Microsoft Support & Discussions

Greetings from the 2014 //build/ conference! Platform commonality and consistency across devices and services has been a major theme of the start of the event. For the past several months, the Store team has been driving greater commonality across the Store and Dev Center experience as well, starting in November with the unification of developer accounts and registration. As we said then, we had more to do. Today, I’m sharing the next major step in our journey to maximize developer opportunity and reduce friction with a number of Store enhancements and announcements you’ve asked for. Increasing opportunity Universal Windows apps The biggest new opportunity anno…

Bing just released a new app-linking feature that allows you to link your Windows and Windows Phone apps to web search results. By surfacing app links alongside web search results, app linking helps boost discoverability and engagement of your apps. If you’re a travel provider, for example, and on-board your Windows Phone app to the Bing app-linking feature, anyone who looks up “paris hotels” on Windows Phone would also see your app link alongside relevant search results for your website. With one click, users can then deep link to the content about Paris hotels in your app or, if the app isn’t installed on the device, users can easily install it. Over a dozen apps have…

Today during our BUILD conference in San Francisco we unveiled the latest Windows software for phones, tablets, and PCs. Windows Phone 8.1 further establishes Windows Phone as the world’s most personal smartphone, with an even more engaging Start screen, the fastest keyboard on the market, thanks to Word Flow, and of course Cortana – the only personal digital assistant built around you. We also shared Windows 8.1 Update features such as UI improvements for mouse and keyboard users, the ability to pin Windows Store apps to the taskbar, and Internet Explorer compatibility enhancements. These OS features, and a new wave of devices that consumers will love, open up new opport…

I recently set my dial-up connection to initiate at start-up. So, after I've started the computer, the dial-up connection is automatically initiated the moment the desktop appears. The 'Auto Dial-Up' procedure I'm using involves pasting a desktop 'Shortcut' of the desired connection into the 'Startup' folder by opening the 'Run' field, and inputting the phrase "shell:startup." While the automatic dial-up process does initiate, it's completion is prevented by a Pre Dial-Up Screen (a 2x2 inch DOS style black screen) where I must click 'Continue' before the automatic dial-up connection completes. Once turned on, I would like to return 5 minutes later to an 'on line'…

Hello. I have a desktop with Windows XP installed and a lot of personal data. All I want to do is that upgrade to 7 without loosing any of my data. Now the problem is I have Windows 7 stored in a pendrive, not in a CD. I can upgrade from a CD but I have no idea how to upgrade from a 8GB USB drive. Continue reading...

Using Windows XP on a Sony desktop. The wireless connection seems to be taking longer than usual to connect, frequently not connecting at all, giving a message asking to do a repair, after doing so there is a connection. Experiencing a huge slow-down when trying to access Google Chrome and and Microsoft Outlook. I am totally computer illiterate and will appreciate an answer easy to understand. Do these problems sound like something that requires a computer tech to fix? Continue reading...

With the end of support for Windows XP, there will be millions of laptops and desktops, including computers for SCHOOLS, BANKS, ATMs, AND EVEN GOVERNMENTS! My first PC was a desktop running Windows 98 and I had the same OS until the computer broke. During that time, WINDOWS XP was available and I didn't see any notifications when it went out of support. With Windows XP, it most likely is out of support because of how it was from 2001, but with most PC users using it, they'll just get OS X or Linux if they have to pay over $2,000 just to get a computer that doesn't have any real compatibility for previous versions of Windows. BTW, this was posted from a compute…

Hi, I have been running Windows XP Home Edition 2002 with service pack 3 for many years now with no problems, but as of about a week ago, when I tried to attach 'any' external disk drive (HDD or a small flash drive) via my USB ports XP freezes up completely, and has to be powered down by holding down the power button then restarting, as long as I don't attach any external 'drives' the computer seems to run as normal, I've ran various virus and spyware programs but nothing seems to help the problem, I've uninstalled all the USB drives and rebooted to install them all again, I've also ran 'drivecleanup.exe' which cleans out any old and unused USB drivers. I have also done a…

I am having problems trying to create a System Image of my Surface Pro. The program seems to be working but then sends up a message: The backup failed. There was a failure in preparing the backup image of one of the volumes in the backup set. (0x807800C5) Additional information: The process cannot access the file because another process has locked a portion of the file. (0x80070021) The volume on which he backup fails is the first volume - the EFI system partition. The backup is set to save on my Dlink NAS, which works fine for my File History backups. I thought that somehow my anti-virus software might be to blame, but I'm not running an…

------------------------------- Logging Started: 04/19/2014 12:54:52 Source Folder: C:\Users\aloma_000\Desktop OS v5.1 Service Pack 2 (build 2600) 64 bit OS Product Type: 0x00000000 User Default LCID: 0x0809 Command Line: "C:\Users\aloma_000\Desktop\gfwlivesetup.exe" ------------------------------- (12:54:52) Direct DL: 0 (12:54:52) DL Recent: 0 (12:54:52) Offer ID: (12:54:52) Initialized (12:54:52) Download folder C:\Users\aloma_000\AppData\Local\Microsoft\GFWLive\Downloads (12:54:52) Resources initialized (12:54:52) Downloading version file to C:\Users\aloma_000\AppData\Local\Microsoft\GFWLive\Downloads\gfwlivesetup_14606.ver (12:54:52) Error downloadin…

I have a storage pool with 6 2TB that says it's full at 10.9TB. When I right click and check the info it says only 4.1TB of data. Is 6.8TB being used for parity? Is there anything I can do to recondition the pool? Continue reading...

I have been sent an email with a very long website address. It si not underlined and I can't open it by clicking on it. Is there a quick way of opening it? [Original title: log on to website] Continue reading...

randomly hardware troubleshooter restores it but am hoping for a more permanent solution. c Continue reading...

I have imported my contacts into Windows Live Mail. When I click on contacts in the lower left corner I can go to the contacts and see all of them However, when I am in "mail" and go to write a new email, I type in a name and it does not go to the emails in contacts but rather lists a small handful of names I have already sent emails to. What do I need to do to get the To line in an email to look up my contacts that I have imported? Thank you Continue reading...

So I've been getting a lot of blue screens when playing games and just general computer use. The last two BSOD's have been from MEMORY_MANAGEMENT, and I've had others from: DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL, DRIVER_OVERRAN_STACK_BUFFER and the one which scared me the most; NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM. I also get bluescreens which say that critical data has been modified or something along those lines. I've tried replacing every part of the computer, the graphics card, memory, RAM and I've even upgraded to an SSD. The only thing I haven't changed is the motherboard, which I'm looking into RMA'ing but it's going to leave me without a computer for about 1 month. I've tried …

I have created a Homegroup on my desktop pc and joined the Homegroup on my laptop (I did get the window that said " you have successfully joined the homegroup." and clicked the finish button. Then when I tried to access the homegroup this is all I get. I have tried the troubleshooter, have the same sharing setting on both computers, have made sure neither are sleeping or hibernating, there is no one on the PC, both are set as a home network, and I have left and rejoined the homegroup on both computers. I am not sure what is wrong or how to fix my current problem. When I try to select the icons nothing happens. I have gone through countless tutorials to set-…

So, I've been trying to install .Net Framework 4 because I'm trying to download a software that requires it. Everytime I install it, this: Here's the log file: *This is what it says in the log file (if it's too small to read): OS Version = 6.1.7601, Platform 2, Service Pack 1 OS Description = Windows 7 - x64 Home Premium Edition Service Pack 1 CommandLine = D:\c4e80adfb8d84ac3542c033cae\\Setup.exe /x86 /x64 TimeZone = GMT Daylight Time Initial LCID = 1033 Using Simultaneous Download and Install mechanism Operation: Installing Package Name = Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Setup Package Version = 4.0.30319 User Experience Data Collection …

I'm running Win 7 PRO and have a cut/paste problem. When in Windows Explorer I cut a file to move it to another file and on pasting it to another file, new or old I get the message that Windows Explorer has stopped working and will close. The system will check for the problem but no correction is found and WE then closes. All files in the c:/ drive is affected the same way. Continue reading...

Receive - Error 2: The system can not find the file specified when trying to open windows defender. Please help <Moved> Continue reading...

I am running Win 8.1. I am getting a message from Widows defender every 10 mins "Malware found and Defender is taking action"on clicking on History tag >all detected items I get the following VirTool:js/Obfuscator.EK action taked qurentined. and the following errors occurred 0x80508023 and under Items: file:C:\OneDriveTemp\S-1-5-21-1241097334-612318187-2001268355-1001\BDB689DC156312B!101-BDB689DC156312B!25106-BDB689DC156312B!32805-d942fdc26c00cdb2cc93efbc818f76e7.temp->(SCRIPT0000) I can not find OneDriveTemp folder using File explorer search. I will be grateful for any help to solve this problem. Thanks Continue reading...

I just found out that svchost.exe is on my system. In researching this program I found out the trouble this program causes. I want to get rid of this program & all entries etc. that are associated with it. Continue reading...

i am a resident of Australia. yesterday i received a phone call from 'windows global service center' the woman quoted my computer's licence number, then got me to verify it using command prompt CMD followed by ASSOC. the licence number she quoted was correct, as was my email address. at no time did she ask for any additional information, personal or pc related. She told me my licence number and email address were being used for the spread of viruses and to prevent myself being held culpable it was imperative i connect to <www.wgscm.webs.com>, which i did not do for fear of giving her access to my pc. fearing a scam i made an excuse and disconnected th…

Within the last 2 months I bought a new Laptop and I havnt had any problems with it but now within the last 3 weeks I get a popup box that says " Safe Searcher inc." and the program name is "service.exe". I tried looking everywhere on my computer and cant find out how to take it off. It really annoying Continue reading...

Just bought new Dell w/ 8.1 and had someone install MS Security Essentials. This morning received a pop up note that said I had a threat, Trojan, Hacktool, and adware. I clicked on clean computer, and now it is asking if I want to open or save download.vbs for 28by-nvw.wwindefender-2014.in Do I want to save, open, or cancel? Continue reading...

During full scan with MSE I'm getting message, "preliminary scan results show that malicious or potentially unwanted software might exist on your system" but at completion of scan there's nothing detected. It reads no threats detected during scan. Is this a false reading or what is it? I'm using Windows Vista. Thanks for your replies. Continue reading...