 'return-path' (when you right click on properties) were both the same local address. I suspect the person has a virus and I wonder if I should email them about it.