Dennis Faas

Infopackets Reader Georges A. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have an old HP Laserjet 1200 series printer (from 2001). This printer has worked great over the years, however I can't seem to get my new Windows 10 PC to recognize the printer. If I look in ... Device Manager, the printer isn't under the correct heading - it shows up under 'usb device'. If I go to Control Panel -> Devices and Printers, I see the HP Laserjet 1200 series printer listed, but if I right click to try and print a test page, that option isn't available. Also when I try and print something from MS Word, the printer does not show ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Steve G. writes: " Dear Dennis, Thank you so much for your article on How to Disable Full Screen Popup Ads in Android ! Lately I have been inundated with full screen ads appearing on my smartphone and I have no idea where they are ... coming from. I tried your suggestion in the article, which says to wait for the full screen ad to appear, then press the app button on my phone to see where the ad is coming from. The problem is that these full screen ads don't have a title, so unfortunately I can't tell where the ad is coming from. You also suggested using a firewall but I am not ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Robert G. writes: " Dear Dennis, I own two computers that automatically upgraded to Windows 10 17134.1 , dubbed the ' April 2018 Update '. Ever since the upgrade to 17134.1, my remote desktop (RDP) and mapped network drives no ... longer work. Also when I click on File Explorer -> Network to view my shares, it says it can't find the computer on the network. It's strange because I can access computer A from computer B, but not the other way around. I have been trying to fix this for over 3 days now and no one on the Internet seems to have a solution. Can you please help me ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Sam G. writes: " Dear Dennis, I work from home and also own an Android smartphone, which I use to communicate (via text messages) with friends and family. Because I am home all the time, I use WiFi on my phone instead of data. ... Therefore, I purchased a very cheap 'pay as you go' data plan for when I'm away from the office. The problem is that my data is being eaten away by apps on my phone whenever I'm on the go. I have tried disabling 'background data' on my Android phone to limit which apps can use data, but this is incredibly time consuming because each data permission is ... (view more)

Have you been scammed by Informatico Experts, Inc for a fake PC support contract? You're not the only one. Infopackets Reader 'Ulrica' writes: " Dear Dennis, I have been in contact with Informatico Experts Inc ( Live PC Experts ) since last November ... and have paid them a grand total of almost $12,000 (up until recently). They claimed my PC has been hacked and have installed Firewalls and Antivirus service over the last few months. They keep calling me all the time and want to gain access to my computer. They told me my computer was being used to commit crimes and that I needed to get it fixed ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Bob S. writes: " Dear Dennis, Thanks for the article on Browser Cryptomining scams . I have a related problem. I use Firefox browser and Norton keeps telling me that I'm infected with ' JSCoinminer ' for every single web page I ... visit - for example, eBay.com, Amazon.com and even Infopackets.com! I have tried to remove the infection using Norton, Malwarebytes and also Norton's 'Power Eraser' but the infection persists. The error message reads: Norton blocked an attack by: Web Attack: JSCoinminer Website / An intrusion attempt by thrillingos.herokuapp.com was blocked ... Web ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Jose B. writes: " Dear Dennis, For the past few months, my PC has tried to upgrade to Windows 10 version 1709, but each time it fails to install. Whenever I use my computer I receive a pop up message on my desktop stating that ' ... Your device needs the latest security updates . Microsoft can't install important security updates on your PC until you install the most current version of Windows 10.' When I look at my Windows Update history, it says the upgrade to version 1709 failed (repeatedly) . When I manually check for updates, it says: ' Your device is at risk because it's ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Paul P. writes: " Dear Dennis, Thanks so much for your informative website. I have read a few of your articles on OpenVPN, and set up a free VPN connection to my home PC. Now I can connect to my personal, free VPN using my Android ... smartphone when I'm away from home without having to pay for a VPN service! It works so great I decided to connect my laptop to the VPN - however I am not able to resolve machine names on my network. For example, when try to access \\home-pc using Remote Desktop, it won't work. The only way I can make it work is if I enter in the IP address of the ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader 'Cindy' writes: " Dear Dennis, I have Windows 8.1 on my laptop which has been very, very slow. I decided to upgrade to Windows 10 hoping this would fix my problems, however I keep getting a message that ' The installation failed ... in the First_Boot phase with an error during Sysprep Operation ' (pic). I have been researching this problem for 2 days using Google, and have yet to find a fix that makes sense! Absolutely nothing I do seems to work! Can you PLEASE help? " Update 20200116 : I'm getting a lot of emails from folks asking for help on this. If you want this problem ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Tom G. writes: " Dear Dennis, I am trying to send encrypted email to a friend using MS Outlook . To do so, I purchased a digital certificate from Comodo, then imported the certificate into Outlook. I could send my friend digitally ... signed messages which he could read and reply to. He could send me digitally signed and encrypted messages, which I could read and reply to. However, I could not generate an encrypted message; I could only reply to his. I could not create an encrypted message from scratch. When attempting to initiate an encrypted message, I was told ' Microsoft ... (view more)