computer

Infopackets Reader Rob B. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have a Dell D630 laptop and an Acer Aspire One D-150 that I managed to install Windows 7 on. The Dell laptop is Windows 7 64-bit, while the Acer is Windows 7 32-bit. So far neither of the computers ... have shown the 'Get Windows 10' app in the tray bar, while my main machine (an Asus with an Intel core i7) says it is ready for the Windows 10 upgrade. I was hoping to use one of the other laptops to put Windows 10 on, but I get the feeling that they are missing something necessary in their CPUs to allow installation. I should also ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Lisa A. writes: " Dear Dennis, Thanks for the great website and newsletter. I have a question regarding upgrading to Windows 10. I have a machine with Windows 7 and another with Windows 8, both of which have reserved the free ... upgrade to Windows 10. My question is this: if I upgrade to Windows 10, can I keep my old version of Windows on the same machine and boot from it? " My response: If you are performing an in-place upgrade of Windows 10, then you will not have a choice as to which operating system you want to boot into. That's because the in-place upgrade ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Tim P. writes: " Dear Dennis, How do I cancel my Windows 10 reservation? Also, how can I prevent Windows 10 from downloading onto my system? I see the 'Get Windows 10' icon in my tray bar, which has been there since June 1st. ... Originally I wanted the upgrade to Windows 10, but now I'm not sure it's a good idea because I'm concerned that the upgrade might fail or cause problems. I read on the Internet that the 'get windows 10' icon has to do with Microsoft patch KB3035583, whatever that is. Can you tell me how to remove the Windows 10 ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Tim A. writes: " Dear Dennis, When will the full retail version (OEM) of Windows 10 be available as an .ISO file, so I can burn Windows 10 onto DVD and install it that way? I would much rather install Windows 10 clean using my DVD ... drive than to install it using Windows Update. A colleague of mine says that installing Windows over top of Windows (I.E: doing a Windows 'upgrade') is never a good idea. He says that upgrade installs usually leave left-overs from the previous Windows installation which can interfere with the new Windows 10 install - or worse, cause ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Bob C. writes: " Dear Dennis, Which processor is better: Intel or AMD? The reason I ask is that my laptop is roughly 6 years old and it's time for me to purchase a new one. That said, I can't seem to find the definitive answer as ... to which processor I should get for my next laptop. AMD seems to have cheaper processors, whereas Intel processors are usually always much more expensive. Can you shed light on which processor is better? " My Response: Update 20180620 : I have updated this article to include new information considering AMD's Ryzen line of ... (view more)

A new security firm says it has come up with a way to stop malicious software before it reaches a user's computer. The "Isolation Platform" will initially be offered to business users, but remains to be seen how practical the solution is. According ... to makers Menlo, the main problem with most security tools are that they are based around the idea of examining programming code on a user's computer, and trying to determine if the code is malicious. Only if everything appears to be OK is a program allowed to run on the computer. Menlo says that's flawed because malware ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Dave T. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently installed Windows 8.1 on my netbook and downloaded all the updates which took almost 2 days to complete. Towards the end there was a slew of failed updates which did not install; one of ... them which was a cumulative patch for Internet Explorer. I read that to fix the issue I need to open a command prompt as Administrator user and then run 'sfc /scannow' to fix the failed updates, but I cannot seem to run cmd.exe as the Administrator user. When I try and run 'sfc /scannow', I get the error message that 'You must be an administrator ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader 'Old Techo from Oz' writes: " Dear Dennis, I have consistently noticed on 3 of my Windows 7 PCs that the C drive appears to bloat over time with 'low space' warnings constantly ... For example, Windows Explorer reports my C drive ... full with 78 gigabytes of data and only 6 gigabytes free. I knew this had to be wrong ... The only solution I have found is to make a disk image backup of my hard drive partition (using Acronis True Image , for example), and then restore the disk image later on. After the image is restored, Windows now reports correct free space available of 37 ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader 'Tina' writes: " Dear Dennis, My monitor keeps going black. It flashes on and then off after a few seconds, then it goes to a black / blank screen. Sometimes I have to power it on and off 20 times before the monitor will work ... properly, and some days, my monitor won't turn on at all! When this happens, my monitor power light stays yellow as if the monitor is sleeping or in standby mode. Normally the power light is green when it is powered on and working properly. Any ideas why my monitor keeps turning off? " My response: There are many reasons why a monitor keeps turning off ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Richard W. writes: " Dear Dennis, I took your advice and purchased Acronis True Image to backup my computer's hard drive (using disk image backups). My question is: how can I be sure the disk image backups are not corrupt and will ... properly restore, if and when I need to do a restore? What is the best way to do a test restore of a disk image backup? " My response: You are not the only person to ask me how to restore a disk image backup -- and it's an excellent question to ask. The simple answer is that you need to run through the entire process of a restore ... (view more)