Dennis Faas

Infopackets Reader Harry V. writes: " Dear Dennis, My Windows 10 PC recently updated, but got stuck in an automatic repair boot loop. Now it won't boot into Windows. To fix this, I created Windows Install media on a USB thumb drive using another PC, ... then I booted off the thumb drive on the broken PC and reinstalled Windows. I am now trying to partition the C drive into two partitions (C and D), with C containing only the operating system and D drive containing my user data. When I use disk management (diskmgmt.msc) to shrink the C drive, it tells me there isn't enough free space to shrink the ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Bill G. writes: " Dear Dennis, My question is about how to compact a VHD file (virtual disk). I recently virtualized an old Windows 2016 server and am using Virtualbox as my hypervisor. In the process of updating and configuring ... the virtual machine, I created 3 snapshots (live backups) in case I needed to undo changes. The .VHD is the Server 2016 C Drive and was originally only 60GB - however, I noticed that the 'snapshots' folder has grown to a massive 168GB! I went into virtual machine's snapshot window and deleted all the snapshots, hoping to free up space on the disk ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Paula M. writes: " Dear Dennis, I own a small business that has 15 employees. We process upwards of 100 emails a day, many of which contain important contracts and attachments. We use MS Outlook 365 as our email client and ... OneDrive to share attachments between employees and devices (such as smartphones). The emails and documents are critical and I need a way to backup both Microsoft Outlook 365 emails and OneDrive files locally in case our workstations are compromised. Do you know of an Office 365 backup program that can backup Outlook as well as OneDrive? Much thanks! " My ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Mike J. writes: " Dear Dennis, Thanks for your article on ' cannot start outlook, cannot open window '. I have a similar problem. I recently had to format my machine and reinstall Windows 10, then reinstall Office 365. I'm now at ... the part where I want to set up my email account with Outlook, but I've made a huge mistake during the setup: I told Outlook that my email address is associated with a Microsoft Exchange server instead of IMAP. Now I can't undo the changes! Here's what's happening: when I try to launch Outlook, it keeps asking for my login credentials repeatedly ... (view more)

Infopackets Readers Sam G. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently switched from Firefox to Chrome, and was wondering if you can help me. Whenever I download a specific file type, I want it to save to a particular folder. For example, I have a Usenet ... account and I use it to download files off of Usenet servers. I want my Usenet .NZB files (similar to .torrent files) saved to S:\NZB instead of my default download folder, because I use my .NZBs files on another machine. When I use Firefox to download .nzb files, it remembers that I always want to save to S:\NZB, but all my other downloads go to my ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Leona L. writes: " Dear Dennis, Thank you for mentioning our product WinX DVD Ripper in your newsletter. We would like to extend a special offer to your readers for this Black Friday: WinX HD Video Converter and WinX MediaTrans. ... We are offering a lifetime license for just $25.95 (the regular price is $59). Both products can be downloaded as a trial before committing. Please kindly let your readers know! " My response: Thanks, Leona for sending our readers another great deal. Below I'll provide a bullet point of what each program does. WinX HD Video Converter: Full list of ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Gary H. writes: " Dear Dennis, I've come across an older article you wrote which explains how to disable Thunderbird 'new mail' notifications from popping up constantly in the tray bar. The issue that I'm having has to do with a ... barrage of notifications that tell me that an update is available for Thunderbird. Is there a way to stop this from appearing all the time? " My response: Mozilla Thunderbird releases updates once in a while, so I'm am not sure why you are receiving constant reminders to update the program. There are two possibilities that come to mind: You've ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Leona H. writes: " Dear Dennis, I'm trying to upgrade from Outlook 2010 to Outlook 365 and I it takes a long time to start, stating that it 'cannot start outlook, cannot open window' or such. Actually, the full error message is: ' ... Cannot start Microsoft Office Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook Window . The set of folders cannot be opened. The attempt to logon to Microsoft Exchange has failed.' I don't understand how to get around this problem. I currently have Office 2010 and Office 365 installed. It only happens when I launch Outlook 365. Initially when I started Outlook ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Nancy P. writes: " Dear Dennis, Back in January I was paying bills on my bank website, when suddenly a red warning screen appeared, stating that my PC was locked and that I needed to call Microsoft to fix the problem. The phone ... number listed was 855-755-2888. There were loud sirens going off, and the computer was speaking to me. There was no way to get past the warning screen and I could not use my computer. Not knowing any better, I called the number and spoke to a man with a very thick Indian accent . He said their company name was PC Safe Pro and that they were ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Sam G. writes: " Dear Dennis, Thanks for your incredible service in helping me to set up a secure remote desktop using OpenVPN - now we can connect remotely to our office PC without worries of ransomware. Currently we have 10 ... people in the office and some of those users have unrestricted administrator access on the system. I would like to know if it's possible to hide user accounts in Windows 10 from the login screen? This is a security concern in case an employee's laptop was stolen - I don't want someone having access to our network remotely and trying to guess login ... (view more)