CompTIA IT Pro Member Forum / CompTIA IT Pro Worldwide / Tech Stories

window closes automatically in Win Xp

sotonye08 — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 05:22:56 GMT

When I open a window in Windows XP, it closes before I can even click on anything (although not all windows) The system restore window is one. What could be causing this?

Download the Internet

larryhook — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 20:59:52 GMT

Follow the link below to download the complete Internet to your hard drive!

http://www.w3schools.com/downloadwww.htm

Are you a Linux user?

youngtec13 — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 12:56:17 GMT

Hey all techs, where do your true loyalties lie? Are you a Windows addict, or a Linux user?:Whistling:

Users we love to hate

jbrady — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:06:53 GMT

Currently No. 1 on my unfavorite list: The department head who doesn't respond to email, "forgets" everything previously discussed about requirements, specs, &c. and can't be bothered to refer to previously sent email because that's "too difficult" and "too much of a hassle."

Then, when she doesn't get what she wants (Hint #1: We're not psychic. If you're hiring a bunch of new people, you might want to try notifying IT they're going to need new computers [i]before[/i] they start working.) she sends passive-aggressive, accusatory email to us, copied all the way up our food chain (including folks she thinks are in it but aren't) to the big boss in charge of the organization. This, apparently, to 'light a fire under [us],' and force us to somehow magically make her equipment appear, or leapfrog her over the rest of our user backlog.

Luckily, our big boss (She Who Must Be Obeyed) is sensible, and generally supports us in the ongoing struggle.

Eh. That reminds me: I've another one of her nastygrams to reply to. The pain^w fun never stops, when you work in IT.

Recovery of folders/files that were shift deleted

JHBallard2 — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 19:14:29 GMT

How would you go about recovering folders/files that were shift deleted, as they were too large, and never going into the recycle bin on a WinXP machine. Most of the files were jpg, or jpegs pictures, and photos. Is there some kind of recovery or undelete software tool anyone has used to recover the files?

Odd/Funny Help Desk Tickets

jkeszeg — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 11:54:24 GMT

This was sent to me today by a friend who is an IT manager for major retailer here in the Chicago area.

So what's your story?

June Keszeg
IT Pro Membership Program Manger
itpro@comptia.org

-------------------
Replacement - touch screen monitor (TFT Monitor)

A wild turkey crashed through the front window and in the process he attacked register 1's touch screen monitor. The touch screen has large punctures from the glass of the shattered window and the wild turkey. This happened around 9:30am.

After the Turkey crashed through the front window and destroyed the register, he calmed down and was actually escorted out of the store unharmed!

Date 9/28/2006

Gurus?

wflinn — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 18:25:37 GMT

Wow! I posted my 50th message yesterday, and noticed that according to my status, I am now a "Forum Guru." That reminded me of a "toungue in cheek" piece I posted on my blog site last year. I'll post it again here - it's short. This is meant to be humor - don't take it seriously :) Take a look:

"What Title do You Give to Your Computer 'Expert?'"

Originally posted July 2006

Computer Geek: My favorite. I am a geek and darn proud of it. To me, this is a way to describe someone who is fascinated by technology, knows that they **don’t** know everything there is to know about it, but is willing to dig deep to do research and find answers. Likes playing with toys. Usually don’t know how to tie their own shoes, and they usually wear clothes that don't match. Let's see now - where did I put that pocket protector????

Guru: Makes my skin crawl when I hear this. There is no such thing. No one person on this earth can possibly know everything there is to know about computers, and it makes me sick when people pretend to know everything there is to know about computers. Self proclaimed gurus are the worst – they are pompous and no fun to talk to. They may or may not like playing with toys – they would rather sit under an umbrella, slurping down Lattes at Starbucks and speak very loudly (so that all can hear) about their prowess with computers. Besides, I hate the word "guru" - I envision someone sitting on a flying carpet, wearing a turbin.

Consultant: This is the person that charges you lots of $$$ to give you vague answers, and then charges you even more $$$ to come back and tell you what the vagueness means.

Expert: There is no such thing. See “Guru” for more info. The main difference between an expert and a guru is that the expert has three cell phones and two Palm Pilots - at least they know enough to take lots of notes and keep them handy.

Programmer: Someone who is usually kept in a back room and not allowed to go out in public. They can tell you the value of Pi to the two-thousandth decimal point from memory, but don’t know crap about how computers really work. Not only can they usually not tie their own shoes, but they usually can’t keep from clicking on email attachments with viruses. In their defense, they like playing with toys also, so they're not so bad.

Job Applicant

larryhook — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 20:01:52 GMT

Last week, my boss told me that he would not hire any more smokers. He said they take too many breaks and don't do enough work. So today, when a woman came in to apply for a job, I asked her if she smoked. She replied, "What? Cigarettes? No, I don't smoke cigarettes!"

I wonder if she'll be hired?

How I hack myself :)

pedro.collado — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:55:04 GMT

Sometimes people would call me with computer problems and I would look out the window and decided is too hot to walk over and help this customer. I decided to use my all mighty tool RDP and admin into the customers computer. The customer had an update that required to install some updatd network card drivers. After the drivers downloaded and installed is reset the card and chop my connection, loosing control of the users computer. I was condused and it took me about a minute to figure out I had to get up and walk over to the users computer and continue to troubleshoot :) I still share that story with friends who LOL and admitted to me having done the same thing Laterz :P

Pedro L. Collado

flash drive virus

youngtec13 — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 10:32:29 GMT

I once got an infected flash drive to clean once. As soon as I put it in, Norton told me it had w32.sillyFDC. I tried to delete it, but the drive was locked. Soo i unlocked it and put it back in, and the virus dissapeared right in front of my eyes. So I scanned it with Norton and it picked up 3 instances of w32.rontok@mm. But even a regularly updated Norton '07 can get confused by this old tricky virus. It names itself X.exe where X is the directory in which it resides. If you open the folder X in Windows explorer the virus moves itself, too quick to catch. I was eventually forced to delete 19 copies of it in dos prompt. :D

IT Help Flyer

swrightbop — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 10:34:43 GMT

One of the Techs I work with sent this to me, I thought it was safe enough to share:

Instructions from the I.T. Department

When you call us to have your computer moved, be sure to leave it buried under half a ton of postcards, baby pictures, stuffed animals, dried flowers, bowling trophies and children's art.

Don't ever write anything down, especially the error message that was on your screen.

If we ask what the last thing you did was, always respond with, "I didn't do anything."

When we say we'll be right over, immediately find a reason to leave so you won't

have to answer silly questions from us, like "what's your screen saver password?"

When describing your problem, just tell us what you were ultimately trying to do. For example, just say, "I can't get my email". We don't need to know that the computer won't even turn on.

Feel free to ignore any email sent from us, especially those marked with high importance.

You don't really need to know about the latest virus that wiped out your neighbors hard drive.

Always send important and urgent emails in all uppercase.

When the copier, or anything else remotely electronic, doesn't work, call us.

Heck, if we can fix computers, we must know all about copiers too.

If the document you sent to the printer didn't print, send it at least 20 more times.

One of them is bound to work.

Don't ever learn the proper name for anything technical.

We know exactly what you mean by "my thingy blew up".

Don't waste your time using the built in help files.

We already had to learn the hard way, why should you?

If any of the computer cables are in your way or keep moving, be sure to route them across

the top of your portable heater or set something big and heavy on them to hold them in place.

Never bother reading any message that pops up on your screen.

Just click the X to close it or the first button your mouse gets to.

Don't ever try rebooting the computer yourself. Call us immediately.

Only experienced, highly-trained professionals should attempt that.

Feel perfectly free to say things like "I don't know anything about this computer crap".

We love hearing our area of professional expertise referred to as crap.

When you receive a huge movie file that's really funny, be sure to forward it to all your friends.

We have plenty of disk space and bandwidth.

Don't bother bringing a radio to work, just listen to music over the internet.

Like I said, we have plenty of bandwidth.

Don't even think of breaking large print jobs down into smaller chunks.

Somebody else might squeeze their one-page document into the queue.

When an I.T. person is carrying heavy equipment, worth thousands of dollars,

that's the best time to ask why your screen saver quit working.

Don't bother to tell us when you move computer equipment around on your own.

We certainly don't need to keep track of those things.

Your computer case makes a great flat surface for sitting drinks or potted plants on.

Do whatever you can to cover up those ugly open air slots in the computer and monitor.

No Vacancy

kstipp — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:04:38 GMT

I've been focusing on small business work mostly because I can't stand dirty work areas. When my colleague told me this story, it hit home why I don't like household support.

He gets a call to come out and fix a clients computer that is beeping like mad even though it boots up. Apparently it is unable to stay on for extended periods because after loading windows the system shuts itself down.

He goes out there and boots it up, sure enough, the client was right. He decides to check out the BIOS and realizes that its the temp. alarm and the temp. is through the roof. He takes a look at the back of the case to see if there is lint built up or obstruction and there is carpet hanging out of an unused fan hole.

Curiosity prevails and he takes out the screws wondering what the client did to the machine instead of taking it back to the lab to investigate. Gasping in horror as he removed the cover, a mouse had made its nest inside the machine. He ended up removing the hard drive and ordering them a new system to put it in (I assume this time it had all it's cooling fans or a grill). The culprit was never found.

Worst workorder yet

m_steinsiek — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 12:21:08 GMT

Hi,

earlier this week I had a horrible workorder at the repair shop I work at. A customer had brought one of their PCs in for a "high-tech cleanup". This is what the manager has decided to call malware removal and preventative maintenence.

As soon as I picked up the tower I heard something rather large moving around inside the case. When I opened it I found a PCI modem sitting in the bottom of the case. Okay, this may be their problem I thought. I blew out the case with compressed air, reseated the modem, and screwed it down. When I turned on the system it powered up, but there was no video signal or POST beep. I checked all the cables and connections and tried again. Still nothing. I removed the power supply so I could reseat the RAM and CPU. Once I removed the PSU, I discovered that the bracket for the slot 1 porcessor was broken on one side. After reseating the processor it finally powered up.

At this point the lead technician and I realized that as long as the bracket for the CPU was broken, it would creep out again. So now we have to tell the customer that they need a new "legacy" processor. At this point I started to clean out the malware. In addition to the regular spyware, it had several trojans and even the Dayoff rootkit.

This reminded me of situations in the past where the problem reported was "I can't get on the Internet", when the real problem was the PC wouldn't boot. Yeah, it's hard to get on the Internet if your computer won't turn on. I still don't know how the modem ended up in the bottom of the case, but you would think that most people would notice that there are ports missing from the back of their PC.:w00t: