Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
The Windows Control Panel has been one of the most important parts of the operating system ever since Windows 1.0 was released way back in 1985.
But that’s about to change…
As you probably know, Microsoft has been migrating various settings from the Control Panel into Windows 10’s Settings app with every recent major Windows update, and that process is about to come to a conclusion.
Rick’s Tech Tips Newsletter
Data loss is one of the most common issues faced by computer users these days.
And as you an imagine, the loss of critical and irreplaceable data can be catastrophic.
For this reason, it’s very important to keep your data as safe and well-protected as possible.
Many factors can contribute to data loss, and I will highlight the main ones in this post. I’ll also offer some tips for protecting your precious data from catastrophic loss.
Here’s a quick rundown of the most common reasons for data loss:
Note: The links in this post are affiliate links.
HP has always made great budget laptops, and their latest offerings are some of the best yet.
The prices of laptops with solid state storage have dropped so much that I now have difficulty recommending any PC that doesn’t have a solid state boot drive.
I recently had the opportunity to check out a new budget laptop from HP that’s just as affordable as a ChromeBook, yet has blazing fast solid state storage and runs Windows 10!
Question from Judy: When I purchased my PC with windows 10, it came with Microsoft Edge as the web browser.
I preferred using Google Chrome so I installed it and set it as my default browser.
The other day Windows updated and automatically installed a new version of Microsoft Edge.
Now I’m not sure if I should keep Chrome as my default browser or use Edge. What do you recommend?
Also, should I delete whichever one I decide not to use?
I would appreciate your thoughts on which is the best way to go. Thank you.
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
Question from Paul: Back in 2013 I bought a custom built gaming PC from a guy I knew back then.
I’ve since lost contact with him (I think he moved out of state) and I can no longer ask him for help with things like this.
Anyway, this machine came with Windows 7 on it but I updated it to Windows 10 after Microsoft abandoned Windows 7.
Windows 10 works great on it, but ever since I installed Windows 10 the Windows Updates have been automatically installing new hardware drivers that keep causing the system to crash.
After almost every Windows Update is installed I have to manually reinstall the original hardware drivers from the CD to get the computer to stop crashing (glad I still have that CD!).
Is there any way to prevent Windows 10 from updating the hardware drivers every time it downloads and installs new updates to Windows? This is really frustrating!
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]