Tech Help and Discussions

Malware creators are hijacking Microsoft Windows' infamous BSOD in a fresh malvertising campaign. A new malvertising campaign uses the Blue Screen of Death to scam users into handing over their money and potentially their identity. Online search engines are used daily by millions of web users. In order to support the vast amounts of requests these search engines receive and process, search engine providers -- such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft -- offer advertising platforms and packages for businesses. Users view sponsored links placed high up on a search results page, businesses gain more exposure and the search engine generates revenue. However, search eng…

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Mommalina replied October 2, 20159 yr

In some small way, it’s nice to know we’ve not come too far, or gotten too far ahead of ourselves, but in the other respect WHY ARE WE STILL REBOOTING OUR PCS TO FIX ISSUES? I’m all for nostalgia. This time of year tends to hit me additionally hard, for some reason. And, the older I get, it only gets worse. I have a wonderfully happy life, but I still get a melancholy during the fall season, remembering High School, college, playing sports (soccer and basketball were my games), and hanging out and goofing off with dear friends then that I still have today. It’s amazing how real those memories can be and how they affect a day. It’s like having a built in HoloLens, I gue…

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Plastic Nev replied October 1, 20159 yr

The Reviews Are In: Windows 10 Is a Hit Like a good movie, the critics are giving it a thumbs-up. By Keith Ward Windows Expert http://windows.about.com/od/Windows-10/fl/The-Reviews-Are-In-Windows-10-Is-a-Hit.htm?utm_content=20150928&utm_medium=email&utm_source=cn_nl&utm_campaign=computersl&utm_term=Computers%20Channel%20Newsletter Quote and comment: "This is a reference to the fact that Windows 10 won't be replaced by a newer version of Windows down the road. Instead, it will be updated on a regular basis, into the foreseeable future. It will become more and more refined as time goes on, instead of completely re-imagined then re-worked." …

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allheart55 Cindy E replied September 28, 20159 yr

How Do Ad Blockers Work, Exactly? Dan Moren September 23, 2015 https://www.yahoo.com/tech/how-do-ad-blockers-work-exactly-19045 Excerpt: "Whether you own an iPhone or iPad or you’re just a casual observer of the tech scene, you’ve probably heard about the new “content-blocking” capabilities built into iOS 9. If you have, you’ve probably found yourself wondering what all the fuss is about. If so, you’ve come to the right place: Here’s what you need to know to sound savvy about the subject at your next soirée." The article goes on to discuss the following: What exactly is content-blocking? But wait: Ad-blocking software’s been around for years. Why the big d…

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allheart55 Cindy E replied September 25, 20159 yr

AVG, the Czech antivirus company, has announced a new privacy policy in which it boldly and openly admits it will collect user details and sell them to online advertisers for the purpose of continuing to fund its freemium-based products. This new privacy policy is slated to come into effect starting October 15, and the company has published a blog post explaining the decision to go this route, along with the full privacy policy's content, so users can read it in advance and decide on their own if they want to use its services or not. This is what AVG claims it will collect from users for the purpose of selling to interested parties, mainly online advertisers. "We…

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starbuck replied September 22, 20159 yr

Here are 6 issues with some of its new features. Issues with new features By most measures, Windows 10 is a huge improvement over Windows 8 and 8.1, and it’s a very worthwhile upgrade from Windows 7. But, of course, no new OS is perfect upon launch. Here are 6 issues with some of its new features. Many of these could be considered minor infractions (and can be adjusted by the user), so we rank them from “this is not that big of a deal” to “OK, this could be bad.” The Start Menu, Part 1: It’s still too simplified. The new Start Menu is a welcome return to the classic Windows user interface after the fiasco that was the Start Screen of Windows 8 and …

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allheart55 Cindy E replied September 21, 20159 yr

Microsoft's Skype voice and messaging app experienced a major service disruption Monday morning that crippled the app's core features for some users. The company has acknowledged that it's currently working to resolve "an issue that is affecting Skype in a number of ways" — but the problems have now stretched on for several hours. They're also being felt worldwide, so the issue isn't limited to any particular geographic area. The glitch is showing all contacts as offline, even for users who are actually logged in, making it impossible to place voice calls. Microsoft says the messaging side of Skype is still mostly working properly, though the company notes "a small num…

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Plastic Nev replied September 21, 20159 yr

Windows 10 will come in Home and Pro editions. Which version will you get for free? Microsoft is doling out Windows 10 as a free upgrade to users running Windows 7 or 8.1. But the edition of Windows 10 that you receive will depend on which edition of Windows you're running now. Microsoft is counting heavily on Windows 10 to erase the bad memory of Windows 8. As such, the company has made the unprecedented move of offering it as a free upgrade for the first year in hopes of drawing in as many users as possible. Windows 10 also provides a more unified environment among PCs and mobile devices, so Microsoft is hoping the new OS will trigger greater demand for Windows …

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mikehende replied September 21, 20159 yr

Hello I have tried everything I can think of to establish a homegroup connection between my desktop an d my laptop. I have been able to do so by connecting the laptop with an Ethernet cable from my router to it. But unlike the old XP days when I could disconnect the cable and still have connectivity it drops off as soon as the cable is disconnected. I am running Defender, SpywareBlaster, MBAM and MBAM exploit and have brriged my gateway so am using my own router. I can create a homegroup on each pc but I cannot connect them. I have been reading a lot on this issue and it seems to be quite widespread with Win 10 x 64 users. Can someone give me some advice please? TY

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peterr replied September 20, 20159 yr

Have you had any experiences you can share ordering online groceries? I would like to begin buying groceries on line; however, the sites I have explored don't seem to meet my needs: fresh/frozen produce, meat, fish, eggs, dairy products. I don't like prepared packaged or frozen products -- too much salt, sugar, and preservatives. I checked out Amazon and some local supermarket sites. They don't offer enough of what I like and need. It would be impossible to find enough items to meet their minimum-order requirements, make the delivery fee worthwhile, and save me trips to the supermarket.

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allheart55 Cindy E replied September 20, 20159 yr

Alright guys, I am trying to upgrade to win10 for the first time, I just did a win7 recovery and it's running windows 7 Professional so I went to the SP1 download link given on page one in this thread and downloaded and ran the download : https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5842 showing in the attached screenshot Then I restarted the pc but it does not show SP1, help please?

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allheart55 Cindy E replied September 19, 20159 yr

Assigning different wallpapers for each monitor was so easy in Windows 8. That's not the case with Windows 10. One of the nicest additions to Windows 8 was its robust support for multiple monitors, including the ability to easily set separate, individual wallpapers for each screen in your setup. All you had to do was open the Control Panel, go to the personalization section, right-click on the images you wanted, tell them which display to use them on, and you were done. Microsoft decided to do away with that ease of use in Windows 10. The official way to add different backgrounds in Windows 10 is to select two images in File Explorer (meaning they both have t…

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starbuck replied September 18, 20159 yr

Hey guys, someone's machine came with win8, he downgraded to win7 and now want to go back to win8, what is the best way to attack this please since we don't know exactly which version of win8 was on there? Also since win8 license is embedded in the BIOS will it still be there even though the machine was downgraded to win7?

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Plastic Nev replied September 17, 20159 yr

You have probably heard the news by now: Microsoft has updated a controversial service agreement that lays out in scary detail how your personal data is being used and abused – at least, that’s what the major tech blogs are saying. But the reality is, even if you read the 12,000 word service agreement, it’s still confusing and vague at best. Horacio Gutierrez, Deputy General Counsel of Microsoft’s legal and corporate affairs, wrote about the company’s commitment to transparency on the Microsoft blog in early June. This move, of course, was preceding the new privacy statement and service agreement that accompanied the release of Windows 10. As he put it, “We are simp…

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Mommalina replied September 14, 20159 yr

Now that I have finally updated all of my PCs to the latest Windows Technical Preview version, I can take a quick step back and see what we have here. In short, nothing profound, but a couple of nice functional additions, or more realistically, the start of a couple of nice functional additions. As Microsoft promised, the preview is coming in hot, and this build is not polished in any way. That said, I would caution people testing the preview—or just reading about it—not to put too much into minor differences between builds. As Microsoft's Gabe Aul noted in the blog post announcing this first update, things are fluid. Some things from the initial preview build are di…

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vpvalentine replied September 14, 20159 yr

A public vulnerability disclosure warns that an attacker could remotely download files from an affected hard drive, thanks to the hard-coded default password. A number of Seagate hard drives are vulnerable to data theft, thanks to an undocumented, in-built user account that could give an attacker remote access to the device. "Seagate wireless hard-drives provides undocumented Telnet services accessible by using the default credentials of 'root' as username and the default password," said a public advisory posted Tuesday. The vulnerability is just one of many flaws in three wireless hard drives manufactured by the company, the advisory said. Other flaws include…

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Plastic Nev replied September 8, 20159 yr

Nod32 alerted me to XP updates. Went to Microsoft update web site. Showed 3 critical updates: Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool - September 2015 (KB890830) Security Update for Microsoft Office 2007 suites (KB3085546) Security Update for Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack Service Pack 3 (KB3054993) I thought Microsoft was no longer supporting XP. I can understand the Microsoft Office update, but not the other two. ?

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Mommalina replied September 8, 20159 yr

Windows XP Pro, Firefox, WinPatrol, Nod32, AdMuncher Noticed orange triangle in System Tray. Clicked on it, opened Nod32; looked normal. Back to System Tray; orange triangle there again. . Opened up Nod32; noticed Games mode was enabled. Don't know how that was activated. . Disabled Games mode. Same orange triangle in System Tray. Restarted. All is well! License good until November 2015. Restart can be a great lifesaver! I'm glad I did not mess around with Nod32 and chance really messing it up.

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allheart55 Cindy E replied September 7, 20159 yr

This has been around for a few years, but I really enjoyed it. By the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain.

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Katrina replied September 6, 20159 yr

Hey guys, strange problem, unit started freezing before it could go the desktop so I did a system restore and now can easily get to the desktop but first issue is that the owner always had to enter his password to enter windows, now that doesn''t happen, when booted the system will go straight to windows. Also rightlicking on the main folders such as My Pictures My Documents e.t.c doesn't work so I am guessing it's a permissions issue. I looked at the Folder Options but not seeing anything there regarding permissions, I want to advise the owner to backup all files first before I should proceed to do anything but since I can't copy and paste that won't work, any ideas plea…

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allheart55 Cindy E replied September 4, 20159 yr

Hey guys, this is my son's pc, wireless net worked fine all these years but now works intermittently, I uninstalled the driver and tried reinstalling but I am getting what is showing in the attached screenshot which is "No compatible hardware found", any ideas please?

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allheart55 Cindy E replied September 3, 20159 yr

Hello My Dell XPS 8300 x 64 has 4 slots for memory. Currently it is 1,2,1,2 = DDr3 To upgrade to 8 GB can I keep my 2 - 2GB sticks and just get 2 sticks each with 2 GB? If so can I arrange them so I put the 2 new 2's where the 2 old 1's were? As long as they say DDr3 - 2GB is that sufficient to buy the right ones or should they say more? Thank you

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AWS replied September 2, 20159 yr

Earlier today we learned via a tweet storm from Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s CVP for Marketing in the Windows and Devices group, that Windows 10 is now installed on over 75 million devices in its first month of availability. That is an overall average of 2.5 million upgrades per day since its release on 29 July. These numbers allow us to compare the progress of Windows 10 against its predecessors which is fine however, we must keep in mind that the last major Windows OS releases were all not free upgrades. The only one that came close was Windows 8 when it was offered to new PC buyers at a price of $14.99. Users who had Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 prior to tha…

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allheart55 Cindy E replied September 1, 20159 yr

Hello I just read the article in this forum whereby one skips any requests for keys and is still activated upon doing a clean install. I know we lose the dvd player but before I do a clean install with my disc, I want to be sure of what I am doing. I upgraded from 8.1 to 10 and chose to bring my apps with me; apparently an error. So, just insert the media disc and skip the request for keys and still become activated to perform this clean install? Thank you

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allheart55 Cindy E replied August 30, 20159 yr