Q: I have had my computer for 14 months. All of a sudden when it boots up there is a prompt for me to sign into Windows Live Messenger.

I can’t get it to stop. I do not nor have I ever used Windows Live Messenger. How do I get rid of it?

A: Like a whining mosquito, Windows Messenger constantly looks for a way to slip in. Microsoft used to force Messenger onto everybody by embedding it right inside Windows.

Now, Microsoft tricks people into installing Windows Messenger when they try to download any Windows Live program.

Whenever you try to download Windows Live Mail or Windows Live Photo Gallery — programs that restore features dropped from Windows 7 — Microsoft tries to slip all of the Windows Live programs into the mix, including Windows Live Messenger.

Luckily, Windows Live Messenger is much easier to install than it was in the past. To uninstall Windows Live Messenger from your computer, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button, and click Control Panel.
2. When the Control Panel opens, choose Uninstall a Program from the Programs section.
3. When the list of installed programs appear, double-click “Windows Live Essentials” or “Windows Live Essentials 2011.”
4. Select “Remove One or More Windows Live Programs,” and click Continue.
5. Place a check mark by “Messenger,” and click Uninstall.

Once you’ve uninstalled Windows Live Messenger, close the Control Panel and go about your work without Windows Messenger nagging you to chat with your friends.

A: When you’ve accidentally misspelled your own name in your e-mail program, how do you correct the mistake?

If you’re using Windows Live Mail, the free e-mail program I cover in Windows 7 For Dummies, changing your own misspelled name is fairly easy. Follow these steps to correct or change your name in Windows Live Mail:

1. Click the Start menu, and choose Windows Live Mail.
   
2. Click the Tools menu, and choose Accounts from the drop-down menu.



3. Click the e-mail account you want to change, and click the Properties button.



4. Click in the Name box, change the name to its proper spelling, and click the OK button to save your changes.

Windows Live Mail will update your e-mail’s “From” name to its latest spelling.

Using a program other than Windows Live Mail? Let me know, and I’ll add that program’s steps to this post.

Q:

A: Windows 7 lacks an e-mail program, which causes more than a few problems. Microsoft expects people to download and install its free Windows Live Mail e-mail program. Or, you can download competing free e-mail programs like Thunderbird, and install them to handle your e-mail chores.

But if you’re using a Web-based e-mail service, like the ones provided by many Internet Service Providers like AT&T, you’re left in the lurch: Internet Explorer doesn’t consider them to be e-mail programs, so it won’t let you send pages and links using its menu.

So, since those menu options are grayed out, you’re stuck with these convoluted steps:

1. Highlight the link you want to send from within Internet Explorer’s Address bar.
2. Right-click the highlighted link and choose Copy.
3. Log on to your e-mail service and create a new e-mail.
4. Right-click inside your blank e-mail and choose Paste.

The link will appear in your e-mail window, ready for you to send to a friend.

The grayed-out links begin working once you install an e-mail program like Windows Live Mail, but you still might have to make a few extra tweaks.

A: Adobe created its Portable Document Format (PDF) system to simplify exchanging documents. When viewed with Adobe’s free Reader software, PDF documents look the same on different computers: Their formatting doesn’t change.

But in order to keep PDF files from changing, Adobe locks them down, so you can’t edit them nor translate them easily into other formats. Some Web sites will do the trick for free, though, and these Web sites can both convert PDF files to Microsoft Word files:

PDFtoWord.com

ConvertPDFtoWord.net

These sites and others like them can’t remove passwords from protected PDF files, however.

I’ve never tried either site, but you’ll find similar sites on the Internet. Be sure to use them with PDFs that don’t contain any sensitive information.

Q:

On Internet Explorer 8′s Page menu, the “Send Page by E-mail” and “Send Link by E-mail” options are both “grayed out,” and I can’t choose them. Help!

A: Windows 7 lacks an e-mail program, an inconvenience Microsoft tries to remedy by letting people download the free “Windows Live Mail” e-mail program.

But once installed, Windows Live Mail doesn’t always tell Internet Explorer that it’s now in charge of your e-mail, leading to the “grayed out” options shown in the image above.

The fix? You must whisper in Internet Explorer’s ear about your new e-mail program by following these steps:

1. Click the Start button and choose Default Programs.
2. Choose the bottom option, “Set Program Access and Computer Defaults.”
3. Click the word Custom.
4. In the section called “Choose a default web browser,” choose Internet Explorer.
5. In the section called “Choose a default e-mail program,” choose Windows Live Mail.
6. Click OK to save your changes.

Windows 7 tells Internet Explorer to start using Windows Live Mail, and the options on Internet Explorer’s Page menu begin working again.

Not using Windows Live Mail or any other e-mail program? If you log onto a Web site to read your e-mail, Internet Explorer’s disabled links have a different problem.

Q:

A: You’re seeing the result of a Web site that’s been “hacked” or compromised. Web sites, just like computers, can be broken into by strangers. In your case, you’re seeing a Web site that’s been broken into and filled with pages that try to cause harm to your PC.

That’s one of many reasons I recommend people switch their Internet browser from Internet Explorer to Firefox. Using Internet Explorer, I visited the three sites you sent me; all three performed a bogus “scan” on my computer, then tried to trick me into downloading a “program” that would cure my computer. (If this ever happens to you, readers, keep clicking the X in your brower’s top, right corner until you’ve closed Internet Explorer and any residual pop-ups.)

But when I revisited the sites with Firefox, I was safe: Firefox displayed the “Attack Site” warning, seen below:

Clicking the “Get me out of here!” button took me back to my home page, and the infected Web page never had a chance to try to attack my computer.

If you’re still using Internet Explorer, consider switching over to Firefox. It’s just as easy to use as Internet Explorer, it’s safer, and installing the program automatically imports your bookmarks and homepage from Internet Explorer.

Q:

“You cannot send digitally signed messages because you do not have a digital ID for this account.”

I can turn off the digital signatures for one email at a time but I’d love to get this thing turned off permanently.

A: Digitally signed messages rely on mathematical formulas to deliver e-mail securely. The digital signature lets both recipients and senders know that their messages haven’t been changed since leaving an Outbox and arriving in an Inbox. But casual correspondence rarely requires that level of security, making digital signatures a problem both for the senders and recipients.

To keep Windows Live Mail from adding a digital signature to each of your messages, follow these steps:

1. Open Windows Live Mail from the Start menu.
2. Click the Menu Options icon and choose Safety Options, as shown in the figure above.
3. When the Safety Options window appears, click the Security Tab and remove the checkmark from the “Digitally sign all outgoing messages” option.
4. Click OK to save your changes.

A: It sounds like you’re confusing Microsoft Works’ spreadsheet with its more powerful cousin, Microsoft Excel. Although both spreadsheets look similar on the surface, Microsoft Works’ spreadsheet has a major limitation: It can only work on one spreadsheet at a time.

Excel, by contrast, lets you work on several spreadsheets simultaneously, switching between them by clicking the little tabs in the window’s bottom left corner (shown in the image above).

Microsoft hopes that difference is enough to make people buy the more expensive and feature-packed Excel. However, you might download the free OpenOffice program, to see if its spreadsheet meets your needs. That spreadsheet, called Calc, offers tabs for switching between several spreadsheets.

And when most antivirus programs do their job, they often slow down your PC by overloading it with an overblown security “suite,” which duplicates Windows’ built-in firewall and Microsoft’s free anti-spyware program (Windows Defender).

To help out those who dislike or can’t afford an antivirus program, Microsoft’s shaking up the big players with Microsoft Security Essentials, a slim ‘n’ trim program that checks for incoming viruses, removes spyware, and scans your PC for viruses every week.

It’s fast, unobtrusive, and it works. Plus, it’s free to owners of legitimate copies of Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7. (The program doesn’t work on Windows Me, 98, or other Windows versions.) I’ve been using it for many months without problem.

To download and install Microsoft’s Security Essentials program, follow these steps:

Warning: Don’t run more than one antivirus program at a time, as they cause conflicts. Be sure to turn off any other antivirus program before running Microsoft Security Essentials.

1. Download the program by visiting the Microsoft Security Essentials Web site and clicking the Download Now button.

Choose your Windows version, if asked: Windows XP, Windows Vista (32-bit or 64-bit) or Windows 7 (32-bit or 64-bit).

(To find out your version of Windows, click the Start button, right-click Computer or My Computer, and choose Properties.)

2. Click Save to save the program’s installation file to your PC.

Download it to a place where you can find it easily, like on your Desktop, or in either your My Documents or your Downloads folder.

3. Start the Installation program by double-clicking the downloaded file, then click Next when the installation program appears onscreen.

4. Read the licensing terms, agree to their conditions, and click Validate to make sure your Windows copy is legitimate.

Here’s the only catch: Microsoft Security Essentials only installs on PCs running authentic, activated copies of Windows. PCs bought with Windows pre-installed will pass this test, as well people who’ve installed Windows themselves and gone through the activation process. But if you’re running a bootleg copy of Windows, the install won’t work.

5. When the PC passes the validation test, click Install.

The program takes a few minutes to install itself and download the latest virus definitions from the Internet.

6. Click Finish to complete the installation and scan your PC for any existing viruses.

The program will scan your PC for viruses during the next few minutes, but you can minimize the program while it works in the background.

That’s it. When it finds a virus, it sends you this screen before the virus rears its legs:

The program scans your entire PC on Sundays at 2 am. To change the scanning time, click the Settings tab, click Scheduled Scan from the left pane, and choose a different day or time from the drop-down menus on the right. Click the Save Changes button to save your updated scanning schedule.

When you’re through, click the minimize button and let the program live in your Taskbar’s notifications area, in the lower right. The program starts automatically whenever you log onto your user account, and it notifies you whenever it detects any incoming viruses.

With Microsoft Security Essentials and Windows built-in Firewall, your computer will be much more secure than most computers on the Internet.

Update: Microsoft Security Essentials duplicates the services of Microsoft’s anti-spyware program, Windows Defender, rendering the program unnecessary. In fact, running both programs simultaneously can slow down your computer. Microsoft Security Essentials disables Windows Defender when installed on Windows 7 or Windows Vista; when installed on Windows XP, Microsoft Security Essentials uninstalls the program. (Thanks, Greg!)

Q:

A: Internet radio stations can broadcast (commonly known as “stream”) at any rate or file format they prefer. But many choose 128 Kbps because it strikes a good balance between sound quality and bandwidth. Plus, MP3 is so popular, nearly ever media player can handle it without problem. Still, some Internet radio stations also broadcast in formats other than MP3. One of my favorite Internet radio stations, SomaFM, for example, broadcasts in MP3, aacPlus (mostly for Mac owners), and WMA (for Windows Media Player).

If you’re interested in the technicalities of Internet broadcasting, check out the Setting Up Your Own Internet Radio Station page from SHOUTcast. SHOUTcast offers hundreds of Internet radio stations to choose from, in a wide variety of streams. You can even download programs that let you broadcast your own station. (Your ISP probably doesn’t give you enough bandwidth to do this, though.)

Recording Internet radio stations can be difficult, as many Internet radio stations don’t want you to record them. And Windows doesn’t come with a built-in method of capturing Internet radio. If you don’t mind downloading third-party programs, this Web page explains how to record some Internet radio stations.