cin said:
I need help. My son plays the game Runescape from the website
www.runescape.com. It seems everytime he plays it, something goes wrong
on
my computer. Can somebody please tell me if this game has a hidden virus
on
it and what can I do to prevent this from crashing my computer. Please
help
me right away, so i know if im right or wrong.
"Something goes wrong" is not really going to help anyone pinpoint a
problem. I assume it's something different every time, or do you mean it's a
similar problem every time but you don't know how to describe it?
The game uses the computer language "Java". Microsoft stopped shipping their
version of Java with XP, because it's a proprietary product owned by Sun
Microsystems.
Recently Sun have issued a number of updates to rectify security issues,
which could lead to virus like problems.
Unfortunately, when you install the updated version it does NOT remove the
old version, so the danger is still there in some cases.
Go Start>Settings>Control Panel>Add / Remove Programs and see what
version(s) of Java are listed there.
You should find "J2SE Runtime Environment" listed there with a version
number alongside it. It should say Version 5 Update 8.
If it does not say that or there are previous versions there all of them
should be removed.
To get the latest version (Which all installs more or less automatically) go
here
http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp
Remember this for future reference because even when you are offered an
automatic update in the future it is likely you will have to manually remove
the older version.
It is most unlikely that the game providers would do anything malicious,
after all it wouldn't make their game very popular in the end and it seems
that it is popular. There may be other risks involved (Like some chat
systems have) where another user could trick you into doing something to
install bad software, have you read this page?
http://kbase.runescape.com/lang/en/aff/runescape/viewcategory.ws?cat_id=827
If not perhaps you could go through the points there with him and
particularly this page which has very good advice for any form of online
activity.
http://kbase.runescape.com/lang/en/aff/runescape/viewarticle.ws?article_id=2087
If the problems still persist it may well be a result of something else,
perhaps a link posted somewhere that has now been forgotten about. Post back
if you still have problems, at least you have the potential Java problems
out of the way.
Charlie
