Dennis Faas

Infopackets Reader Ron C. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have several drives on my network that I'd like to defrag, but none of the defrag software programs I've tried allow me to defrag a network drive. Any suggestions on how to defrag a network drive, ... or a program that can provide this functionality? " My response: The reason you can't find a program to defrag a network drive is because this is not possible - the easiest way to explain "why" is that the remote drives are owned by another operating system. Simply put: your system does not have permission to move these files around. With ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Tom G. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently had to reinstall Windows, which also required reinstalling all my programs. Ever since then, whenever I try to access my work's website (which uses a Java applet), I receive an error ... message that says: 'Your security settings have blocked an application with an expired or not-yet-valid certificate from running.' I cannot proceed past that, and am therefore unable to access the website. The Java applet worked fine before I reinstalled Windows, so how can I get past this error? " My response: I had a sneaking suspicion that the website ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Gene R. writes: " Dear Dennis, I installed Windows 10 when it first became available as a free upgrade, back in August 2015. However, since then my PC has been acting very erratic - as such, I have decided I would like to reset ... it. My question is: if I reset Windows 10 what happens? As far as I recall there is a hard drive partition on my system for resetting the PC - will I still get Windows 10 or will I get Windows 7? What does system restore do? " My response: This is a very frequently asked question, though your question in particular deal with three completely separate ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Bill V. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently upgraded to Windows 10. Everything worked fine for a few months, but all the sudden my Start Menu stopped working. To fix that issue, I created a new user account and migrated over my data ... to the new account. Everything worked fine after that - however, my Thunderbird spell check won't work. If I go to Tools -> Options -> Composition -> Spelling tab, it has a check mark beside 'Enable spelling as you type', but the 'Language' option is grayed out. How can I fix this? " My response: I have not had this problem before, so I ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Gale S. writes: " Dear Dennis, I read with great interest your series of articles on Mozilla Thunderbird. The last article I read was in regard to Thunderbird: One Inbox, Multiple Email Accounts . Near the end of that article you ... mentioned there would be another editorial piece to explain how to archive emails for offline viewing using Thunderbird. I would personally love to download my Gmail emails to my PC and store them locally. Can you explain how to do that? " My response: I've already written an article on how to do that , though I'd be happy to go over it again in ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Shirley B. writes: " Dear Dennis, Thanks for your article on how to remove AVG Web TuneUp ! I have a similar question. Recently I downloaded Adobe Flash Player and it came bundled with McAfee Security Scan Plus. I already have ... antivirus software installed on my machine so I don't need it. I tried to remove Mcafee Security Scan Plus using the Control Panel -> Programs and Features, but it won't uninstall. Can you help? " My response: I had a hunch that the removal procedure for McAfee Security Scan Plus was going to be similar to the article I had already written on how ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Steve S. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have a program called 'AVG Web TuneUp' which refuses to uninstall from my system. I have gone to the Control Panel -> Programs and Features and right clicked it, and selected 'Uninstall' ... multiple times. It goes through the process each time and tells me to reboot - however, after the reboot the program is still there. Is there a way I can remove AVG Web TuneUp from my machine manually? " My response: I asked Steve if he would like me to connect to his machine via my remote desktop support service to have a closer look, and he agreed. ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Gord F. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently installed Windows 10 on my PC. Everything has been working fine for over a year, however, all the sudden my Logitech webcam 300 stopped working with Windows 10. I thought perhaps I may ... need to reinstall the driver, so I went to Device Manager to locate the webcam but it is not there anymore. Instead, I see an 'Unknown device' and if I double click it, it says: 'The drivers for this device are not installed. (Code 28) This operation requires an interactive windows station'. I have absolutely no idea what that means. I tried ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Karin S. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently received a letter in the mail from the government requesting additional information on my account. The letter states that I can mail or fax in my information back to them (they won't ... accept email attachments for some reason). As such, I would prefer to fax the information as that is the fastest method. I would like to know if you can recommend a good, free fax service over the Internet that I can use to send this information? Thanks! " My response: I did a bit of research, and there are two popular websites offering free faxes ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader George M. writes: " Dear Dennis, I upgraded to Windows 10 a few months ago - however, just recently when I right click on a file, the 'Open with' option is missing from the menu. For example, normally when I right click on a video ... file, I have the option to 'Open with', and then I can choose Video Lan Player, or Windows Media Player, etc - but that option is no longer available. I have searched the web on how to fix the broken 'Open with' option but NONE of the fixes online work! Can you please help? " My response: I contacted George and asked if he would like to connect to ... (view more)