Get a message when disabling my computer. Any suggesti...

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Cathlete
I always disable my computer when I'm not on it. The past several days when I try do so, I get this message: "It is not possible to disable the connectiona at this time. This connection may be using one or more protocols that do not support Plug-and-Play, or it may have been initiated by another user or the system account."

I have NO idea what this means. I'm the only one that uses my computer. Any thoughts on what this could be and how I could go back to disabling it? TIA!
 
I just went to my start up menu and noticed a new program there called "ABBYY FireReader 5.0 Sprint". I've never seen this before and I did NOT add this program. Could this be causing the problem? How could I find out what it is without compromising my security? What would be the best way to get rid of it? I'm so NOT a computer person! ;(
 
"ABBYY Fine Reader is an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. Do you have a scanner? You may have installed it with your scanner. It is actually a pretty decent product -- takes a scanned image with text and turns it into editable text -- like a Word Document or Excel Spreadsheet."

That came from a Google search. You could got to ADD/DELETE programs on the control panel and remove it. I don't think that is causing your problem.

Download Spybot Search and Destroy or Lavasoft's ADAWARE (both free) and get rid of the spyware/malware that is screwing you up. You probably have some piece of software that thinks it has to be connected to the net. I had a Hewlett Packard printer that always wanted to look for updates.
 
Katie, thanks so much! I really appreciate it.

Dave, I have a scanner which is part of my printer but I've had the same one for years and haven't done anything new to it. I will attempt to download the spyware you suggested but shouldn't my McAfee be taking care of this? Thanks for helping.
 
I don't think McAfee would do a better job finding spyware than Spybot Search and Destroy or Lavasoft's ADAWARE (both free). I use both of these programs and they are the best!!
 
Thanks Carole! Something is definitely going on. I can't even reply to emails on my hotmail account. I'll download those programs this afternoon. Hopefully it will clear up all problems.

Thanks everyone!
 
I don't have much use for the commercial security suites that are out there. They hog system resources, slow you down and quite often don't protect you.

I use the following free programs:

Spybot Search and Destroy
Avast anti virus
ZoneAlarm personal firewall

My last virus was 4 years ago when Norton was "protecting" me.

If you install ZoneAlarm it is very easy to disable your internet connection whenever you want.

Let us know what's going on.
 
So here's the update. I installed Spybot Search & Destroy and it got rid of some nasties. I am now able to disable my internet connection. However, my computer seems to be running slower. Should I install one of the other recommended programs also? I still can not reply to my hotmail email messages. Any thoughts on that? Thanks again!
 
A couple things I do when my computer is slow:

Run your Disk Clean-up, then Disk Defragment program under Program, Accessories, System Tools.

Also while connected to the Internet, go to Internet Options and under the General Tab, delete your temp internet files.

As far as your hotmail account, not sure. When I have problems I just type my problem into Google and there are so many places where IT saavy people will reply to the same issues. I'd type in something like "Can't reply to my hotmail emails" and see what pops up.

Or, do you have a help tab attached to your hotmail account?

Good luck.
 
Jacque, thanks so much for the tips. I forgot about doing a disc clean-up. I'm definitely going to do that. Could you tell me which actual files are deleted in the temp internet files? I take it they're things I won't be needing again.

ETA: I did a google search as you suggested but nothing came up but I'll keep looking. :)
 
What browser are you using?

Are popups disabled? are cookies being accepted or rejected? Some of these things are required to access email accounts.
 
Dave, I can read my emails and compose new ones from hotmail but I can't reply to an email sent to me. I also have a yahoo email account and I have no problems with that. As far as what browser I'm using, I think it's yahoo, could that be? How sad is that. I really need to understand computers more.
 
I am guessing you are using internet explorer, only because you say you are unfamiliar with the computer and would know if you changed it to firefox or another browser.

I am also guessing that there is nothing wrong with your computer concerning hotmail, it is in the remote host for your hotmail account. I am unfamiliar with hotmail so I don't know what to tell you. You should contact hotmail support

Set up an account with Google's gmail and dump the hotmail, depending on the upcoming action with microsoft/yahoo, be ready to dump the yahoo mail too
 
Dave, yes, it is internet explorer. I will be at work tomorrow and will try my hotmail account from there. If as you say it is a hotmail problem, I will try and contact hotmail support. Hopefully it's an easy process. (Hey, I can dream, can't I?:) ) So microsoft and yahoo may be merging? You don't think they'd still keep yahoo mail?
 
Microsoft will keep Yahoo mail, they'll become the "Proctor & Gamble" (ever see how many detergents they make?) of email providers. I just don't have much faith in MS, I have a long history with them. I shouldn't complain however, servicing their crap has been lucrative over the years.

If you're feeling a little experimental try downloading Firefox or Opera and try one of them for your browser.

I'll wean my fellow Cathe-ites from MS yet!
 
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