I can do that to my computer?

I can do that to my computer? A brief class in troubleshooting your personal computer Phone: 392-3900 Email: training@vpha.health.ufl.edu TECH SKILL SOLUTIONS FOR THE HEALTH SCIENCE CENTER

I can do that to my computer? Introduction This brief class is designed to provide you with the tools necessary to solve some of the more common computer problems. After this session you will be able to: First Hour?? Check your network connection?? Check for IP?? Provide pertinent info to support?? Know where you download files?? Drive types?? Know about file attributes, types and associations?? Check your disk space Second Hour?? Salvage deleted files?? Verify installations?? Have you computer run more smoothly?? Clear up browser cache errors?? FTP files?? Pop your email Overview These topics will provide you with the features necessary to begin doing some basic troubleshooting on your computer. Summary This training will allow you to do some basic troubleshooting on your computer. From here you can solve most of the common problems and more quickly get yourself back into productivity. What s Next? Look for specialized troubleshooting topics in the near future dealing with hardware and software issues. Other Information NetG is a computer based training website available to UF employees with a GatorLink account. Here you can take a variety of web based course: http://ufgartner.ufl.edu/

Table of Contents Getting started 4 Are other people in your area having similar problems? 4 Check your network connection 4 Do you have a software connection to the network? 4 Do you have IP? 4 Get your information together before you call for help 4 Software/Network 5-6 Location of downloaded files 5 Local drives 5 Network drives 5 File attributes 6 File types/associations 6 Disk Space 6 Software/Network: Tools 7-8 Salvage 7 Verify 7 Scandisk and Defrag (95, 98, 2000) 7 Startup Folder 7 System Tray icons 7 Task List 8 Connectivity 8-10 Web Browsers 8 Bookmarks 8 Cache errors 8 FTP 8 Web Mail (attachments and forwarding) 9 Checking your e-mail from home 10 Notes 12 2

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Getting Started Are other people in your area having similar problems? Check your network connection Do you have a physical connection to the network? Cable plugged in to computer and appropriate wall jack? Do you have a software connection to the network? Right click on the red N in your system tray and choose NETWARE CONNECTIONS. Check for RESOURCES and your USERNAME IP Do you have IP? Go to a DOS prompt Win NT/2000: START-RUN-cmd Win 95, 98 START-RUN-command Type: Win NT 2000: ipconfig/all Win 95, 98 winipcfg Make sure you have an IP address (I.e. 128.228.218.149) Get your information together before you call for help What operating system do you have??? Click on START and the OS should be on the left hand side If not, right click on My Computer and choose Properties. You should see the OS towards the top right underneath System.?? What context do you operate under??? Deans Office, College of Medicine?? VPHA?? Nursing?? VDIS?? Emergency Medicine Write down the error messages that you are receiving (if any). What program were you working in before your problem occurred? What other programs were open while this problem occurred (look down at your taskbar)? 4

Software/Network File structure and types Location of downloaded files When you download a file from the internet or save an attachment from an e-mail message, you need to be aware of where that file is being saved. For consistency, you might want to create a DOWNLOADS on your desktop and point your downloads there. So, when you save your downloaded file you can save them there. Local drives Your local drives (the ones physically inside of your computer) are usually: A: floppy disk drive C: hard drive D: this can be either another hard drive or a CD ROM drive E: This can be either a CD Rom drive or a Zip drive Z: This will probably be your CD ROM drive Network drives These are drives you attach to via the network. The drive letters can be anywhere from F to Y. If you are a VPHA customer your personal drive will be W:\ and have your username before the letter drive (I.e. Rgraff on Gore\home (W:)). If you are a DOCOM customer your personal drive will be H:\ and have your username before the drive letter (I.e. Rgraff on Osler\home (H:)) These drives are limited in space, so be sure to store only those files that you absolutely need. Keep things that you download off the internet on your hard drive or on floppy disk as they usually take up quite a bit of disk space. Be sure to delete installers (exe files) after you install the program. Chances are the next time you need the file, there will be a newer version on the internet and you can download that version. The initial size of your HOME directory is 50 megabytes. Another useful drive is the Share drive (I.e. Share on Gore (S:) for VPHA customers and Common on Osler (G:) for DOCOM customers). Here you can store documents that others on the network will have access to. 5

Software/Network File attributes Hidden files open My Computer or some other folder and choose OPTIONS. Click on the VIEW tab. Here you can choose to view or hide system files. To make your life easier, you might want to hide them. Read only if a file is given this attribute you will not be able to modify it. To change the attribute, find the file, right click on it and choose properties. From here you can check or uncheck the HIDDEN attribute at the bottom of the window. You can also hide the file but be careful doing this! File types/associations Open up a folder on your hard drive. Click on VIEW and then OPTIONS and then click the FILE TYPES tab. From here you can set which program you want to open a file type. Double click on the file type that you would like to change. Double click OPEN and then browse to the program that you want to start when you double click on that type of file. For instance MS Word is usually opened when you double click on a file with a.doc extension, MS Excel for.xls, PowerPoint for.ppt and so on. This section is useful for reassociating files when another program insists on taking them over. Another example: if you used to open picture files in your web browser and now, after installing Photoshop, all your pictures now open in Photoshop which takes a long time to open. You could then go and associate your.jpg or.gif files with your browser Disk Space To check the amount of free disk space on your computer hard drive, double click the MY COMPUTER icon and then right click the C: drive. To check the amount of free disk space on your network drive, go to a DOS prompt and type getquota. When you start to run out of disk space on the network all kinds of problems can occur, among these:?? E-mail will not delete, send or move files?? Can no longer save files to your network drive?? Can cause programs to lock up when trying to save a program What can you do when you run out of space??? Save what you are working on to your local hard drive (C:)?? Delete unneeded files from your HOME directory things like picture files, executable program files, email with large attachments, old (no longer needed) documents.?? You can have old data archived to a CD?? If you still are out of space, call 392-3900 and ask that your HOME directory be increased 6

Software/Network: Tools Salvage The Salvage tool allows you to restore files that have been deleted from your network drive (H or W) To salvage files, open MY COMPUTER and right click on your network drive (you can also navigate to the specific folder your deleted file was in). Choose SALVAGE and then highlight the file(s) you would like to restore. You can sort the files by date or by name by clicking the appropriate heading. You can also SALVAGE information from your PMAIL (Pegasus Mail) directory by navigating to that folder and following the above steps. Verify If an application is delivered to you through ZENWorks (the shortcut on your desktop has a red arrow) and if you are having a problem running that application you can right click on the shortcut and click VERIFY. This actually reinstalls the program on your computer. With the MS Office programs, personal preferences that you have set will need to be reset. Scandisk and Defrag (95, 98, 2000) This is a tool that defragments a hard drive so that files are more easily and quickly found by the computer. Click on START, PROGRAMS, ACCESSORIES, SYSTEM TOOLS, DISK DEFRAGMENTER. Booting Startup Folder Hardware Conflicts Scandisk starts at boot up when there is a problem or when the computer is not shut down properly. To bypass the loading of files in the Startup folder, hold down the SHIFT key during boot up. If you have programs that start without you starting them or if your system has begun to slow down a bit, you might want to check what s in your startup folder: START, PROGRAMS, and STARTUP. If you see something you would like to get rid of move the shortcut out of the STARTUP folder and leave it there for a week. If all s well with your system startup for a week, go ahead and delete those shortcuts you moved. Sometimes the program is elsewhere: Type SYSEDIT at a DOS prompt and look in the different windows for the program you would like to stop loading. Type REM on the very beginning of that line. If your computer boots in safe mode, you might want to see whether you have any device conflicts adversely affecting your system. Right-click My Computer and choose Properties and then click the Device Manager tab. Conflicts or other device problems are flagged with exclamation marks. System Tray icons On the bottom right hand side of your screen near the clock you should find some small icons. These are small controls of some of the programs currently running on your computer. Here you will find things like anti-virus, volume, network and such. To see what an icon is, point your mouse to it and a box should appear with that application s name. Yo u can control some of their options by right clicking, left clicking or double clicking the icon (different strokes ) 7

Software/Network Task List When you press the CTRL ALT DEL buttons on your keyboard, you will have a box popup (except in Windows 95 where you will be immediately taken to the TASK LIST). One of the options should be TASK LIST. After you click TASK LIST, be sure to click on the APPLICATION screen tab. Here you can see a list of all the applications currently running on your computer. This tool is handy if an application appears to have stopped responding. You can stop the lockup without (usually) restarting your computer. Connectivity Web Browsers FTP Bookmarks Keep your bookmarks organized otherwise they tend to be useless. You can create a web page of your bookmarks by Cache errors If after starting your browser you get an error message concerning CACHE, check the location of the TEMP folder and make sure it is a location on your hard drive. Our users can access network files from any computer on the Internet by entering the following address in a web browser: ftp://.<userid>.<organization>.hsc.ufl@ftp.med.ufl.edu (note the period before the user id) Where organization is?? Vpha?? Nursing?? Dean.med?? Emerg.med For example: ftp://.jsmith.dean.med.hsc.ufl@ftp.med.ufl.edu You will then be prompted to enter your network password. In older versions of Internet Explorer, however, you may not be prompted and will need to include the password in the address: ftp://.jsmith.dean.med.hsc.ufl:mypassword@ftp.med.ufl.edu (Password is visible to others in the URL and in the cache.) You should be able to navigate to not only your own home folder but also any shared or common folders that you have normally have access to on the network. To download a file to your home computer, right-click on it and choose Save. To upload a file from your home computer to the network, drag it from a file list and drop it into the browser window. 8

HSC Web Mail?? GatorLink Account?? Using HSC Web Mail?? Forwarding HSC Web Mail GatorLink Account 1. In order to access your HSC Web Mail, you must have a GatorLink account www.gatorlink.ufl.edu 2. You must change your initial password [first initial of your last name + the last 4 digits of your ss#] 3. A Gatorlink password must be at least 8 characters long. You cannot use a word or a name. Two or more unrelated words (no spaces) makes a good password Using HSC Web Mail 1. http://webmail.health.ufl.edu 2. You ll need:?? Username: this is usually generated FOR you (must be 8 characters or fewer, begin with a letter, and consist of only letters and numbers (no symbols)?? Your password (Gatorlink password) 3. Reading Mail 1. Using your dial up connection and browser type in http://webmail.health.ufl.edu 2. Type your Username and Password 3. Click the log in button (or press your ENTER key) 4. Now your are in your Inbox 5. Click on the SUBJECT to read the message?? Once you ve read your message, you can?? Delete the message by pressing the Delete button?? Reply to the sender of the message by, you guessed it, pressing the Reply button?? Reply to All will reply to everyone in the From list--- be careful with this one?? Forward the message to someone else by pressing the Forward button and typing the address of the person you want to forward the message to?? Move or Copy the message to a folder?? Click Back to Inbox to go back to your list of messages 4. Composing Mail (Sending Mail) 1. Click the Compose link on left hand side of your screen 2. Type the e-mail address of the person you want to send a message to 3. If you d like you can type in the Carbon Copy (CC) and the Blind Carbon Copy (BCC this allows you to CC someone without the recipient seeing it) 4. Type in the subject 5. If you d like you can also attach a file to your message keep in mind that this will take a while for you to send and a while for your recipient to receive the message. 1. Click the Browse button 2. Navigate to where the file is (harddrive, cd, network drive ) 3. Double click the file you want to attach 4. Click the Attach button 1. You will then see the name and size of your attachment(s) in orange underneath Browse and Attach buttons 2. Click in the large text field and type your message 3. Click the Send Message button Forwarding HSC Web Mail 1. Go to www.gatorlink.ufl.edu 2. Click the Modify link at the top of the screen 3. Log in with your Username and Password 4. Click on the E-mail Forwarding link on the top left of the screen 5. Click the blank box and type the e-mail address you would like to forward your webmail to (usually this goes to your office account; username@vpha.health.ufl.edu) 6. Click the Forward Mail button 7. To stop forwarding your mail, repeat these steps, but click the Do Not Forward button 9

8. Click the Quit link at the top of your screen. 10

Checking your e-mail from home?? Webmail see HSC Webmail Training Guide?? Office Mail?? Web Based E-mail?? MSN Hotmail?? Yahoo Mail?? Mailstart?? You can also configure Outlook, Outlook Express, Netscape and other email packages to check your mail from home. You might need:?? POP3= pop.health.ufl.edu?? Gatorlink Pop3= pop.ufl.edu?? SMTP= smtp.ufl.edu MSN Hotmail 1. Get on the Internet 2. Go to www.hotmail.com 3. Log into your account 4. Click the Options link at the top of the screen 5. Click the Popmail link on the right hand side or your screen 6. Type pop.health.edu in the Pop Server Name field 7. Be sure the Leave Mail on Sever box is checked 8. Type in your name and password 9. To check your mail, click on the Popmail link at the left of the main Hotmail screen. Yahoo Mail 1. Get on the Internet 2. Go to www.yahoo.com 3. Click the Mail link 4. Log into your account 5. Click the Options link on the left of the screen 6. Click the Check Other Popmail link in the center of your screen 7. Click the Add Mail link 8. Type pop.health.edu in the Mail Account Server field 9. Be sure the Leave Mail on POP Sever box is checked 10. Type in your username and password 11. To check your mail, click on the Check Other Mail link on the left of your screen. Mailstart 1. Get on the Internet 2. Go to www.mailstart.com 3. Type your e-mail address in the address box?? Username@pop.health.ufl.edu 4. Type your password (should be the same as your network password) 5. Click the CHECK MY MAIL button 6. Your mail will be left on the server, so when you return to the office unless you check and delete them from the Mailstart screen. 11

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