Tech Questions & Answers Archives

Q&A: Can you still get Malwarebytes for free?

Posted on April 7, 2020

Question from Phyllis S.: Hi Rick. I’ve been following your blog for a while now and I love the info you provide. Thank you!

In one of your posts you recommend running periodic malware scans with the free version of Malwarebytes.

I clicked the link you provided and downloaded it, but after the program was installed it said I have 14 days left in my free trial?

I know for a fact that I clicked the link to download the free version. Why did it install the trial version?

I even uninstalled it and downloaded it again to make sure, but it just installed the trial version again.

What gives? Do they no longer offer a free version of Malwarebytes?

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Q&A: Is it true that you shouldn’t store important files on a USB flash drive?

Posted on April 7, 2020

Question from Colette P.: My daughter emailed me a really cute picture of my grandson while I was at work.

I saved the picture to my computer’s hard drive and then copied it onto a USB flash drive.

I verified that the picture was on the USB drive and then I deleted it from the computer (we’re not allowed to keep personal files on our work computers).

One of my co-workers happened to see what I did and she asked me if I always store pictures like this on thumb drives. I told her yes I do.

In fact, I have over a dozen thumb drives containing a total of several thousand photos.

My co-worker shook her head and told me it’s a bad idea to keep files I don’t want to lose on a thumb drive because they can get lost or go bad. She said I need to transfer them to some other kind of storage.

What’s your opinion on this?

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Q&A: Are SSDs just as reliable as hard drives?

Posted on April 6, 2020

Note: The links in this post are affiliate links.

Question from Wesley G.: Hi Rick. I hope you’re doing well.

I recently read your post about speeding up a computer by replacing the hard drive with a much faster solid state drive (SSD).

I’m leaning towards doing this but I have one concern that’s holding me back.

I’m worried that an SSD might not be as reliable as a hard drive, and I really can’t afford to lose my files if it were to crash on me.

What’s your opinion on this? Are SSDs as reliable as hard drives?

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Q&A: Is there an easy way to copy and paste as plain text?

Posted on April 6, 2020

Question from Amber H.: Hi Rick. I write a blog about contests and giveaways, and I’m always copying and pasting snippets from other websites into my own blog posts.

The problem I’m having is when I copy a snippet of text with Ctrl+C and then paste it with Ctrl+V, any formatting (bold, italics, web links, etc.) are pasted into the document along with the text.

To get around that I’ve been pasting the snippet first into Notepad, then copying it again from there and pasting it into my WordPress editor window.

My question is can you tell me a simpler (hopefully one step) way to paste something that was copied to the clipboard as just plain text? Thanks for your help!

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Q&A: How can I retrieve my Windows 10 license key from a bad hard drive?

Posted on April 5, 2020

Question from Keith: I upgraded my Windows 7 computer to Windows 10 shortly after it was released, and like a dummy I didn’t write down the license key for it.

The hard drive in this machine went bad and I replaced it with a 500GB SSD. The bad drive appears to be completely dead because it doesn’t make any noise at all.

After I installed the new drive I downloaded the Windows 10 files and put them on a CD. I know I’ll need the license key to activate Windows 10 after I install it, but I don’t have it.

I read that you can sometimes retrieve files from a dead hard drive. Is there any way to retrieve the Windows license key from a hard drive when Windows won’t even recognize the drive when its plugged into a different computer?

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]