If You Want to Tinker, Be a Thinker, or You'll Turn Your Puter into a Clinker

We recently received a request for help at the Puter Tutor Message Board, and realized that the answer to the question was one that every computer user could benefit from. At the very least, understanding the answer could save a LOT of unnecessary grief!

The question is below, but the details of all the registry editing have been left out for 2 reasons:

1) I do not encourage playing around in the registry if you are not experienced and do not know what you are doing.

2) The actual details of what was edited are not important to the answers and most folks wouldn't understand them anyway. (If you want to see the details you can go to the Puter Tutor Community Message Board and read the post.http://pub57.ezboard.com/bputercentral )

So, are you ready? The information below is absolutely critical to avoiding computer disasters!!

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Question:

Hi, I'm Sara and I was trying to get rid of a sub7 virus but messed up things so I can't get into any of my applications. Here's what I did....

1.Click on Start>Run, type Regedit then hit the Enter key.

Yada-yada-yada.

Now I can't get my freemem, zone alarm pro, or any of the Windows stuff to work. I have Windows ME and when I try to get back into the regedit.exe to fix it I get an "the path to this application does not exist" pop-up. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

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Hi Sara,

First off, the bad news. It looks like you are going to either have to reinstall your OS or go to Safe Mode and see if you can to a previous Restore Pint. You are saving Restore Points, aren't you?

You might try going into "regedit" from Safe Mode but if the registry itself is damaged, you are stuck. One of the most difficult things to get across to folks is that the stupid tech people that write all these fixes think they are dealing with someone that knows what they do. The seem to think that there are no Newbies or inexperienced people on the Internet.

The following Rules should precede any instructions that tell you how to do something in "regedit" or before doing anything that will change your Operating System.

RULE SET 1

1. Do NOT go into the Registry unless you know exactly what you are doing. This can leave your Puter inoperable!

2. Before you start playing in the Registry, make a backup to a disk or another drive on your Puter so you can restore it if you make a mistake!

3. Do NOT go into the Registry unless you know exactly what you are doing. This can leave your Puter inoperable!

4. If you are running a later version of Windows that lets you create Restore Points, do this immediately before doing ANY KIND of alterations on your system including installing a new program. If your Windows version does not include System Restore points then invest in a good program like Goback that will do the job for you. http://www.roxio.com/en/products/goback/index.jhtml

5. Do NOT go into the Registry unless you know exactly what you are doing. This can leave your Puter inoperable!

6. If you are going to go there, you should already know these rules.

RULE SET 2

1. Copy Rule Set 1 to a text document, make it very bold, use red text, print it out and stick it on the front of your Puter.

2. Always run a quality Anti-Virus program. If you can't afford one, get rid of your Puter because the investment doesn't mean much to you. $30.00 to $40.00 to protect a $1,000.00 and up investment is a no brainer.

I use McAfee Clinic and have for 3 years. Check it out HERE http://cmymtc.com/mcafeeendorse.htm

3. If your Anti-Virus program does not have auto-update that updates every day, do updates manually no less than every 2 days. Most Anti-Virus programs expire after a year so they will quit updating and you won't know it.

4. Update your Anti-Virus files no less than every other day.

5. Do Windows Update at least once a week to keep up with the latest security fixes from Microsoft.

6. Update your Anti-Virus files no less than every other day.

7. If you are on the Internet for more than 37 seconds a day run a Firewall. You can get a free version of ZoneAlarm from ZoneLabs. www.zonelabs.com

8. Do NOT go into the Registry unless you know exactly what you are doing. This can leave your Puter inoperable!

9. Update your Anti-Virus files no less than every other day.

10. Make sure your Anti-Virus program is running all the time.

No, old age has not caused me to repeat myself over and over. You DID see some repetition in the above Rules.

Hopefully that will burn them into your mind because it is that important!

Happy Putering!
Mike Smith