Category: Intermediate

AVG upgrade to 2011 gives a frozen desktop with no icons

PCRepairMan

avg-discount-coupon-code-renewal-2017I have seen a frozen desktop and menu immediately after an AVG upgrade to 2011 version on MANY customer PCs and, though it can be relatively straight forward to sort out, you will need to carefully follow my method below to avoid any issues.

First off, if the PC is frozen, make sure there are no lights flashing on the tower denoting that there is hard drive activity.  If you switch off and the drive is being written to you WILL compound the problem by adding bad sectors to the hard drive.

When you are happy the PC is not ‘active’, you can power it off.

PCRepairMan’s top tip

You can power off most PCs and laptops by holding in the ‘Power on’ button for 5 seconds

Right, now we need to restart the computer in Safe Mode. If you are not sure how to do this, check out my article on Starting a Windows PC in Safe Mode

Note: If you are having a blue screen on startup after attempting to install AVG read my article here, this is a different fix required:

AVG blue screen of death on startup after installing 2011 version

Onto the fix for the frozen desktop…..

Once in Safe Mode, we login using an Administrator’s account. This may be yours or another one with Administrator permissions.  We can see a message stating that you can use the PC in Safe Mode or perform a System Restore.  The System Restore is what we need so select this.  Now we’ll restore it to a date before the AVG installation. No matter if you have deleted the old AVG version 8 or 9 install, we can deal with that later. Let the computer restart and your icons should reappear.

There is also an issue where the frozen desktop and missing icons are caused by a hard drive with errors on the surface. These can generally be fixed bya good quality drive scanning and repairing tool such as the one I reviewed here:

HDD Regenerator review

Hope this helps and you should now have a proper desktop with icons again!

 

Starting a Windows PC in Safe Mode

PCRepairMan

How to start a Windows PC in Safe Mode

You should print these instructions if you need to access the same PC in safe mode.

If your computer is turned on, click start and then click shut down wait for 20 seconds and turn your PC back on using the power button.

As the computer starts up you will first see the BIOS screen which contains information about your computer. Shortly afterwards you need to press F8. The method I use and teach to others is to simply tap the F8 key approximately every quarter of a second. This will bring up a selection menu of white writing on a black screen.

Should you miss this selection menu then you will need to wait until Windows finishes loading, shutdown, then retry the startup procedure again.

Finding, downloading and installing drivers in Windows

PCRepairMan

Download drivers device manager yellow exclamation markMotherboard, sound, video, usb drivers missing? There are a few tips and tricks I can give you for finding and installing Windows device drivers.  First off, let’s open up the Control Panel and get to the Hardware section.  You will find a yellow exclamation mark in the device manager indicating a device has not been identified. This can be audio, video, modem, tv card, usb cards etc.

A little-known quirk of Windows XP is that if you install Service Pack 3 you get more chance of automatically downloading drivers from the Microsoft website.  Strange and undocumented but in my experience this is true.  I have had several occasions where I needed to get drivers and, for example, this morning I required an audio driver for an ECS motherboard.  The drivers were not listed on the manufacturer’s website and a search for updated drivers brought nothing.  By installing SP3 I restarted, the auto-hardware detect kicked in and the hi-def audio bus was recognised then relevant hi-def audio software drivers were auto-installed. Even the more common Realtek drivers have been invoked this way when they just refuse to install.

If you are really struggling to get drivers then you can download software that can help.  There are a few programs that stand out from the crowd as they have excellent driver databases and are kept up-to-date. Driver Detective has a slick ‘Backup and migrate’ feature too, useful for copying from one PC to another or before wiping and reloading. Click the links below to visit their websites for more info.

Driver detective

PC updater

KillWind.exe killit.exe and Avira antivirus – false positive?

PCRepairMan

avira-false-positiveCommon fault on many computers, notably HP Pavilions and Compaq PCs and laptops.  Avira can falsely detect the APPL/KillApplicat.A and APPL/KillApp.A virus.  The problem stems from HP’s recovery partition (generally located on d:\) where those files are an integral part of the recovery procedure.

Do not allow Avira to Quarantine or delete these files.  If you have already quarantined them then restore them back to their original location, rescan them and mark as ‘Ignore’.

If you have not already done so, it is good practice to create a set of recovery discs for your computer in case the recovery partition is damaged.

Livedrive review and free trial – secure online file storage

PCRepairMan

Livedrive review and free trial. livedrive-review-secure-online-file-storageLivedrive offers a very good secure online file storage service that ranks highly here at PCRMB Towers. So good that we actually use it ourselves.  Livedrive automatically backs up your files safely online, monitoring your computer(s) for new files and detail changes. You can restore files (even deleted ones) quickly and easily. It’s totally secure, easy to use and quick to setup. Users get unlimited online storage space as standard which means you can choose this service and never have to upgrade.  You can sync files, stream music and access your files from anywhere.

PCRepairMan’s Verdict

Offering a 30 day free trial, you can choose if it’s right for you or not. Current pricing is very keen – you pay nothing during the trial and then get a 10% discount for life.  Highly recommended.

 

Secure online file storage with Livedrive

Here are some of the advantages of this service:

  • Many online file storage services will cap the amount of storage to a measly few Gigabytes. With Livedrive there is literally no limit.
  • Version history is included. Say you mistakenly save changes on a ducument, you can ‘roll back’ to an older version as Livedrive will store up to 30 versions of your file
  • Deleted files can be restored (up to 30 days later)
  • Iphone and iPad access is included by default
  • Windows and Mac compatibility
  • Livedrive will monitor all of your files while you are working. If you modify then save something then it will be backed up immediately. This way there is no need to back it up manually!
  • External hard drives can be backed up too
  • You can download your files at any time and from any computer
  • Backed up files are encrypted with incredibly strong algorithms
  • A high quality streaming facility allows iPhones and iPads to view photos and listen to music

All in all, an excellent service that costs very little and gives peace of mind. Highly recommended.

Try Livedrive unlimited online storage free for 30 days or Visit the Livedrive Website to learn more

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