Liz's Computer Problem - brought to you by the colour white

[nickspoon]

Liz asked me to post an image of her desktop, to see if anybody had any idea about what's going on. This is supposed to be a Firefox window, with Chatzilla inside - however, only the menus and the textbox at the bottom work. This is the case for everything in Firefox. My only advice to her is to reinstall Firefox, which is difficult because she doesn't have administrator privileges. I also suggested that she use PortableFirefox for the time being, but apparently Internet Explorer doesn't work so she can't download that.

Suggestions are welcome.

[Rooster]

Is it XP pro? If if is then you need to reboot into 'Safe Mode'.

Press F8 when Windows begins to boot, and you'll be given a list of boot options, one of which is 'Safe Mode'.

Select that, and the 'Administrator' account will appear on the login screen.

From here it's easy. Once you've signed in as 'Administrator':


- Right-click on My Computer

- Click on Manage

- Expand Local Users and Groups

- Click on Groups

- Double click on Administrators

- Click on Add

- Enter the account name

OK your way back out.

Now reboot your machine normally, and the account you selected should now have administrative access.

You should now be able to get rid of Firefox and start again...I'd also advise running virus and spyware scans.

[Baconsticks]

Roo, it looks like windows vista, judging from the taskbar. I don't know anything about vista, so I can't help you. (though booting into safe mode sounds like the start of a solution.)

Until then, you might be able to install some other browser, like Opera, or Google Chrome(which is what I'm using). I bet you could, again, use safe mode with networking to install these.

Hope this helps.

[Rooster]

Oh crap, I didn't even see that...

I've got no fucken idea then, soz.

[Tai]

Safe mode admin is p.much the same deal in vista and XP, though it might be blocked. If you can get into safe mode to add yourself as an admin you can later de-admin yourself to keep your cover~

quick google says to clear Firefox's cache, I don't know worth a try (if the menus don't work, find a cache folder where firefox is installed and recycle bin it so you can restore it if something breaks)

What does she mean IE doesn't work? Doesn't open/load websites?

Another thing is to have whoever has the admin password install windows updates, might be a display driver who knows

But maybe safe mode is blocked and the admin doesn't do well with computers or might blame Liz for the computer breaking



If that's the case and you're a dedicated snowflake and she's feeling EDGY there's another way to get admin privileges/virusscan that's nearly foolproof (but long):

someone might send her an .iso for a UBCD for windows, burn it to CD, boot from CD (change BIOS settings accordingly to boot from CD before hard drive) > load prebuilt UBCD enviroment

and go to start > programs > password/reg tools > password renew

Then select target (choose where windows is installed, probably C:/Windows) > turn existing user to admin > choose your windows account > install

This does the same thing as windows safe mode, logging into an admin, and making another user admin (usually without fail), does work in vista (tried it myself), and is a p.good place to virus scan from since they won't start up with your computer;

and if anything else you can surf the internet and install stuff from the booted CD if you can't fix Firefox/IE :V



wow that's tldr

[Chris]

Dump Vista and go back to XP! Vista is crap anyway

Also, Get trillian, it's miles way better than firecrap's chatzilla

[Dr. Sticks]

eww I never liked trillian. I always stuck to gaim (now pidgin)

[Segovia]

Darn you Whipper-snappers and your fancy gigama-joobs! In my day if we wanted to talk to a person in another country we used a pen a paper!

[Angstwolf]

eww I never liked trillian. I always stuck to gaim (now pidgin)

I agree with you there.

[Dr. Sticks]

well whenever I use Windows, actually I just use mIRC and AIM because you can run them natively rather than weird alternatives.

but I always preferred gaim to trillian

[Liz]

Thanks for the advice. I think I will try that safe mode one.

The only reason I'm able to get on right now is because for some reason, firefox works on OTHER user accounts. I don't want to be on another user account though so I'm going to fix this ASAP. As in... next weekend when I visit (again) and stay at my dad's for almost the entire summer.

Also, I'd use XP, but my dad bought Vista. I use XP back at home bitches =p

And AIM + Chatzilla = awesome
Trillian = Gay

[Dr. Sticks]

if it's just your account, it's probably from the porn sites you visit

[nickspoon]

If Firefox works on other user accounts what I suggest you do is create a new profile. If that works, you can set about migrating bits of your old profile to the new one.

[datherman]

Trillian's good for AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Google, etc. For IRC you need a dedicated IRC client (like mIRC or similar).

Back to the problem, everything I would have suggested has already been stated. Try simply making a new profile first (I think typing "firefox -p" in the Start textbox should bring up the profile manager) and if that fails try Safe Mode. The button you need to press may not be F8, since it tends to vary by BIOS - if F8 doesn't work try F10 and the Delete key (not Backspace) as those might also work.

[Cactus Jack]

When I bought my new computer I found Vista was a hundred dollers cheaper then XP which is too bad since I would rather have XP