Q. I read your recent answer about getting rid of a bunch of extra fonts that were slowing down my computer and went into the Font folder in the Windows directory as you instructed. Since deleting fonts (I had about 100 on the computer), when I go to eBay to list something for auction (and in some other applications), when I type the print is really an odd font, almost unreadable. The only thing I can think of that could have caused my problem is that I got a warning not to delete Tahoma font, but the computer deleted it anyway. How do I get a good font back again?
Sherry Cook @syringa.com
A. You are among several overzealous readers who got inspired by that column to clean out font folders and wound up deleting some of the key system fonts that Windows uses for the basic displays that let you see what you’re doing. Bummer, as we used to say back in the far simpler 1960s when fonts were kept in a wooden drawer called a California Job Case that was used by professional printers. (The rest of us did our work on typewriters with no font choices whatsoever.)
Of the hundreds of fonts that build up on hard drives as users load different programs for word processing, desktop publishing and such, only 55 Windows system fonts are true necessities. To restore those key fonts you need to use a Windows feature called the System File Checker. The easiest way to do this is to use the Help files to find and run it.
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To do that, you need to click on Start and then pick the icon for Help. In the display that comes up pick Search and type in System File Checker. The operating system will bring up a box with the words System File Checker in blue type and clickable. Give a click and the machine will walk you through restoring those missing but crucial fonts. This utility will scan your computer to find if any of the elements of Windows have been removed or became corrupted and then restore them to their original state. It is a handy resource for all kinds of troubleshooting.
Q. I hope you can explain how I can remove baseball theme music I have in background regardless of what program I’m in. All I hear is “play ball!” with the crack of the bat. I went into the sounds program, but cannot find anything to help me remove it. Please offer some advice, before I go batty.
Joseph Bodnar, Livermore, Calif.
A. Here in the depths of a Midwestern winter, I would just love to hear that call “play ball!” and that cracking bat. Once. But not every time I run a new program on my computer like you are experiencing, Mr. B.
Something went awry in your PC and activated a sound file from the Baseball desktop/screensaver theme that is bundled with Windows. A simple search and destroy mission will end your annoying sound problem.
To find and delete that file, use the Find File/Folder module. Click the Start button at the bottom on your screen and scroll up to the Find choice. When you click it you can type the search phrase “baseball” and the system will call up all the files in the baseball theme. You can click on and play each of the sound files that come up until you find the one for “play ball,” which you can simply delete.
Q. My son recently received an MP3 music player. The ripping program that came with the player was RealJukebox Basic. Because the full version had some features that we wanted, I purchased RealJukebox Pro. Installation went fine, but now whenever we start the computer, the setup program on whatever CD we have in the drive is run. We can exit out of the setup program fine, but it is really annoying.
This does not happen when there is no CD in the drive and we insert one after boot-up. I have been through everything I can think of. I disabled the auto notification, and went through all of the options, preferences, etc., of RealPlayer and RealJukebox. We are running Windows 98 SE on a home-put-together Pentium III. I also checked in the BIOS for booting on the CD, but that wasn’t available. Please help.
Jerry Bredeson, McHenry
A. You clearly are a sophisticated Windows user, Mr. B. You knew that the automatic playing of CDs can be turned on and off by using the Windows device manager (right-click on My Computer/Properties/Device Manager and then CD-ROM). You even knew to check the computer’s basic input/output system, known as BIOS. Your problem was that you trusted Real Networks to set itself up to start running in the background each time your computer boots up.
The Real software checks your CD-ROM drive for music CDs each time you boot up and, because of some quirk in the software on your specific machine, triggers any setup programs that happen to be on those disks (such as encyclopedias, games or applications).
You need to strip Real’s software from your startup sequence. You can always run it later to play music or rip tunes from music CDs. So run the msconfig program (click on Start, chose Run and then type in “msconfig”). This will bring up a panel with a tab for Startup. Select that and scroll through all of the programs that get run on boot-up and remove the check marks from all with Real in their names. Your irksome experience with that otherwise excellent software will never be repeated.
Q. Being a relatively new computer operator (less than a year) and having gone through numerous problems (like just getting rid of a virus) I am very frustrated with Juno causing invalid page faults in module Msvcrt20.dll and Kernel32.dll when closing off the Web. It does not happen when using only the e-mail. I have no luck with their online help and, at $1.95 a minute, I hesitate to call their help number–especially after spending 20 hours with Hewlett-Packard tech help getting rid of the virus. Can you help me?
Jane O’Connor, New Lenox
A. I can certainly give you the advice for free that you would get on a $1.95-a-minute help line. Your Juno software did not install correctly, and you need to completely remove it from your computer and then reinstall it. That gibberish about Msvcrt20.dll and Kernel32.dll is just the computer’s way of telling you that the Juno software isn’t working correctly.
To remove the software click on the My Computer icon on your desktop and then select Control Panel and then Add/Remove Programs. In the display you get, next scroll down to the “J” headings and select all the ones for Juno to remove. Once this is completed, reboot your computer, then reload the Juno software from the disk it came on. If the problem persists, you should once again remove the whole thing and then find another Juno CD and start over yet again.
Q. As an occasional insomniac, I became concerned that late-night modem dialing noises would awaken my spouse and e-mailed 3Com/U.S. Robotics. They gave me the appropriate coding to silence the modem. I’m not sure if the same AT codes work for other brand modems, but they may. Here is the solution they gave me:
Open the Control Panel, click on Modems, click the Properties button, click the Connection tab, click the Advanced button, and type the following in the Extra Settings area: AT&F1MO&W (that’s a capital O, not a zero). Then click OK. I can’t remember if you have to reboot to have the extra settings become active.
Bob Miller @facstaff.wisc.edu
A. Well kick me in the head and call me a soccer ball, you have come up with the solution that is going to help scores if not hundreds of people who have written to this column over the years because they couldn’t get their modems to stop all that squawking and howling when they attempted to go online while other family members slept.
I have repeatedly offered the solution that Microsoft recommends, which solves the issue for most folks, but not all. Your solution attacks the problem right at the heart by forcing the very first command that the modem receives to be the one to set the modem speaker to the off position.
There are drawbacks to doing this, but they don’t involve the sort of things that should concern us ordinary users, and so your solution couldn’t be more welcome. It’s better than the ones I suggested in the past. Let’s call today’s column Ask Bob Why.
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Contact Jim Coates via e-mail at [email protected] or via snail mail at the baiduhai, Room 400, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611. Questions can be answered only through the column. Add your point of view at chicagotribune.com /go/askjim