Windows Tips

Tue
26
Mar
Dennis Faas's picture

How to Fix: Permanently Disable WiFi on Windows 10

Infopackets Reader 'JustRosy' writes: " Dear Dennis, I have a laptop that I use daily, and for security reasons I want my WiFi permanently disabled in Windows 10 . Unfortunately my Windows 10 laptop WiFi does not have an 'on / off' switch which ... would disable my WiFi permanently. Instead, I have been using Windows 10 "airplane mode" to disable the WiFi, but this doesn't work 100% of the time because my WiFi seems to activate spontaneously. I am super paranoid about having a WiFi connection because I don't believe there is a 100% secure WiFi, and therefore I don't ever want to use WiFi on my ... (view more)

Fri
01
Mar
Dennis Faas's picture

How to Fix: Install Software in Safe Mode (Windows 10)

Infopackets Reader Cliff H. writes: " Dear Dennis, Thanks for your excellent article on how to boot Windows 10 using the Microsoft Basic Display Adapter Driver . I am also having problems with my system freezing on me randomly, but have not been ... able to narrow down the culprit (nor do I have a system stable enough to do more testing!). I have managed to boot Windows 10 in Safe Mode with Networking and the system is stable, but I can't install any programs because the Windows installer service isn't running. Do you know how to make it so I can install software in Safe Mode using Windows 10 ... (view more)

Mon
25
Feb
Dennis Faas's picture

How to Fix: Boot Windows 10 using Basic Display Adapter Driver

Infopackets Reader Barry S. writes: " Dear Dennis, I am having problems with my computer's display freezing randomly, though it usually happens within 3 minutes of booting into Windows 10. Oftentimes the system will lock up during boot. When this ... happens, my hard drive light on the PC keeps flickering away like it's still loading, which suggests to me that there is something wrong with my video card. I tested this theory by using remote desktop to connect to my main PC from my laptop. To my surprise the PC was still working as it should via remote desktop, though as I mentioned the display ... (view more)

Fri
08
Feb
Dennis Faas's picture

How to Fix: TP-Link Storage Sharing Not Working

Infopackets Reader Sam J. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have an older TPLink TL-WDR3500 router and I would like to attach a USB or external hard drive to it using the ' Storage Sharing ' option so that I can share files through my network. This would be ... ideal for me so I can share my Roboform passwords across devices. The issue is that the Storage Sharing option will only work if I enable CIFS 1.0 protocol in Windows because that is what the router uses to make the attached storage appear as a network drive letter in File Explorer. It is my understanding that CIFS 1.0 has a massive security issue ... (view more)

Mon
04
Feb
Dennis Faas's picture

How to Fix: Disable 'Microsoft Recommends Installing this App' Request

Infopackets Reader Jake J. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently upgraded my PC to Windows 10 with the October 2018 update (version 1809, build 17763). Everything seems to be working fine, however the other day I needed remote support help from a friend ... of mine using TeamViewer. To get connected to my machine, he instructed that I go to the TeamViewer website and download the TeamViewer program, then run it. He then requested my ID and Password in order to connect to my machine, but I could not find where to obtain this information despite him sending me step-by-step instructions with screenshots ... (view more)

Fri
01
Feb
Dennis Faas's picture

Scammed by PC / Web Network Experts? Here's What to Do

Infopackets Reader Sally S. writes: " Dear Dennis, Last week I was using the web browser and suddenly I received an alert that my PC needed to be updated, and told me to call 855-558-9222 855-500-0395 to fix the problem. I called the number and ... spoke to someone with an Indian accent . They connected to my PC and installed a firewall and some other programs. They told me it would cost $199 to fix it, or I could pay $799 as an 'upgrade' for a 5 year tech support contract (which I did). I am still receiving pop up advertisements on my machine and it appears that I am no better off than when I ... (view more)

Mon
21
Jan
Dennis Faas's picture

How to Fix: Your Device is Having Trouble Recognizing You (Windows 10 Fingerprint)

Infopackets Reader Dave T. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently upgraded my motherboard and CPU, which meant having to reinstall Windows 10 from scratch. I have a USB fingerprint reader that I've been using for years prior to the hardware upgrade, and ... it worked flawlessly. However, since I have had to reinstall Windows, the fingerprint reader keeps saying 'your device is having trouble recognizing you' whenever I try to sign in to Windows 10. If I keep swiping, I keep getting the same error message and eventually I have to enter my PIN in order to login. How can I make my fingerprint recognize ... (view more)

Mon
14
Jan
Dennis Faas's picture

How to Fix: Blank White Icons on Desktop (Windows 10)

Infopackets Reader Marcy O. writes: " Dear Dennis, I just installed Windows 10 October 2018 update (clean install) on my machine. Everything was working fine for a few days until I installed MS Office. Now, I have a bunch of blank white icons on my ... Windows 10 desktop . I understand that there is an 'icon cache database' in Windows that can go corrupt, which may be the reason why I have these blank white icons on my desktop. I searched Google on how to fix the problem, and a few posts suggested deleting the icon cache databases using the command prompt. I did that, however, the output I'm ... (view more)

Mon
07
Jan
Dennis Faas's picture

How to Fix: Move MS SQL Databases to Another Drive, Partition

Infopackets Reader Philip S. writes: " Dear Dennis, We are running Windows 10 on our office machine which has Microsoft SQL (MS SQL) installed. On that machine we use Microsoft SQL Server Manager to enter in data into our databases, though other ... machines can access the Microsoft SQL databases through the network using MS Access DSN files. A few years ago we hired someone to set up our databases; however, we are now running out of space on the C drive as the databases have grown significantly in size. We would like to move the MS SQL databases and then set up a RAID to make the data redundant ... (view more)

Fri
04
Jan
Dennis Faas's picture

How to Fix: Acronis 2016 Won't Open, Load (Win10)

Infopackets Reader Eugene C. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have a very strange and perplexing problem. I am running Windows 10 and Acronis True Image 2016 on my desktop PC and my laptop. A few days ago, both machines updated with a Windows 10 update, and ... now Acronis True Image 2016 won't open its main page. The program appears to load when it's launched: it shows the True Image icon on my task bar; however, when I hover my mouse over the icon all I see is a blank page for thumbnail. If I click the True Image 2016 icon on the task bar, it does nothing. When things are working properly, True Image ... (view more)

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