Tech Help and Discussions

Windows 9 could be a free upgrade for users of Microsoft’s older operating systems, like Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7, according to ZDNet. Users of these dated but still popular (aside from Vista) operating systems could be offered “some kind of deal” to poke and prod them toward Microsoft’s next desktop OS, a report suggests. However, it’s worth noting that Windows 8/8.1 users were not mentioned as possible recipients of this upgrade offer. They have been mentioned as possible free update recipients in the past, however. Rumored features in Windows 9 include a new Start menu, and Metro apps that can run in windowed mode in the classic desktop UI. Though…

Last week a particular patent submitted by Apple outlined its plan to bring the mobile virtual assistant Siri to the desktop. It looks like Microsoft might be planning the same thing by brining the Windows 8.1 voice assistant Cortana into Windows 9 proper. Cortana has actually been running within Threshold—Microsoft's codenamed OS build widely belived to be Windows 9—for some time, according to Neowin, but now the integration looks like it's moving forward. Neowin describes Cortana's "graduation" from a testing stage to a "let us push this forward and see if we can ship it" stage. It seems that Cortana would run as a separate but built-in app, and instead of taking …

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Well, I ordered a few more of these boards with I5 4670 non K processors. Setup was very easy with these, and the boards are very narrow which gives lots of space to work with cables inside the case. Onboard sound is more than adequate with the amplified ALC 1150. I used Coolermaster Elite 430 cases -- the new ones with updated USB 3.0 front panels ports and included red fans. One system was delivered locally today and the Family was very happy it was for their daughter who just got out of high school and going to college here now locally (TCU). She does graphic work and light gaming, but the game she does play is Skyrim, which needs a dedicated GPU which they did not ask…

Today, as part of Update Tuesday, we released nine security updates – two rated Critical and seven rated Important – to address 37 Common Vulnerabilities & Exposures (CVEs) in SQL Server, OneNote, SharePoint, .NET, Windows and Internet Explorer (IE). We encourage you to apply all of these updates, but for those who need to prioritize their deployment planning, we recommend focusing on the Critical updates first. Here’s an overview slide and video of the security updates released today: Microsoft also revised Security Advisory 2755801: Update for Vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player in Internet Explorer. For more information about this month’s secu…

Windows 1.0 (1985) Windows 1.0 was officially released in 1985, two years after Microsoft first announced the software. The company initially considered calling it Interface Manager, but instead called it Windows after the format in which programs were designed Windows 2.0 (1987-1990) The second iteration of Windows launched in 1987, and introduced desktop icons, expanded memory, and the ability to overlap windows. Windows 3.0 (1990) When Windows 3.0 debuted in 1990, it became the most widely used version of the software yet. Microsoft sold 10 million copies of Windows 3 in its first two weeks. With Windows 3.0, Microsoft significantly enhan…

Microsoft Bing's daily updated photo backgrounds for the search engine are cool and popular. You can now browse and download all the wallpapers in Bing's history at the official Homepage Gallery, all for free. Recent backgrounds are displayed in a chronological thumbnailed gallery, which you can also sort by different filters such as: Categories: Travel, Nature, Animal, Work/Culture, Space, Science Tags: Modern Structure, Old Structure, Mammals, Plant/Tree, Body of Water, Bird Holidays: Christmas, 4th of July, Cinco de Mayo, Arbor Day, Memorial Day, Earth Day Colors: (includes a color bar) Places: (includes a country list) The gallery also has a wallpaper pack o…

Here is a pretty good deal on another SSD - a bit like the PNY deal posted before. This deal is good to I have already placed an order for two of them. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=20-148-820

The next time you update your PC or try to troubleshoot compatibility problems, you'll may need to know your current BIOS. You could reboot the computer, but it's much easier to use the Windows command line utility. In the command prompt window type: wmic bios get smbiosbiosversion You'll get back the computer's BIOS version. It's that easy, no reboot necessary!

My son keeps messing with my desktop and settings. Is there any way to limit his access to those things? Ideally, I would like to prevent him from being able to delete things, stop him from downloading stuff and in general make him leave everything alone. I can't afford any expensive software but is there anything else I can do?

im going to but nvidia 7600 but i also want to channel sound from the pc into my hifi amp. Do I have to get a separate sound card for this?

Microsoft rolled out six different security updates as part of this month’s Patch Tuesday, but it turns out that one of the optional fixes is breaking down Office 2013 once and for all. A number of users turned to Microsoft’s Community forums to complain about the issues, explaining that since Patch Tuesday, Office 2013 fails to start, with a simple “Something went wrong” error displayed on the screen. The same issue has been confirmed by several users who also tried the common workarounds, but none seem to work at this point. “As of Saturday, July 12, I have been unable to use Microsoft Office 2013. It has disappeared from my Start Menu. I have installed the new…

Hi Bob, Have spoken to Farbar and he says that FRST is meant to run on all Windows platforms, but he doesn't have any server OS to try it out on. But he did point me to another helper that has successfully run some of our tools on server 2008. So i now know a few tools that should run on the server. It was the 32bit version that worked for him, so if you want to try that you're welcome. I'll give you both versions, so if the 32bit won't run.... then try the 64bit version. For x32 bit systems download Farbar Recovery Scan Tool and save it to your Desktop. For x64 bit systems download Farbar Recovery Scan Tool x64 and save it to your Desktop. Double-click t…

All 500,000 victims of Cryptolocker can now recover files encrypted by the malware without paying a ransom. The malicious program encrypted files on Windows computers and demanded a substantial fee before handing over the key to the scrambled files. Thanks to security experts, an online portal has been created where victims can get the key for free. The portal was created after security researchers grabbed a copy of Cryptolocker's database of victims. "This time we basically got lucky," said Michael Sandee, principal analyst at Fox-IT - one of the security firms which helped tackle the cyber-crime group behind Cryptolocker. Cash call In late May, law enf…

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Microsoft's website has been online for 20 years now, and the company is celebrating by recreating its original look and feel. It's a throwback to the days of dial-up modems when you'd access the internet through a series of terribly high-pitched buzzing sounds using a Windows 3.11 machine and AOL. Thankfully we've moved on from those terrible times, but it's still nice to look back at the days when Internet Explorer didn't exist, some browsers didn't used to support images, or you'd have to wait five seconds for images to load. If you're looking for even more nostalgia, there's always the untouched Space Jam website to browse through too.

Microsoft is stepping even further back from its Windows 8 vision in the next major version of Windows. Alongside a new Start Menu and windowed "Metro-style" apps, Microsoft is planning to remove its Charms bar, an overlay used to access search, share, the Start Screen, devices, and settings. While the Charms were useful for touch machines, their implementation with mouse and keyboard has always been awkward, requiring users to mouse over the corners of a screen to delicately initiate them. The change was first reported by Windows enthusiast site Winbeta, and The Verge can confirm current builds of Windows Threshold, which is expected to be named Windows 9, do not incl…

Microsoft is planning to force Windows users onto the latest supported versions of Internet Explorer. The change will take effect on January 12th, 2016, meaning Windows 7 and Windows 8 users will need to be running Internet Explorer 11 to continue receiving updates. If Internet Explorer 12 or even version 13 debuts before January 12th, 2016 and it supports Windows 7 and Windows 8, then those users will need to upgrade to the very latest. Microsoft’s change means Internet Explorer 8 and 10 will no longer be supported on consumer versions of Windows after January 12th, 2016. A little more like Chrome "Only the most recent version of Internet Explorer available f…

A new piece of malware called Poweliks can seize control of a Windows computer — and it can't be detected by antivirus programs. That's because it doesn't download any files to the infected computer; instead, it resides as encrypted text in the computer's registry. From there it can seize control of the computer's processes to do things such as download more malware onto the computer. Poweliks is all but invisible to traditional antivirus programs, which work by searching for recognized malware files — a potentially very dangerous situation, said malware researcher Paul Rascagnères. "As the malware is very powerful and can download any payload, the amount of possibl…

You know the drill: Utter expletive, grind teeth, change passwords, get on with life. Mozilla has 'fessed up to accidentally exposing the email addresses for 76,000 members of its Developer Network, along with 4000 encrypted passwords. The breach was caused by a bad script that on July 23 was found to have inadvertently published the records online over the previous month. The offending data sanitisation process failed, resulting in the breach, Mozilla's developer and security heads Stormy Peters and Joe Stevensen wrote in a co-authored post. "As soon as we learned of it, the database dump file was removed from the server immediately, and the process that generat…

Windows is one of Microsoft’s main money makers, and the company is interested in seeing as many current Windows users move to its latest operating system as possible. However, no matter what the company does, there still are plenty of users who are on older Windows versions, including Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. ZDNet has learned that Microsoft may be working on a huge Windows 9 surprise to convince reluctant users to finally move to the latest Windows operating system available. The company is reportedly considering offering some sort of Windows 9 upgrade deal to XP, Vista and Windows 7 users, with a completely free upgrade option also on the table. This…

Tech support scams are very profitable, as demonstrated by a recent operation, run from Florida, USA, that managed to sell at least $230,000 / €171,000 worth of unlicensed Malwarebytes software. The scammers would find various ways to drive users to call their fake tech support service and convince them to buy computer unlicensed security products, at a higher price than the original software. This particular fraudulent operation caught the attention of Malwarebytes security researcher Jerome Segura, who started to gather information about the company perpetrating the scam and how it operated. He discovered the firm was based in the US, and that, in order to avoid g…

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