Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Question from Aldrena K.: I have an Acer desktop computer running Windows 10.
I have always just used the Administrator account for everything I do on the computer, but I read on your site why that’s a bad idea.
I created a Standard user account for myself, but it only gives me access to the same programs that my son uses on his account.
How can I create a Standard user account for myself that lets me use all of my installed programs?
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
A while back I wrote a post that explains how to force a Desktop shortcut to always “Open as administrator”.
As an example I mentioned a shortcut that I had created that quickly saves a System Restore Point without having to navigate any of the usual Windows menus.
Several people wrote in asking how to make their own shortcut to create a new Restore Point, so I thought it might be a good idea to write a post explaining how to do it.
Luckily, it’s very easy to make a shortcut for creating a new Restore Point. Just follow the steps below: [Read more…]
Question from Darla: I have an HP Pavilion laptop with Windows 8.1 on it.
I recently started seeing this message every time I turn it on:
“A hard drive in the system reports that it may fail.”
The thing is the hard drive is working just fine.
Can you tell me what do I need to do to get the computer to stop showing me this message?
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
Do you suspect that malware might be slowing down your PC or putting your data at risk, yet nothing is detected during a virus or spyware scan?
Or do you suspect that malware that was found and removed changed some of your Windows settings and/or disabled certain features such as the Task Manager, System Restore or the ability to boot into Safe Mode?
Even the best anti-malware programs have a difficult time catching all the viruses, trojans and spyware that is out there today. That’s why it helps to have a low-level system scanner that can root out and report every single running process and detect any suspicious system activity. [Read more…]
Every now and then I receive messages asking me how to launch the OnScreen Keyboard on Windows machines that don’t have a touch screen.
There are several ways to activate the OnScreen Keyboard, but my favorite method is by simply clicking a desktop shortcut.
If you’d like to create a shortcut to the OnScreen Keyboard on your own computer, just follow the steps below: [Read more…]