Help!!.....Can't download AAT past exam papers, wrong security settings - The Book-keepers Forum (UK)

Amanda · Expert

Help!!.....Can't download AAT past exam papers, wrong security settings

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Hi Amanda,

it sounds like your firewall rather than Internet Explorer.

A few things that I would try.

1) download Mozilla Firefox and use it instead of Internet Explorer (I've had problems myself with explorer in the past).

2) Check your Firewall settings. It may be that a recent download that normally happens in the background without even asking you has increased the security level of your machine.

Got to go now but if that doesn't get you anywhere we'll have another look at this in the morning (personally I think that using Firefox will sort you out).

Good luck,

Shaun.

Amanda · Expert

Hi Shaun,

Thanks for quick reply will have a look tomorrow now, I am brain dead, I'm sure its something simple!!!!

You maybe able to answer another computer question. I have a Toshiba Laptop and I know that you rate these, I have AVG anti Virus on it, a paid version not the FREE version, and recently everytime it goes to do a scan (scheduled scan) part way through it crashes and automatically turns the laptop off. When I reboot it it says wasn't shut down properly and then restarts as normal. When I go into AVG history to check on the scan it comes up with 'Scan log is corrupted, scan has not finished properly', the other day it was doing something in the back (not a scheduled one) and the laptop went off without warning and I had SAGE instants open at the time, luckily I had just done a backup so that was not a problem if I had lost some of the data, but luckily it hadn't lost any, but its a pain if you are in the middle of a prgramme like SAGe as they don't like being shut down like that its best to close it down correctly. Anyway after the long details, have you any suggestions? It dosen't come up with anything to say there is a virus on it. This morning I decided to do an unscheduled scan and started it normally and that one worked fine without turning the Laptop off.
Sorry to moan on but had a very frustrating few days!!!

Many thanks for your help Shaun,
Regards

Amanda

-- Edited by Amanda on Friday 14th of May 2010 10:39:17 PM

Amanda · Expert

Forgot to say I will have a look at Firefox tomorrow, my sons friend uses that one and my sons always going on about it. These young kids of today are so computer literate it untrue!
Half the stuff hes talks about goes over my head!

Will let you know how I get on.

Thanks
A

-- Edited by Amanda on Friday 14th of May 2010 10:42:26 PM

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Hi Amanda,

sounds as though you may be having some contention problems when doing the scan.

download Spybot search and destroy (version 1.6.2 available from safer networking http://www.safer-networking.org/en/home/index.html) it's free and it picks up all of the crud that your firewall / anti virus doesn't.

Once you've got it upgrade to the latest definitions. When it brings up a server list user Safer Networking #3 which is by far the most dependable of the servers.

Run that to pick up all the worms, trojans and spyware that have snook onto your machine.

Once those are cleared up go to start / all programs / accessories / system tools / disk defragmentor and run a defrag on your hard drive as your problem may be with fragmented files.

If you don't have enough free disk space to do a defrag that might be part of your problem so try and clear up around 15% of your hard drive.

The firefox download is free from http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/firefox/

When you install it you are given the option to import all of your settings from explorer, just say yes and everything gets transferred over seamlessly. Once you've used firefox for a while you'll never go back.... Actually, that's not true, I had to use explorer to take up a rights issue with Barclays stockbrokers as it just wouldn't work with firefox, but that aside I've not gone back.

Of course explorer doesn't disappear and you can always use it if you want to.

Hope the above sorts your machine out. I know all too well the frustration when things go wrong.

Good luck,

Shaun.

Amanda · Expert

Many thank Shaun,

I've printed off your info and will try it later, probably when the FA cup is on as they will all be watching it and I can have some piece and quiet!!!!

Do you think I may have a bug in it or something? It all started happening when I download a Java update about 2 weeks ago, wish I'd never had downloaded it!

Many thanks again.

Amanda

-- Edited by Amanda on Saturday 15th of May 2010 09:41:57 AM

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Morning Amanda,

I think that I'm probably the only bloke on the planet with absolutely no interest in sport so if you get stuck feel free to send a message during the game. If I'm not on I'll be studying ratio and variance analysis but I normally check into the site every so often.

The Java problem is probably a mismatch rather than a bug as such but the fact that it was a Java pluggin probably explains why you can't get hold of the AAT papers.

You can actually go back to a previous (pre java update) state but I'm not going to tell you how to do it as (1) you will also lose all other system updates done since then and (2) it carries a disproportionate risk of coming with a blue screen of death if there are issues with the restore.

When you use firefox it will need it's own pluggins for Java. Unless it forces you to then don't download any until you've been able to get those AAT papers.

When you do install the firefox pluggins they're different to the explorer version so they'll work in a different way anyway.

Thinking at a tangent here but can you open the papers and save a copy rather than download? I'm not AAT so can't try it myself unfortunately.

Rhianrach · Expert

Amanda wrote:

Many thank Shaun,

I've printed off your info and will try it later, probably when the FA cup is on as they will all be watching it and I can have some piece and quiet!!!!

Do you think I may have a bug in it or something? It all started happening when I download a Java update about 2 weeks ago, wish I'd never had downloaded it!

Many thanks again.

Amanda

-- Edited by Amanda on Saturday 15th of May 2010 09:41:57 AM

What papers do you need ?I could get them for you. wink

Amanda · Expert

Hi Steve and Shaun,

The Papers I can now get as I have been on hubbys laptop this morning and logged onto my AAT website that way, and e-mailed them to myself so panic over thank goodness. But still need to sort the Laptop out regarding what you have said so thats my saturday afternon taken care off. Thanks for the offer Steve, if I get stuck I remember that you can also get them.

This site is so helpful, great to know you have support like this.

Many thanks
Amanda

Rhianrach · Expert

Amanda wrote:

Hi Steve and Shaun,

The Papers I can now get as I have been on hubbys laptop this morning and logged onto my AAT website that way, and e-mailed them to myself so panic over thank goodness. But still need to sort the Laptop out regarding what you have said so thats my saturday afternon taken care off. Thanks for the offer Steve, if I get stuck I remember that you can also get them.

This site is so helpful, great to know you have support like this.

Many thanks
Amanda

In fairness I only reply to you because of your avatar. biggrin

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Hi Steve,

No, Amanda really does look like that.

You might notice that when there are loads of messages Amanda always gets first response... Not that were shallow or anything!

Myself, Rob and Bill have formed the Amanda fan club if you fancy joining. There's a membership fee though as we're saving up to have her hubby sent on a very long cruise.

Amanda · Expert

Hi,

Like you sense of humour guys!!!

A

Amanda · Expert

Shaun I need you help again!

I have ran Spybot and it came up with quite alot of things that need fixing including 2 trojans!

The problem is when I select the Fix button it keeps coming up with an error saying you need to be an administrator to do this. Well I have looked at my control panel setting and I am the administrator. So is it worth me changing it to User account and then see if that will work? I am on Vista, I know its not your favourite, but up until now I have had no problems with it. When I sellected the Fix button it only fixed 2 items and then said to run it again under admin, so I can then fix the problems etc.

Sorry I am such a pain!

Many thanks,
Amanda

-- Edited by Amanda on Saturday 15th of May 2010 06:04:49 PM

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

No Probs Amanda,

apparently this is a common problem with Vista.

go to this page for instructions as to how to get administrator status as even though you think that your the administrator Vista hasn't quite cottoned onto it!

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/faq/42.html

You didn't get anything pop up with a name like CWS or CoolWebSearch did you? That one is truly difficult to get rid of as it randomly replicates itself and attaches itself to the most innocuous of files.

The fact that it's finding trojans may explain some of your problems. Keep with it as your only a few steps away from a better machine... It will work faster too, especially after you've done the defrag.

Good luck,

Shaun.

Amanda · Expert

Hi Shaun, me again!

I have done the administrator bit, thats was straight forward so thanks for that, I have just tried to do spybot twice now since the first time this afternoon when it wouldn't let me get rid of the stuff, anyway half way through it it now crashes and switches off the laptop automatically, also this afternoon the scheduled scan crashed! Any ideas, or do I just keep on trying as sooner or later I will be lucky and it will work and I will be able to delete the threats etc through spybot.

Sorry, its really frustrating me now!

PS I don't think there was anything about CoolWeb Search on there, there were something like 22 'PUPs' what ever that is?

Thanks,
Amanda

-- Edited by Amanda on Saturday 15th of May 2010 07:28:10 PM

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Hi Amanda,

Sounds as though you might be running out of resources during the scans.

How much memory and disk space have you got?

Right click on start, go to explore, right click on the C drive and click on properties. That should give you your free space in pink.

Now do cntl alt and delete to bring up task manager. How much physical memory do you have, how much is available and what is CPU usage ticking over at?

If you've already got more than 15% free disk space then it might be worth doing your defrag now to tidy up you disjointed files.

The defrag may take a couple of hours to complete but you can still do other things whilst it's going through. Just not a scan.

Has your machine crashed at all when it's not been doing a scan?

Amanda · Expert

Hi again Shaun,
I have just ran a Manual scan and that worked and no virus came up and the Laptop didn't crash, so I gave Spybot another go and part way through the laptop crashed again, and switched itself off automatically! What can I try next?

My machine sounds like something is running in the background even though I have nothing running, is this normal????

Getting worried now about using my programmes Sage and QB as can't afford for it to go off just like that without warning when I am half way through something.

Am Very frustrated now!!!!! Very Large glass of wine I think is in order!

I have been pleased with the Toshiba up until now, may have to revert to my old Advent one which hubby uses, its rubbish and I don't like it as the number keys are not at the side, they are along the top!

Any ideas will be much appreciated as always!

Many thanks
Amanda

farmergiles · Veteran Member

Hi Amanda,

May I suggest that you download Eset Nod32, it's the only antivirus I've found that combats everything and is constantly updated. As soon as you download the free trial, run a scan. It will isolate, quarantine and destroy any trojans etc that have infiltrated your machine. You shouldn't have any problems after that. You do find with things like spybot etc that they will tell you there are infiltrations just to get you to buy their product!

Amanda · Expert

We must have been typing at the same time!

Yes it crashed on Friday morning when not doing a scan and I was in SAGE as well!! Not good.

Right just done task manager etc what you've suggested and her goes:-

Well over half the memory FREE.
Physical Memory 56%
Processes 94
CPU usage between 2% and 5% Fluxuates between those 2.

Hope that makes sense because its aibt over my head I'm afraid!

Let me know what you think. thanks. You could be my Knight in Shining Armour if I can sort this mess out!

Many thanks again.

Amanda.
PS going to the fridge for my large glass of wine, and then a soak in the bath! (Fed up tonight)!

Amanda · Expert

~THanks Farmer Giles I will try that as well.

A few months ago I actually paid for the AVG version, I had the FREE one previous to that but thought I ought to upgrade seen as I am on the Laptop so much and so dependant on it. So really annoyed that I have this problem as I thought upgrading it would mean I had better level of cover.

Many thanks,
Amanda

farmergiles · Veteran Member

Hi Amanda,
I run a Toshiba 17inch that I've had for about 15 months and I have accounts & payroll on it, so it is imperative that I have the best anti virus. Nod32 was the one my old boss swore by and I wouldn't change it.

Give the 1 month free trial a go. If you do have problems, the tech guys at eset will examine your registry and remove anything and everything that could damage your system. Their support is second to none.

kind regards
Peter

-- Edited by farmergiles on Saturday 15th of May 2010 09:09:11 PM

-- Edited by farmergiles on Saturday 15th of May 2010 09:09:59 PM

Amanda · Expert

Hi Peter,

How much does it cost for a years licence, sounds like its a good one to have, wish I known about it along time ago. I have had my Tosh for about 17 months, 17" one and like run everything on it for my business, hence why I spent quite abit of money aon a decent laptop in the first place.

Mines a Toshiba Satellite.

Many thanks for the info.

Regards
Amanda

farmergiles · Veteran Member

Hi,

I have the same copmuter then.
My last licence renewal cost me £27 for 3 years and I have about 8 - 10 computers using it. All my offspring and their partners use the same password. I think I'm probably due a renewal soon.

It's not expensive and well worth it. Download the free trial, make sure you get the "anti-virus" version and see how you feel about it. You won't be require to buy any additional programmes to remove ingresses and once it is in, nothing should get through. When there are new viruses going the rounds, you will notice because you will get anything up to 20 updates a day to fit new patches to combat the new problems.

Rhianrach · Expert

May seem daft but is it sat on a desk and when you say "My machine sounds like something is running in the background even though I have nothing running, is this normal????" does this mean its like a whirring or a clicking? Reason I ask is the a small possibility of overheating. Antivrus scans tend to be cpu intensive (I use nod and it is), if the fan has had it on your cpu heatsink which would mean that its noisy then when you run a scan it will shut down.

Just an idea smile

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Hi,

poorly son so can't stop.

the downside to downloading multiple anti virus programs is that they may recognise each other as virus's which you really don't want.

The memory and disk usage sounds healthy enough so that's not the problem.

Spybot going belly up is not good.

I run a Tosh as well and it's a great little machine. Mines the 17" monitor with the numeric keypad to the right.

As Steve suggests it might be worth you switching the machine off for half an hour as it could be overheating.

Make sure that non of the vents are covered. If it's sitting on material such as a sofa move it to a hard surface such as a table before you switch on again.

Just to be on the safe side when you do switch it on take a full set of backups just to be safe.

Good luck. My fingers are crossed for you. I'll try to check in again later to see how things are going.

Shaun.

Amanda · Expert

Hi Steve, Shaun and Peter.

Thanks everyone for the info.
Steve, - Yes it is on all the time and on my desk and yes it does get hot, I turn it off at the end of the day, and if I go out for a few hours turn it off then as well. Funny about the overheating bit as if I do a manual scan in the morning then its fine, if its a scheduled scan at say 5pm then it stops. So you could be right.

Shaun, - Maybe I will try Spybot in the morning, maybe I have tried it too much now.

Peter,- thats a very good price, I think I will have alook at it, but like Shaun says is it wise to have 2 on there or once I have download yours, maybe uninstall AVG so they don't clash.

As you have all gather I'm not a wizz on the fixing side of things, can use the accounting packages no problem and type reasonable fast, but fixing things is not my forte.

Once again thanks for all your help tonight, finished the glass of wine and fell much better now! Switching off to give this machine a rest. Sounds like Shaun and Pete have the same as me, I love the 17" screen and the numeric keys at the side.

Will let you know tomorrow guys how I get on.

Thanks
Amanda

Amanda · Expert

Steve,

In reply to the fan maybe has had it, should it go after 17 months of use? If so (its very quiet at the mo), is it easy to get repaired, have a very good computer shop round the corner from me and also now a private man who fixes them for a living.

Let me know what you think in the morning.

Many thanks,
Amanda

Rhianrach · Expert

Amanda wrote:

Steve,

In reply to the fan maybe has had it, should it go after 17 months of use? If so (its very quiet at the mo), is it easy to get repaired, have a very good computer shop round the corner from me and also now a private man who fixes them for a living.

Let me know what you think in the morning.

Many thanks,
Amanda

The fan may well be fine and dandy if it's whirring it's working, smile

, the problem alot of computers have is dust, a fan becomes inefficient when heavily coated with dust.
The purpose of the fan will be to cool a heat sink that also wont work very well if there is a lot of dust, air in a can costs next to nothing and you would just have to remove maybe one panel on the back to get to the heatsink and fan and blow the dust out.

I think what I would do personally is install Core temp a simple program that will monitor the temps of both your cores and show them in the task bar so that when you run your anti virus etc you can moniter whats happening and as long as they aren't getting too high (65c and over ) then you can cancel overheating as a problem.

Run a defrag as Shaun says and maybe a cleanup.

Re-install antivirus go for the trial version of eset nod32 get rid of spybot and avg for now just have one on your machine initially.

Get rid of vista bleh

see if you can still get windows 7 cheaps as a student, (you get it as a digital download but there are ways and means of getting the full copy and getting it onto a disc but that would take another discussion oh and not telling them you have vista otherwise they give you an upgrade meh)

In answer to your question it wouldn't cost so much to have your computer looked at, certainly if they are a good bunch of people and certainly if you dress like in your avatar. evileye

Amanda · Expert

Hi Steve,

Just finished the Spybot stuff, and the computer didn't crash, I cheated and put a small fan next to my Laptop to stop it from overheating just incase that was the problem.

I didn't want to go down the route of Windows 7, as I have an old SAGE V10 instants that I use for one of my clients and I only do his books once a year so not really worth upgrading to a newer version, and his accountant dosen't like QB.

What about if I go the other way and Down grade to XP? The Sage V10 dosen't like Visa for reports and have to take a backup and put it on my sons XP laptop and print from there. Also I have a client who is on V12 SAge instants and I do his work monthly and then back it up on his machine (hes got XP), once a month as he likes to just keep tabs on his business. We have both bought SAGE V12 (2 licences) so we can run the same and I don't know if this is compatible with Windows 7? Any ideas?

I think I will get rid of AVG, some computer boff recommended it too me so abit annoyed about that one!
Will also do a defrag like shaun says although when I have looked at this its already set to run once a week automatically.

Forgot to ask when I down load the FREE trial of the Eset, do I still keep the AVE one on there until its download properly and working OK, is that the correct thing to do?

Many thanks for all your help.
Amanda

-- Edited by Amanda on Sunday 16th of May 2010 11:25:42 AM

Rhianrach · Expert

A downgrade to XP in my personal opinion is not a bad idea in all honesty, I used XP loved it, missed out vista and went straight to 7 so for me either XP or 7.

Having a fan next to the pc makes it sound to me like it just needs a good clean out, if you feel confident get some air in a can take the processor panel off and blast away (unpluggued of course), if you don't feel confident then take it to the local repair bod and explain whats happening, I always keep mine cleaned out but then I'm into or I was into overclocking.

If you read up on A/V programs you will get all sorts of advice, this is good thats good, some people like to use free stuff some prefer to pay. After a lot of research and reading up on tests I still can't give you an answer to what's best. However I've been using Nod32 for 2 years now without a murmer, apart from the fact that it updates regularly and gets cheaper on the second year and has yet to let anything through, it also tends not to use a lot of system resources (something that the free ones and some pay ones tend to do), therefore freeing up your system for your programs, (without knowing the spec of your pc I would say this would be something important to you as vista at full tilt can use around 1 gig of your ram chances are you will only have around 2 gig in there so when you add in an A/V that uses even more ram you can see where this is heading) so for me Nod is the way to go.

If you download nod32 from their site personally I would un-install AVG first as if I remember rightly it downloads and installs directly from the site (fraud prevention) so having AVG on there may cause problems.

As far as the defrag goes you don't really need to set iit to once a week just run it every now and again when you remember, the likelyhood is that after a week you wont of done enough to warrant a defrag, mine gets done when I remember around once every 6 months, and if I can be bothered and find a free utility that is safe I also clean my registry (I safe utility as this can cause some damage).

And finally as far as windows 7 goes have a look into seeing if sage v10 can be run, there may be a way of making it compatible, something to do with running it in a different compatibilty mode maybe like XP used to have for 98 software.

Amanda · Expert

Hi Steve,
THanks for you reply, off out in a minute so will have ago at the Anti Virus tonight.
I think I will ring up tomorrow about downgrading to XP my son has XP and I must admit when I go on his laptop (old 2nd hadn one) its easy to use and I like it. I don't mind Visa though but like you said its a memory hogger.
My memory ram is 2GB, with 32 bit operating system whatever that means!

Not into computer jargon as you can probably tell.

If I take off AVG first will that not effect the security of my system etc by not being covered? Or is it a case of its just for the period that it takes to download the new A/V?

Sorry to have to keep asking all these questions.

Many thanks again,
Amanda

Rhianrach · Expert

Find the eset site free trial and book mark it then uninstall avg then when you've restarted or whatever you may need to do go back to the bookmark and download install.

I would say you would be better off on XP than Vista but thats just my preference smile

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Hi Amanda,

great as XP is (it's the operating system that I've got on all of my machines) be real careful about changing your operating system.

For a clean installation removing all trace of the old operating system from the registry one really needs to go back to a formatted drive and start again.

You really don't want to do that.

Without formatting then an upgrade to 7 would be easier than regression to XP and to be honest I don't think that you should consider either.

Maybe when you have a new machine reformat this one and take it back to XP but for now I would make the best of a bad job and persist with Vista.

From the chain of messages I think that we've basically identified the real problem and that's down to your machine overheating.

If a fan works then stick with it until you can have your machine hoovered out or / and the fan replaced.

Even on the best machines things can go wrong. It's just frustrating when it doesn't happen within the warranty period! On the bright side though cooling is one of the cheaper things to sort out.

Sorry, just got this vision now of you having to do all of your work crouched in front of an open fridge door! It would work but you might need to cover up a bit which might of course detract from steve and my response times!

Talk later,

Shaun.

Amanda · Expert

Hi Shaun and Steve,

To be honest my Sage V12 and QB is fine on Vista, its just Sage V10, I have to take a back up and put on my sons Laptop for the reports and because its only once a year, I've just left mine with Vista on it.

Our old laptop (Advent) is Vista and only has a small memory hence while it didn't work that efficeintly, but my Toshiba, has better memory and seems to be fine apart from what it seems is the over heating part.
Anyway did the Spybot stuff OK this morning with a small desk fan on beside it and that was fine, So at least the de-bugging/virus bit is now sorted out touch wood.
Hopefully will run alot better now!!!!!

Many thanks for all your replys, I think thats my Computer lesson over with now (hopefully for a whie anyway).

Regards
amanda

-- Edited by Amanda on Sunday 16th of May 2010 06:57:34 PM