* Dr. Internet columnist Steve Blass discusses error message in Windows XP caused by Adobe Acrobat * Help Desk columnist Ron Nutter offers advice on getting UltraVNC to work across the Internet
* Acrobat’s to blame for Windows XP error message
By Steve Blass
Q: I keep getting an error message pop up on my Windows XP system that says, “You must restart your system before you can do another update.” It does not indicate what program is throwing the error or what update it is referring to. How can I make this go away?
A: This sounds like a problem with Adobe Acrobat. I ran into this myself after the program prompted for an update and I installed it. The error message you describe started popping up over and over again. Another symptom of this Adobe error is a Windows Explorer window opening up to the Adobe folder every time you restart your computer.
To read Steve’s response in its entirety, please click here.
* Getting UltraVNC to work across the Internet
By Ron Nutter
Q: I am currently using UltraVNC and was there when the product originally came out. I’ve used this product successfully both in home network and office network environments. But that’s intranet. I cannot get the thing to work for me when I am trying to connect to my stepson for instance in Florida, simply because he is behind “his” router. Now I know about NAT and port forwarding but I have tried those, (maybe incorrectly) and this has also failed. What am I missing. please help.
A: I think you are really close to getting things working. There are two ways that we can probably get things running for you. The first will require a little bit of tweaking to the firewall at the remote end. You are right that you will need to deal with NAT to get things working. Since you will be originating the VNC connection, you may not have to do anything at your end. Depending on the version of the code in your router, you may need to follow the steps that follow with your router as well as your stepson’s router. To make things easy on your, have your stepson put a static IP on his machine. This should be just outside the range that the DHCP server on his router is assigning. Although not totally necessary, it keeps from having problem if the computer is shut off for a while and it were to get a new IP address when it was turned back on. This helps remove that as being a possible issue at some point.
To read Ron’s response in its entirety, please click here.
