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View Full Version : Tech question (may be dumb)


MystyGlyttyr
08-03-2006, 02:58 PM
Okay, I have an E-machine at home, don't know too many of the specs or anything off the top of my head, but it's a new (by that I mean less than a year old) machine. Never given us any trouble before until now, and I'm wondering if it's something I accidently did to it, and if so, does anyone have any ideas what?

I had installed some games on it for my parents, Masters of Orion 2 for my dad and Ultimate Mah-jongg for my mother. The games came off CDs, but I did a total install of them onto the hard drive since my folks are notoriously bad with computer CDs. They worked fine from the moment of installation. However, in the last week or so, I've been attacking the Norton/McAfee pre-installs that came with the computer, planning to get rid of them and get something better. I opened them and adjusted the settings on Norton to as low as I could get them and uninstalled McAfee completely (haven't taken it on the Internet yet, at work right now). I don't know of any other programs that could be interfering on the computer.

However, now the games for my folks aren't working. My copy of SimCity still works fine, however, Masters of Orion and Mah-jongg, when you click them to try and open them, only give me an error message which basically said "There was an error opening your program, now it'll be shut down". (So informative, that.) I've tried repairing the programs, running them off the CDs, completely uninstalling and re-installing them, and nothing has worked so far.

While I'm not sure what fiddling with the anti-virus software could have to do with anything (I'm not THAT techie), I know that's the only major change I'd made to the system since the problem cropped up. The error message keeps asking me to file a report with Microsoft, and six filed reports later, no tomato. :blah:

I know it probably sounds like a goofy, rather Stupid Computer Owner question, but after reading all the manuals, all the error messages, and getting nowhere with any of the Microsoft tech support, I thought it couldn't hurt to ask the smarter people here :lol:

LostMyMind
08-04-2006, 12:20 AM
Dang, sounds like one of the anti-virus program is messing with the games. I would uninstall norton. Norton is well known for causing these kinds of problems.

You didn't say if it had XP, but try restoring to a date before you started "tweaking" the computer.

Also try defraging the computer (scaning for disc error as well). It's possible you have a coruption on the hard-drive (it does happen). After repair and defrag. It might "magically" start behaving again.

NightWolf
08-04-2006, 01:09 AM
Yeah, I agree with Lostmymind, it sounds like one of the AV programs is messing with something. If nothing else you may need to do a complete re-OSing, remove the AV programs and THEN install the games.

Maybe that'll yeild better results? :shrug:

It's just my best guess. I haven't had that problem per say, but then again, I run with AVG.

MystyGlyttyr
08-04-2006, 01:30 AM
System restore worked! I still had to re-install the programs afterwards but everything is up and running again just fine. Thanks a ton, you guys! :hug:

NightWolf
08-04-2006, 01:20 PM
:super: Awsome!! glad to hear it Mysty.

LostMyMind
08-04-2006, 07:24 PM
System restore is a very nice feature. Now you know you can "undo" something crapping out after installing something new.

Just becareful, some "virus" are known to infect the system restore, but it's a great way to undo a virus that won't go away.

But you might want to pick up AVG and uninstall norton/mcafee completely. (System restore won't undo a uninstall) So make sure you really want it gone.

Mr. Rude
08-04-2006, 07:39 PM
LostMyMind beat me to the punch....Get AVG ;)

I have a thread with the link too :)

http://www.customerssuck.com/board/showthread.php?t=1323