Windows Tips

Infopackets Reader Stuart V. writes: " Dear Dennis, Both my wife (Suzanne) and I are running Windows 22H2 (version 10.0.19045) on a shared home network. Suzanne's printer is an older HP 4250 Laser Printer (circa 2015) which she has connected to her ... PC via USB connection, and is marked as a 'shared printer'. However, when I try to connect to her printer (via This PC -> Network -> Her Computer -> Right click HP 4250 -> Connect), it gives me an error 'Windows cannot connect to the printer. Operation failed 0x0000011b '. I have tried everything I can think of but can't fix this. Can ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Steve G. writes: " Dear Dennis, I just upgraded my PC to Windows 10 and I noticed that Windows Media Player no longer plays DVDs in Windows 10 . In Windows 7 it worked without a problem. I researched this issue and it appears that ... this 'feature' was removed on purpose because newer PCs and laptops do not have DVD players. As such, Microsoft has dropped all support for Windows 10 DVD playback in Windows Media Player. I plan on purchasing a thin ultrabook laptop (with no DVD player) soon. As such, I'd like to convert my DVDs into AVI or MP4 (for example) so I ... (view more)

Repair your corrupt outlook data file (.pst) with Outlook PST Repair Tool Personal Storage Table (PST) files are vulnerable to damage or corruption for various reasons, such as large size or oversizing, abrupt system or application shutdown, ... malware/virus intrusion, drive errors, etc. When the PST file is damaged or corrupt, it cant be opened in Outlook, leading to inaccessible mail items. If the PST file is not repaired, it may lead to data loss. Microsoft provides an Outlook PST file repair tool called Inbox Repair Tool or SCANPST.EXE . The tool is installed with MS Office installation. The ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Barbara J. writes: " Dear Dennis, In early March, 2021, my elderly father was browsing the Internet when suddenly a red screen appeared and told him that his computer was infected. Conveniently, the warning message also supplied a ... 1-800 number to speak to Microsoft to 'fix' the issue. My father confirmed that the person he spoke to had a very thick Indian accent . The company that 'fixed' his computer was named Live IP Support and they charged on two separate occasions, totaling $2,700. The checks were withdrawn from his account under a company named Wowser E Services (aka ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader 'ltb223' writes: " Dear Dennis, I have a Windows 7 Pro computer which I haven't used for a long time. Now I want to use it, but I cannot remember my password. It has only one user account, so I believe I need to reset the admin ... password. Is there anyway to recover the lost password or am I stuck with reinstalling Windows and losing all previous data and programs? " My response: It's possible to reset the admin password, or any user password using a special password reset 'trick', known as the 'utilman' and 'sticky keys' exploit. This exploit ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Steve J. writes: " Dear Dennis, I'm a certified PC tech and I have a lot of jobs where customers want to upgrade their PC to a new system. As part of the migration process, I convert the client's old physical machine to a virtual ... machine using VMWare Converter. Once that is completed, I copy the virtual machine to the new PC and run it. The virtual machine serves two functions: 1) it's essentially a 'live' backup of the old machine, and 2) users can export their data from the virtual machine (example: bookmarks from a web browser) to the new machine in ways that a regular ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Paulette J. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently switched from Firefox to Chrome based on your advice in a previous article. I am used to Chrome's interface, however, one thing that really irks me is the constant Chrome notification ... asking me to ' Sign into somesite.com with Google ' near the top right of the screen. It goes on to read 'To create your account, Google will share your name, email address and profile picture with somesite.com'. I can reproduce this notification appearing by visiting Reddit.com. Frankly speaking, I don't want to share my information with every ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Michael O. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have a strange problem. Every few reboots, my laptop screen refresh rate will automatically change to 59Hz, even though I've repeatedly set it to 60Hz. On my particular laptop model (Lenovo ... T460), whenever the screen refresh rate is at 59Hz and the screen brightness is relatively low, the screen starts to flicker. The screen flickering is hard to see unless it's on a white background, but it is definitely noticeable and enough to make me want to pull my hair out. When I change it back to 60Hz, the screen flickering stops. The problem is ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Gilles J. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently upgraded to Windows 10 and started using the new Edge browser. As you mentioned in a previous article, the new Edge is essentially Google's Chrome browser, but the interface is a little ... different. All is good, however one thing I don't like about Edge is that the new tab page won't let me redirect to Google. Instead, it displays a bunch of pages I've visited. I'm not interested in seeing that. Any idea how to change Edge new tab page to Google ? I also want to change Edge default search engine to Google . Much thanks!" My response ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Leona L. writes: " Dear Dennis, We really appreciate you mentioning our software to your readers! We would like to extend another holiday offer - this time it is lifetime licenses of our most popular software, including: WinX DVD ... Ripper, WinX HD Video Converter Deluxe, WinX DVD Copy Pro, and WinX MediaTrans. Would you please pass on the word to your audience. Thank you and Happy Holidays! " My response: Thanks again, Leona. I'll discuss the details below. Limited Time Offer for Infopackets Readers - Up to 62% Off Digiarty software has created a special page for readers - ... (view more)