Lucille gets "Program not responding" errors
My PC keeps coming up with "program not responding will close" I do not know what to do when in the middle of something and I lose everything hopefully you can help me. Thank you, Lucille.

Our answer
There are two main reasons why you get these kinds of errors:

1. Low system memory

2. A firewall program is trying to prevent the program from running.

A few years ago if we received emails regarding non-responsive programs the answer was almost always "low system memory". These days, however, more and more people are installing third-party firewalls or security programs with firewall software because some so-called security expert says that without a 3rd-party firewall, Windows XP and Windows Vista users are basically broadcasting all their personal information to the entire Web.

These sorts of scare-tactics make for big-eyed readership, great site traffic, and lots of money. But, alas, in the end it's not the way we do business and it's not true. Windows XP and Windows Vista both come with built-in firewalls that protect uses with a minimum amount of fuss. But, 3rd-party firewalls create a maximum amount of show and fury. Most of them seem to want to interrupt you with all sorts of arbitrary (and mostly useless) warnings so you will think these programs are protecting you from all manner of threats and bad guys. In most cases the red flags they throw up in front of you are routine functions and connections your computer normally makes, they're not pernicious or even real threats.

What happens now is that firewalls, in their efforts to top the other guy's firewalls, are interrupting users more and more by not allowing benign programs to run, popping up all kinds of warning about cookies and other things (that are certainly not stealing your personal information) and by the time all is said and done, the computer user's frustration level is off the charts and his or her computer experience has become less than good. The trouble is, they don't realize what's causing program errors, so naturally they think something is wrong with the program.

Some of the more ambitious and zealous third party firewalls attempt to block any program that tries to connect to the Internet. However, many safe and useful programs these days need to connect to the Internet for reasons like updating, access to help information on the Web or for some other non-nefarious reason such as downloading streaming data for weather, news, music or other information, depending on the function of the program. Some 3rd-party firewalls block anything and everything they don't recognize from accessing the Web. While this may seem, on the surface a good thing, it's most often just another quagmire of confusion that users have foisted upon them because of scare-tactics used by security-experts-turned-journalists whose income is directly related to how much they can scare readers.

Arrgh! We're off ranting again...sorry.

If your problem is low system resources:

If you have too many programs starting with Windows - and this is the biggest cause of low system resources - you need to start taking control of those startup programs or they're going to take control of you. The easiest way to control Startup programs is using WinPatrol www.winpatrol.com. The free version will work just fine for controlling startup programs  (the PLUS version gives you tons of information about them that the free version doesn't though). We would suggest that you disable startup programs you don't need to start with Windows. Things like printer software, chat programs, graphic programs, computer manufacturers' "monitoring" software, and the like sure don't need to be starting up with Windows and hogging your system memory. You can disable anything you've installed yourself except for your anti-virus program and one anti-spyware program. And be careful not to disable any program that has Microsoft in its name, it is probably essential. You can also control startups using Windows built-in configuration utility (MSCONFIG) but unless you like doing things the hard way, WinPatrol is the way to go. If you want to try using MSCONFIG, click Start, Run, type MSCONFIG and press Enter. When MSCONFIG opens, click the "Startup" tab. Select a program you want to prevent starting up with Windows by highlighting it and click the "Disable" button.

If your problem is a third-party firewall interfering with the program you're trying to run:

If you're using Zone Alarm, Norton 360, McAfee Internet Security, EZ Trust, or some other security suite that contains a firewall you have two choices:

a. You can read the firewall's documentation and find out how to specifically allow the program that is non-responsive

b. You can disable the firewall and use the Windows firewall.

It's too bad that to prove itself a firewall has to make your computer life miserable, but that's the way it works these days when more is better, and a lot more is a lot better. Actually, truth be told, less is better. The less you have installed on your computer the better your computer will run and the faster it will be. And the less aggravation you have the more fun you'll have and the more productive you will be.

Experts will scoff at this answer because we're cutting into their incomes as well as their credibility. Oh well, won't be the first time :). Neither of us have used a 3rd-party firewall for a long time - according to the experts we should be weeping and gnashing our teeth by now because our personal information should have been ripped from us.  But, all is well with both of our computers - we've never had a single problem with "security", and our personal information is safe. And, just think, not one 3rd-party firewall between us.

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