Rick's Daily Tips

Q&A: Would moving the Page File to a RAM Disk make a PC run faster?

Posted on June 1, 2022

Note: The links in this post are affiliate links.

Question from Ethan: I was reading an article last night that discussed using part of a computer’s unused RAM as a RAM Disk, and it got me to thinking.

I have a pretty old desktop computer that’s running Windows 7. It has 2GB of RAM and a 200GB hard drive.

This machine runs really slow, coming almost to a crawl at times. After doing some research I’ve determined that it’s likely sluggish because it’s doing a ton of swapping back and forth with the page file.

Do you think moving the Windows Page File to a RAM Disk would help speed it up? [Read more…]

Review: Anker PowerCore 20100mAh Portable Charger

Posted on May 30, 2022

Note: The links in this post are affiliate links.

Modern technology and the abundance of mobile devices we have at our disposal are great, but keeping all of our gadgets charged up and ready for use when we need them can be a challenge.

But that challenge is a lot easier to meet with a powerful USB charger and external battery pack combo.

I’m always eager to test and review new portable charging devices, and I recently had the opportunity to put a true powerhouse to the test. [Read more…]

Q&A: How do I uninstall the ‘Phone Link’ app in Windows 11?

Posted on May 29, 2022

Question from Michael: I just bought my first Windows 11 PC and it came with a ‘Phone Link’ app that’s supposed to let you make calls and send texts from your computer.

I have no desire to use my computer as a phone because I like to keep my devices as isolated from one another as possible.

I want to uninstall the Phone Link app but I can’t figure out how to do it. Can you help? [Read more…]

Q&A: Can I retrieve my Wi-Fi password from my router?

Posted on May 28, 2022

Question from Sean: My wife and I rented out a spare bedroom to a college student a while back, and once while we were on vacation our router died.

Not wanting to have to do without Wi-Fi until we got back, our renter purchased a replacement router and installed it.

When we got back from our trip he gave us the password he had put on the new router’s wireless network and we used it to log on to the network with our Windows 10 PCs.

When our renter left he told us we could keep the router, and we were very grateful. The problem is we lost the paper with the Wi-Fi password on it.

My wife had to have the hard drive in her laptop replaced and when they reinstalled Windows 10 it wiped out her password. Do you know of any way to retrieve the Wi-Fi password from the router so she can sign back on to the network? [Read more…]

How (and when) to set your Internet connection to ‘Metered’

Posted on May 26, 2022

Rick’s Tech Tips Newsletter

Microsoft automatically sets cellular Internet connections as “metered” in Windows 10 and Windows 11 because many cellular service plans have a data cap.

If you exceed the data cap on your plan one of these things will typically occur, depending on the terms of the plan: [Read more…]