- John Parrott

A. Being able to access the contents of one's personal computer by dialing home from the office can be a nearly indispensable tool for we telecommuters, eh, Mr. P?

But things get a tad complicated when you move from safe and secure dial-up modem software like PCAnywhere and ponder using broadband Internet access to keep in touch. So you should check out a $20 per month Web-based service called GotoMyPC.com that lets one use any Web browser to call up a display of the actual desktop on one's home PC, Mac or what have you. GotoMyPC customers then use the mouse cursor to click on icons on their home machines just as though they were physically tapping the keys back in their living quarters.

You should know as well that the latest PCAnywhere 10-plus software for Windows XP and 2000 can be used over an Internet connection to access a home computer.

The problem, however, is that you must get your company's permission to load the PCAnywhere software on the corporate computer, then get the bosses to agree to let you run the software beyond the firm's own firewall. This is easily doable in terms of technology and would save you that steep $20 per month GotoMyPC subscription. But it does add to the workload of the office computer technicians.

The issues are laid out nicely if in a self-serving fashion in an Adobe PDF document at the GotoMyPC site: www.gotomypc.com/downloads/pdf/m/GoToMyPC_Corporate_pcAnywhere_Comparison_White_Paper.pdf.

I should add that when I tested GotoMyPC for a review some time ago, I found the reality isn't quite as sweet as it sounds because of the great variations in speed as data moves across the Internet. In order for the software to work, you need to set it so your home PC screen is displayed in the browser window at just a few colors and in low resolution. This makes reading stuff or viewing graphics on the home machine less than perfect, to say the least.

But it definitely does work, and it works not just for PCs but also for just about any computer with a Web browser. Get a free trial at GotoMyPC.com and you will see how one installs the needed plug-in to the browser at home without the need to do anything permanent to the machine at the office, public library or other remote location.

Q. I was wondering if there is any way to stop this annoying problem. Somehow a site continues to write into my Favorites subfolder located in the c:¼documents and settings¼user directory. I keep deleting the files sent but they keep reappearing over time. Is there a fix to permanently block this from happening?

I tried deleting the Favorites folder, but an error message appears stating that access is denied since this is a Windows system file/folder.

_Donald J. Pennino, Parsippany, N.J.

A. Since you don't mention the name of the Web site that keeps getting added to your browser's Favorites folder I can't give exact directions and, in fact, sometimes these so-called Web site hijackings are terribly difficult to repair. This is the same technique that some miscreants use to make pornography sites home pages on victims' machines.

They work by adding a program to the hard drive that writes the name of the Web site to the Favorites folder and then changes the system registry so that every time the computer is switched on the program runs and does its mischief all over again. That's why it keeps appearing after you do those deletions.

It's easiest if you can find the program (a file ending in .exe, most likely) and delete it. Go to Start and then Search and then pick a search of all files and folders. Now type in part of the name of the site. If it were jamescoates.com, just typing in coates would work. When (and if) you find it, rename the program so that the offending software cannot find it.

You might start getting an error message on boot-up saying that the file you just renamed cannot be found. If that happens, you need to edit the Windows registry to eliminate the lines that run it on boot-up. Go to Start and then Run and type in regedit in the command line that appears. When the registry file opens, first go to File and Export and create a backup of this essential Windows component in case you mess things up.

Then go to Edit and Find and type in the name. You will find the lines in the registry that run the offending program. Click on the relevant line and put a semicolon in front of each of these commands that come up for editing. That will stop them from executing. Now close regedit and reboot.

If you have corrupted the registry, you will need to go to the icon for the backup you made and click on it to restore the registry.

Q. I have a recurring problem with editing and saving Word documents both when using my computer running Windows 98 and another computer running XP Home Edition. I get the message that a document is "read only" when I try to save my changes and I cannot save the changes unless I rename the file (I always save using the "Save As" command).

However, I have never knowingly set any read only attributes for any document. I also now know how to uncheck this attribute, but how does it get mysteriously checked in the first place, and why does it sometimes reappear after I uncheck it? In short, why do my documents become "read only" and how do I prevent it from ever happening?

_Robin Haber

A. You are encountering a feature rather than a bug with this situation, and it is a phenomenon that causes a lot of confusion among folks who use two or more computers to work on the same set of files.

Windows automatically assigns the "read only" attribute to all files once they are saved to a floppy disc or to a CD for transfer from one computer to another. This is done to prevent catastrophic overwriting if you accidentally drag a file that has the same name on the floppy or the CD as has been given to a file already on the hard drive.

As you discovered on your own, it is possible to remove the "read only" setting after dragging a file onto the hard drive by giving the icon a right-click and picking Properties to bring up check boxes for changing the attributes of read, write and archive.

Or, as you also figured out, it's even better to use the Save As after opening such a file and changing the name slightly so you'll know that it contains changes made to the version saved on the floppy or CD.

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