[Funky Drummer]

We've just had our computer in for one of their "PC Healthchecks." On purchasing our machine over a year ago, we thought that, from what the sales people said and the deatils in the booklet, it would be a handy thing to get. Not cheap, but handy.

So anyway, on newly getting it back they've done hardly anything!!! Cleaned the interior, and that's about it. They haven't updated our virus software or anything similar, haven't fixed a few bugs (in fact their suggestion on how to fix one of the problems the PC is having and will not go away..."just re-install windows again.")

Bloody hell! I should have taken the thing into one of the standard grade computing classes at school! They probably could have done a better job!

Anyone had any similar experiences with these so-called "health checks"?

Rich~

[Gaspode_The_Wonder_Dog]

no i havent but this was the 1000th topic. bit of a let down really. ive never had anti-virus software an theres nothing wrong with !"$^&()(&*(%$&$%^*((%*$£$$%($%£^^%&(*)(_)%$£$)_)^&$^&*&*()_*(&*^&&*

ohhhhh life in the funny lane.....

[Funky Drummer]

oh, sorry gaspode...I didn't realise it was the 1000th topic. If I had, I would have made it a bit more interesting. Apologies, everyone.

[Morals]

I would never take my PC anywhere near PC world.

[Uglybob]

yeah they scare me, i hate the way they stamp my floor down.

[Funky Drummer]

Yeah, I did try explaining their...err...."reputation" to my dad and suggested we went to somewhere a bit more reliable, but oh no, no, no, he had to buy it there and then resulting in nothing but trouble. im peed off.

[Morals]

Bet Garry Glitter won't be taking his PC there any more...

FD - what problems are you having with your PC?

[Funky Drummer]

well, it can just seize up sometimes and one thing that is really annoying is occasionaly it throws up an error saying "Explorer has caused an error in <unknow>" The only was to get around this is to Ctrl+Alt+Del and close down Explorer. It only seems to happen when I've got certain programs running though, so it could be a bug within either AOL or Cool Edit Pro 2. They both need a large amount of RAM to operate and we've only got 64 (I meant to ask them to put some more in but forgot), so I dunno if that could be contributing to it.

I don't really fancy re-installing windows because would I then not have to install EVERYTHING else I've ever put on my PC afterwards?

Rich~

[Morals]

You should be ok if you reinstall windows over the top of itself (I haven't tried this with XP or 2K though)- I've never had problems in the past. If you've got half an hour or so spare it might be worth a try.

What version of Windows are you using? Also, what version of IE is installed, and what version of AOL?

Oh, and does the error message occur at a certain time every time (like when you open control panel) or does it just happen at random times?

[Funky Drummer]

Firslty, Windows ME and AOL 7.0.

Secondly, Usualy happens when I try to open My Computer (or just now, Internet Explorer).

Are you sure that if I re-install windows, all my other programs will not have to be installed?

Rich

[Morals]

As I say, I've never had problems in the past - certainly with 95 / 95. I haven't tried reinstalling ME but it shouldn't cause any problems - the window installer should recognise that there is already a copy of windows installed and go from there.

Bear in mind that I'm not talking about reformatting your hard drive or anything here - that would cause you to lose everything. Reinstalling windows with windows already installed won't destroy existing data, documents, programs etc.

It's possible that your problem is caused by a corrupt system file (such as winsock32.dll) - reinstalling may well solve the problem, although obviously nothing in this life is gauranteed.

If you're not comfortable reinstalling windows then for God's sake don't do it - get someone who knows what they're doing to give you a hand.

Also, off the top of my head I can't remember if you'd need your driver disks for things like your graphics card, sound card etc. I don't think you would but I wouldn't put my life on it. (If you're PC is fairly new then all the drivers probably came on one CD with the machine).

[Funky Drummer]

thats great, cheers. Sodd PC World, I'm going to Morals in the future!

[magenta]

PC world's "healthchecks" supposedly consist of running the Windows scandisk. And that's about it really.

[Morals]

Have been having a punt around and it definitely looks like a problem with one of your system files.

Unfortunately it could be caused by any of a number of things, as you can tell if you have a read through some of the postings from the link I've included.

Go on, bung in your Windows CD and run setup.exe - I dare you!

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%22Explorer+has+caused+an+error+in+%3Cunknown%3E%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&start=0&sa=N

Never under-estimate the usefulness of a backup

[Funky Drummer]

lol, okay, i will do. thanks morals

Rich~

[Morals]

I just hope it works...

[Guest]

Firstly U say PC WORLD SUCK because and I

(in fact their suggestion on how to fix one of the problems the PC is having and will not go away..."just re-install windows again.")

Then Morals tells you and I

Go on, bung in your Windows CD and run setup.exe

And you agree this is good advice.

Make your mind up, I'm no advocate of PC World but if you gonna slate a company then at make a good agument about it.

[Funky Drummer]

my point was that they should have been able to sort it out themselves - if we pay them a couple of hundred quid to have our pc serviced every year for five years, then surely when we take it in and tell them we've been having problems, they should sort it, and not wait until we come and pick it up finding they haven't done half the things their borchure advertises and leave us to do the rest.

[Tall Pall]

PC World charge rather a lot for rather a lot less. Morals is right, reinstall windows, its easy as pie if u have the installation software. i've done it quite a few times and its only gone wrong 50% of the time, but its fun sorting out. No actually it sucks sorting out and pc's suck for being a pain in the rear. XP is nice, changed my life, im a happy boy now.

[Morals]

OK, so I ended up giving the same advice as the guy from PC World.

However, I bothered to ask FD what the problem was, what OS he was using etc, and then based my advice on that information, past experience and the results of searching through google groups and the MS tech support files. The bloke at PC World with his "oh just re-install Windows" was hazarding a guess.

If I was paying for support I'd want more than just what is essentially a brush off....

[Funky Drummer]

bugger all of them, at pc world. i went throgh with your reinstall windows advice morlas, but came up with a cab error. to get around this i have to sort out my windows installation cd. only problem is, i never had a windows installation cd! It always all came off my computer. ARGH!!!

[Funky Drummer]

...oh yeah and in having to cancel the setup (cos of that cab file thing), it loads fine now....just without any trace of sndvol32.exe - no sounds will play in any way shape or form. The program has completely vanished.

[Morals]

Hmmm. I'm assuming then that you have a directory on your PC which contains all the files that would be found on the CD and that you ran the setup.exe from there?

Assuming the installation software is looking in the correct folder it sounds like one of your CAB files may be corrupt - I'd have to have more info to know for sure - any error codes it gives would be useful.

[Morals]

As for the sndvol32.exe problem - weird. Try downloading it from here and bunging it in c:\windows\ - http://www.ticoc.com/SNDVOL32.EXE - don't know for sure if that'll work - if not we'll sort it another way

[Funky Drummer]

well, i tried sticking the sndvol32.exe file in C:\Windows........but that didn't help at all. Also, the buttons on the top of my keyboard (used to put the volume up and down) are useless (and they were useless before sndvol32 disappeared). im going slowly mad