# two more freezes

Category: Geeks r Us

## Post 1 by wonderwoman (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Saturday, 17-Dec-2005 22:57:49

Hi all, well, 3 more freezes, counting one tonight. I don't get it, there seem to be certain things windows, or the computer doesn't want me doing, harmless things you'd think, but when I do them, boom, instant freeze. 1, if I'm on the desktop, and press f1 for basic xp help topics, I'm taken to an hp help and support center where it goes to a search edit field, where you type in a word, which I did once, but it wasn't helpful. There help topics where you can shift tab back a couple times, and land in some topics, but they come up as web links, or links you enter on. I press enter on one of the links and read the topic ok, but when I back out, that's where it abruptly freezes. 2. I go in control panel, and down to liveupdates to see what my settings are on, and while I'm there, I press f1 and get some nice help topics about liveupdates, then I close the help topics, go in the windows firewall to see how it's set, btw, xp's firewall is turned off, because of Nortons' firewall. I didn't have a freeze while I was looking that stuff over, but after exiting, and going into adobe reader and reading part of a manual, the computer froze after exiting out of adobe. zi I can't believe adobe reader made it freeze, because I've been in there reading some of the user manuals, and although I get some sort of memory error when I close it, it never made my computer freeze before. It seems to be those 2 things, 1, the help page, and starting another task or program after going in to the liveupdate and firewall settings in control panel. What can I do to keep these things from making my computer freeze, or at best, what can I do to minimize the freezes? I am using a hewlett packard, 80 gb hard drive,1.118 g hertz processor, and the box says 512 mb of ram, device manager says 384 mb, according to someone on here, probably because of the 128 mb graphics card, and jaws 6.0.
wonderwoman

## Post 2 by Jesse (Hmm!) on Monday, 19-Dec-2005 12:50:21

Kill Norton!

## Post 3 by louiano (I'm going for the prolific poster awards!) on Monday, 19-Dec-2005 15:14:50

yeah get rid of norton... i mean while it is great and supossed to protect you, it can sometimes be overwelming. There are nice anti virus out there and if you are concerned about spyware, adaware or spybot are at your disposal.

## Post 4 by wonderwoman (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Monday, 19-Dec-2005 20:54:40

Thanks Kragil, louiano, I had, or had some hp update issues, I mean, hp wants you to do their updates all the time. I went in the pc tools, and unchecked everything I could find, and at least every night, I get a dialogue from hp, telling me updates for my computer are ready, click here to install them, then it goes away. For the past 2 nights, hp have been forcing their updates on me, and although I think I picked where it says, turn off without installing updates, but it installs them anyway, and it sounds like the computer will never finish and shut down. It's driving me nuts. I went in control panel, turned off automatic updates, then Norton told me automatic updates had been turned off, click here to resolve these issues. then I found something that said program updates, so I arrowed down and checked where it said 0 updates. I couldn't find anything that said disable hp updates, but I'm hoping this solves the problem. All I get from the hp updates is it says it helps your computer stay up to date, but I can't keep installing updates all the time, it's a drain on my computer, and it would eventually take my hard disk space. I think this could be a good computer, it's just hp is so proprietory and demanding. And if I could keep hp organize from coming up too, that would be an additional help. It's in the system tray, but it comes up in the task bar, so it loads when jaws does, and I have to press alt f4 to close every time I start my computer. Honestly, if turning off automatic updates and program updates hasn't stopped it, just consider me a candidate for the loony bin.
wonderwoman

## Post 5 by Jesse (Hmm!) on Monday, 19-Dec-2005 22:32:27

Just go into add/remove programs, and uninstall all the stuff you will never use. That's what I do when I get an off-the-shelf computer.

## Post 6 by ArtRock1224 (move over school!) on Monday, 19-Dec-2005 22:43:11

Unfortunately, Windows update can be a pretty important tool. I don't think that's your problem. Freezes often happen because of trojans or spyware. Try running some tool--whatever it may be, and empty your internet history and temp folders--If not removed they can become huge. Head into the control panel, click internet options, and tab down the list until you get to the option to remove internet files, cookies, and history. Make sure you check the "Remove all offline content," to remove temp folders from internet explorer stored on your hard drive; these are of little use to you. Depending on how many you have, it may take a while.

## Post 7 by wonderwoman (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Tuesday, 20-Dec-2005 19:19:06

Thanks guys, I'll go and edit where it says number of days to keep history. I think by default it's set to keep web history for 20 days.
wonderwoman

## Post 8 by wonderwoman (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Tuesday, 20-Dec-2005 20:18:04

thanks kragiel, but at the moment, I'm not sure what I don't need and won't use, and hp says not to uninstall things you don't understand because you might not be able to get it back with the recovery disk. It might be something to do with hp agent, because right in the shut down process, jaws has time to say, "updates from hp agent. I was going to call fs, but I was too late. My mom made the point that hp tech support know about their stuff, but since they're in the business of selling and stuff, they might tell me I need the hp updates and tell me I'll have to put up with them, and besides, I hate dealing with sighted tech support folk. They don't know the first thing about jaws, and they blame jaws for everything.
wonderwoman

## Post 9 by Jesse (Hmm!) on Wednesday, 21-Dec-2005 11:16:37

I never tell them I'm using a screen reader. I know enough to know how to accomplish what they tell me to do without having to tell them. It's none of their business anyway. It's not a screen reader issue.

## Post 10 by b3n (I'm going for the prolific poster awards!) on Wednesday, 21-Dec-2005 19:31:14

Just go into msconfig in run and stop the hp crap from coming up at startup.
But i do think that you need windows update, and mooving from win 98 to xp is a pretty big jump.
I never tell techs that i am using a screen reader, as the poster above said, whats it got to do with them?
They'd only treat me with kid gloves then if i did.
I think that you shood put something like spy bot search and distroy onto your computer, which is pretty good, if you have no spywhere protection, you will mostlightly have lodes installed allready.
I red somewhere or something that if you open a computer on the internet that has no protection, it tipicly takes about 40 seconds for someone to try and do something like dos it or put something on it.
Sorry to scare you, but this is real.
BEN.