nab computers – tech blog

Dealing With Computer Errors Caused By Malware

Malware or malicious software is an epidemic disease infecting millions of computers across the world every year. Malware programs come in various forms and they vary in the extent of damage they cause to the computers. They can be classified mainly into two large categories: viruses and spyware. Viruses are infectious software programs capable of reproducing and transmitting itself from one machine to another. Spyware programs are bundled with other programs and install stealthily on your computer.

Malware in early days of computing were confined to pranks created by college students for fun. Over last three decades, they have developed into sophisticated tools to commit online crime.

Unfortunately, most of the PC users today are not aware of the extent of threats caused by these programs. Therefore, they fail to equip their computers to combat this menace effectively. In fact, more than three-fourths of computer owners are at serious risk at any given point of time.

You must not wait for malware to strike your computer to start preparing a protection plan. Take the steps to deal with this problem right now.

First step that is extremely essential to combat virus infections is user vigilance. The following are some NEVERs and ALWAYS that you need to follow:

• NEVER download shareware and freeware software, media, games etc. from dubious looking Web sites. One of the common traps are the Web sites that provide cracks and keygen software that enable you to run pirated software. If you want to be able to use your PC for a long time, you must stay away from such software.
• ALWAYS scan any external media for viruses before copying data from it.
• NEVER open emails attachments that you are not sure of what they may contain—even if the attachments have come from known source. Many viruses spread by sending email with infected attachments to all people who are in the address book of the infected computer.
• NEVER forget to or postpone updating software on your computer. Several virus infections are built around the vulnerabilities detected in these products. When you update your software these lapses are patched up making the software and your PC more secure.
• ALWAYS run a full system antivirus and antispyware scan if you notice suspicious files, such as d.exe, or files similar to legitimate files, such as wscntfy.exe and smss.exe, running on your computer. As soon as a virus infection is detected, you must take your PC off the network, disconnect it from the Internet and then run the scan. To ensure that your antivirus and antispyware tools are able to scan and combat malware, you must update them regularly.
• ALWAYS scan and clean your registry after completing antivirus and antispyware scan. Malware programs need to add entries in the registry in order to carry out their malicious activity. Many of these entries are embedded entries, which are almost impossible to remove manually. To get rid of these, the best and the most efficient way is to use a reliable registry cleaner tool.

Smart Ways To Avoid EXE Errors And Optimize PC Performance

Computer owners around the world seem to have resigned to the fact that computer errors are unavoidable. There is an element of truth in this as an error can crop up from many sources like hardware, software, malware, human error or even unknown reasons. To add to our woes, we are not able to ascertain the exact reason for the error or how to fix them without external help.

However, another important fact that most of us do not acknowledge is that there are smart ways to avoid a lot of computer errors and reduce the frequency with which they occur. These errors can be easily kept away from our computers if we have a basic understanding of why they occur and how to avoid as well as resolve them. One such category of errors which is epidemic in nature and seems to have bothered almost every computer user at one time or another is EXE errors.

Exe errors are generated by executable files, such as osa.exe and csrss.exe that have the .exe file name extension. These .exe files are quite powerful because they posses the capability of running codes on your computer. This capability is used to install, launch and include various features in your software products. Let’s now have a look at the common causes of EXE errors and see a few smart ways to fix EXE errors and as a result, optimize the performance of your PC.

If you like to download shareware and freeware software from the Internet, the chances of EXE errors are quite high. This is because usually freeware and shareware software is not tested properly, due to which it may have bugs that may generate errors. Also, quite often these programs are bundled with spyware and adware programs that may install stealthily and generate errors. To prevent these issues, vigilance is required on your part. For instance, you must take care to download only from reliable web sites. You must also use a fast Internet connection to do the task. This is also important because if you download over slow connections the chances of problems with downloaded files are high and you are bound to encounter more exe errors while installing and using these programs.

To speed up your computer, you must disable osa.exe and other unwanted EXE files from running at system startup. Many of these startup files are required only when you need to use related programs. At all other times, they unnecessarily feed on your system’s resources and slow down your PC. You can disable unwanted startup programs by using the Windows System Configuration utility or a reliable third-party startup programs manager tool.

To keep your PC in good health and to prevent EXE and other computer errors, it is also essential for you to regularly scan and clean any virus and spyware infections from the system. To do this, you need to seek the help of reliable and updated antivirus and antispyware tools.

Finally, you must take care of the Windows registry. All EXE files need to refer to the Windows registry in order to run. If there is a problem with any registry entry, errors may occur. To repair your registry, you may use a dependable and efficient registry cleaner tool. Using a good registry tool, you can clean and optimize your registry resulting in a faster PC.

Rules For Working With The Windows Registry

The Windows registry is an important part of your Windows operating system because it is used to store information related to software, hardware, and user configurations. The registry also comprises information related to any changes that you would have made to the system since you installed it.

Configuration information is stored in the registry in the form of keys and subkeys. Each key may have zero or more values. These keys and subkeys are arranged in a hierarchal structure that form the registry tree. You can view the registry tree by running the regedit command to open the Registry Editor.

Whenever a change is made on your system, certain entries in the registry are modified, new entries are added, or existing entries are removed. Some of the common actions that may bring about a change in the registry are: new program installation, removal of an existing program, changes to system settings and user configuration, and changes to program configuration. You may also use the Registry Editor tool to manually edit the registry entries. You may need to perform manual registry edits if you want to change a registry key to repair a particular error, or implement registry tweaks to customize and speed up your computer.

Windows registry error messages and other related registry problems start occurring when several unwanted entries make their way into the registry and cause it to grow at an uncontrollable rate. A large bloated registry gets damaged easily and starts causing slow computer problems and generating computer errors. If you fail to clean up these unwanted registry entries, a time might come that your registry will crash and your system will fail to even boot up.

To prevent this situation and to ensure that your system stays up at all times, there are certain rules that you need to follow.

• Backup your registry before making any major changes to your system configuration and installing a large software. Making a registry backup will ensure that if your changes harm the registry, you can easily restore it from the backup taken earlier. You can make registry backups either by using the File >Export command in the Registry Editor or by using a user-friendly, third-party registry cleaner Vista or XP tool. You may also create a system restore point by using the System Restore tool. A system restore point will contain several other essential system configuration related data in addition to the registry. So, if you revert to a restore point taken earlier, your system settings will be rolled back to the time this restore point was taken. You can launch System Restore tool from the System Tools folder available within the Accessories folder on the Start menu.

• Clean up the Registry on a regular basis to keep it free from all unwanted entries that cause registry bloating. Although, you may use the Registry Editor tool to perform some amount of registry clean up, it is a difficult tool to use and the chances of errors are quite high. This is the reason why experts recommend that you use a reliable, third-party registry tool to do the job.

Dealing With Uncommon Computer Errors

Computer problems may occur due to a wide variety of reasons. Some problems may generate errors and some may only affect the performance of your PC.  Whatever the problem, you should seek a solution immediately as things could get worse and you may be forced to reinstall your operating system or seek the help of expensive computer technicians.

Let us have a look at some of the problems that you may face on your Windows computer and the steps that you can take to resolve them.

Resolve Computer Slow Down Issues

There can be many causes of computer slowdowns. For instance, at times, your system may be running similar services—such as Intel PRO/Wireless Network Connection Software and Windows Wireless Zero Configuration simultaneously, when actually you would prefer to use only one of them. In this case, if you prefer to use Windows Wireless Zero Configuration, then you may remove dot1xcfg.exe process (Intel PRO/Wireless Network Connection Software) or just disable the program by using the Services management console.

Unwanted startup programs are also a major cause of computer slowdowns. The problem is more common on computers that come with a preinstalled operating system. These are usually loaded with shareware software that unnecessarily load processes at system startup. Therefore, to speed up your computer, you need to disable these unwanted programs. You can do this either by using the Windows System Configuration utility or a third-party startup programs manager tool.

Remove Spyware and Virus Infections

Virus, Trojans and spyware are a major cause of several computer problems and exe errors. Aspimgr.exe is one such Trojan that has the capability to disguise itself as a legitimate Windows program, which makes tracking the file really difficult. Similarly, braviax.exe is a spyware file that scares users with fake error messages and tricks them into buying an expensive antispyware tool that is actually nothing but a rogue software that creates more problems on your computer. To fix aspimgr.exe and braviax.exe problems and to get rid of malicious software, you should have efficient and trustworthy antivirus and antispyware tools on your computer. You must keep these tools updated with the latest definitions and schedule them to run regular full system scans. Also, we recommended that you turn on the real-time protection feature of these tools to ensure that your PC can prevent these infections from infiltrating your system in the first place.

Fix the Windows Registry

The Windows registry was introduced by Microsoft to provide a center storage space for all types on configuration information—whether related to hardware, software, or users. Although the registry helps prevent a lot of clutter on the hard disk and speed up the overall performance of your PC, the registry is not immune from problems. A lot can occur that may cause the registry to get filled up with junk data that may unnecessarily cause registry bloat and generate errors.

To prevent these registry problems from preventing you from working normally on your PC, we recommended that you use a reliable registry cleaner tool and perform a deep registry scan and clean up. Doing this, will help you reduce the registry size, repair erroneous entries, and enhance the data access time. In other words, regular registry repair and cleanup will not only help you repair several computer errors, but will also enable you to speed up your PC.