Question: I downloaded and installed the entire package of Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 and installed it over an existing copy of IE 3.0. Sometimes, while reading my e-mail in Outlook Express, my computer locks up. Also, this has happened when I am online. It seems to do it when I am scrolling down the page.
One other thing happened that I found extremely strange. I disconnected from the Internet, left the room, came back, and found that the computer was reconnected. Thinking that maybe I had forgotten, I disconnected again and left the room. My wife called me back in awhile later, and I saw that I was connected again and the box on the screen was telling me that the connection had been idle for 20 minutes.
If you have any idea how I can rectify this, I would appreciate hearing from you. -- T.M.
Answer: I got T.M.'s e-mail just before Halloween and naturally thought of things supernatural. Either that or he had my mom over for dinner because she once claimed that when she goes near electronic equipment weird things happen. Mom confirmed that she'd been in Winnipeg during the trouble, but that wasn't far enough west for her wacky bio-chemistry to kick in.
Just before I called on an old ghostbuster who used to practising his trade in Toronto , I got an e-mail back from Dave Carter, Internet Explorer marketing manager at Microsoft Canada.
"If you subscribe to a Web site there is an option to check off called 'Dial as needed'," Carter explained. "Your reader probably checked it off by accident."
IE 4.0, it turns out, has the capability of dialing into the Internet, when this setting is enabled. At intervals, the browser determines if a subscribed Web page has been updated and alerts you if it has. In some cases it can be set to download up to three levels of a Web page's content for off-line viewing.
Subscribing to a site is easy to do. Under the "Favorites" menu, there's an "Add to Favorites" option. This is IE 4.0's equivalent of Netscape's bookmarks. When you find a Web site you want to bookmark and click "Add to Favorites" you're presented with the question "Do you want to subscribe to this site?"
The default option is "No, just add it to my favorites" list. If you pick options two or three, the browser with mark the Web site to be updated.
To check which sites you've subscribed to, click "Manage Subscriptions" on the Favorites menu. A new window will appear with a list of your subscriptions. Select one then click "Properties," then the "Schedule" tab. Uncheck the "Dial as needed" box and your Internet ghost should go away.
As for the scroll problem under Outlook Express, Jeremy Schmuland, help-desk technican at GE Capital's Edmonton office, suggested it has something to do with IE 4.0's Active Desktop. One solution is to disable that feature by right clicking on an empty part of your desktop and then uncheck "View as a Web page" under the Active Desktop menu item. The other way to solve that problem is to be sure the latest video-card drivers are installed on your machine.
Q: Here's a hard question for you. I have a Pentium 120 with 48 megs of RAM and sometimes when I shut down it freezes at the screen where it says "Please wait while your computer shuts down." I reinstalled Windows 95 and it still does it. Please help me.
-- Eagle 1
A: This is another demon often related to video drivers. "If Windows 95 cannot properly shut down a device it often just stops at that point," said Schmuland.
A quick way to tell if the display driver is the culprit is to switch the display to the VGA driver. Under Start/Settings/Control Panel double-click the Display icon and select the Settings tab. Click "Change display type" and click the "Change" button next to "Adapter Type." Be sure to select "Show all compatible devices" and scroll to the top of the Manufacturers list. If you select "Standard display types," a standard VGA driver will appear in the right hand box. Select it, click OK and restart your machine. If the problem goes away, you'll need to find an updated or better-suited driver from your videocard vendor.
If that's not the source of your problem, check your hard-drive controller card drivers. They may be causing the bad shutdown.
Adding RAM is easy, 
