Articles

Microsoft has revealed a few of the changes coming in future Windows 10 updates. They are mostly tweaks rather than new features, though that will likely reduce the chances of performance bugs. The changes have been unveiled as part of the "Fast ... Ring" of the Windows 10 Insiders Program. That means they're going out to the people in Microsoft's test program who've signed up to try out changes before anyone else, knowing it carries the biggest risk of new features not working well or even having bugs that affect Windows and other applications. New Windows 10 Changes Go Public April ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Steve P. writes: " Dear Dennis, Recently my computer updated to Windows 10 October Update (2018). Since then, Avast antivirus reports that ' You are unprotected '. I have tried disabling and re-enabling Avast, but it doesn't help. ... I have also tried to uninstall Avast (in hopes of reinstalling it), but the uninstall hangs near the 99% mark and will not progress. When I abort the uninstall, it says ' You do not have sufficient access to uninstall Avast '. I have already verified that my user account has administrator access. I have tried updating avast but received an error ... (view more)

Question site "Quora" has become the latest high-profile hacking victim, with details of more than 100 million users breached. Fortunately, the implications likely won't be as serious as some previous hacks. The site lets users post questions and ... then get answers from other users. A voting system means more helpful answers from its community means the best answers float to the top. Quora says its systems were accessed without authorization and that it discovered the breach on November 30, 2018. It says the exposed information included account information such as name, email address ... (view more)

A hygiene company says the average smartphone is "seven times dirtier" than a toilet seat. People using them in bathrooms could be the cause. The company says it swabbed 50 phones with a device that lights up spots on a surface housing live ... bacteria. On average it found 1,479 such spots on a phone, compared with 220 on a toilet seat. Not all phones are equally icky however. Phones with a wipe-clean plastic covers had slightly fewer bacteria spots than the average handset. The worst offender was a phone in a leather case that doubled as a wallet and had nearly 17 times as many bacteria spots ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Jean S. writes: " Dear Dennis, I am running Windows 10 Home and I want to disable OneDrive permanently . I have reviewed many so-called guides online and it seems that you need to have Windows 10 Pro or higher to disable One Drive ... from reinstalling using the Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc). Therefore, the only option for Windows 10 Home users is to uninstall One Drive manually - however, each time Windows makes a major update, OneDrive comes back and starts sucking up my data bandwidth, and slows my machine down. Is there any way to uninstall OneDrive permanently? " My ... (view more)

Microsoft has confirmed two more bugs with the seemingly-cursed Windows 10 Update. Neither are the end of the world, but it continues to raise questions about the testing process. The first problem is with setting programs to be the default option ... when opening particular file types. While not the most exciting feature, it's one of those little things that make life much easier: without it, users have to either manually select the program they want to open every time they click on a file, or open the program itself and then open the file from there. All Microsoft will confirm at this point is ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Fred W. writes: " Dear Dennis, Thanks for your article on how to play games in 5.1 surround sound . I own the Asus Xonar DX (same as you) and when I first set it up, I could play games in 5.1 surround sound using my optical ... (toslink) cable. I knew this was true because my Harmon Kardon 144 receiver would say 'Dolby Digital' along with each speaker box activated on the display. This meant the receiver was receiving a true 5.1 signal. Recently, Windows 10 updated and now the only sound signal I get on my receiver is Dolby Pro Logic, which is a 2 channel signal up-converted to ... (view more)