Q I'm running Windows XP and use Outlook Express for e-mail, but I no longer can get the hot links to work in e-mail messages I get. It happened some months ago, after Microsoft did an automatic update.
A Nobody seems to know what causes this problem, but there is widespread agreement about how to fix it. An unknown bit of software downloaded from somewhere on the Web is kicking in to stop those e-mail hot links from calling up pages when clicked inside messages.
All of this downloaded stuff gets placed in temporary directories and is waiting to kick in when a user does something. So you need to do a wholesale deletion of your temporary Internet files, which is quite easy.
Open the Windows Internet Explorer and then click on Tools in the menu bar and scroll down and open the Internet Options command. This brings up a tabbed menu, and you need to open the tab called General. There, you will find a fat button that lets users delete all temporary Internet files. This probably will take a long time to finish because a great amount of stuff builds up in these temp folders. And once the deleting stops, you almost certainly will see live hot links in the Outlook Express messages from now on.
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Other readers should note that quite a few browser glitches can be fixed by getting rid of temporary files.
Q When I boot up, a message appears saying: "Cannot find the file 'HVID.EXE' or one of its components. Make sure the path and file name are current and that all required libraries are available." I click OK and get another message: "Could not load or run 'HVID.EXE' specified in the WINI.exe file. Make sure the file exists on your computer or remove the reference to it in the WINI file."
I don't have the original disc that came with the computer, only the restore disc. Is there a Web site with a free download of this file or a way to retrieve it from one of these discs without losing everything already on the computer, and if so, how?
A Here's what you probably should do: Forget about it. Just let that annoying message pop up and then click OK to get rid of it. For a lot of folks, fixing this particular dingbat is more trouble than enduring it. Check out the horribly complex fix offered at www.symantec.com by using the search term "GEMA."
That errant file that Windows can't find is the payload for an outdated Trojan type virus called GEMA. In other words, a malicious file is trying to load something onto your computer. This threat poses a very low threat, according to Symantec Corp.'s Norton Anti Virus division.
In essence, GEMA was an early Trojan designed to infiltrate a computer, scatter all kinds of code bits around the hard drive and then use the machine to launch blitzes of e-mail. Meanwhile, there have been so many changes in operating systems and network technology that GEMA can't get past the resulting security improvements, particularly in the mechanics of sending mass e-mails through one's Internet service provider.
You can ferret out that Win.ini file and remove the line for "hvid.exe" to stop that part of the burp at boot-up.
To do that, click on Start and then Run and type in this: "sysedit.exe" (without the quotation marks) and click OK. That brings up a group of text files in the Windows Notepad program that include win.ini as well as autoexec.bat and others. You can edit these files and then save them. Carefully select the file win.ini and find the line with "hvid.exe" and then just delete that line. Save the file and close it and the others.
But be very careful, because a misstep can cause big trouble.
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