Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Question from Marisol F.: My laptop got a virus and I had to re-install Windows 7 on it. After it finished over 160 Windows Updates were installed.
Is this normal? I’ve never seen anywhere near that many updates installed at one time before. Do you think I need to re-install Windows again?
This is the first time I’ve ever had to do this so I’m a little confused.
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
Question from Chuck H.: A while back I bought a Windows 8.1 retail package (#ad) that contains two discs, one for Windows 8.1/64 bit and the other for Windows 8.1/32 bit.
I installed the 32 bit disc on my old HP laptop after Microsoft abandoned Windows XP. I have never used the 64 bit disc.
My question is can I install Windows 8.1 from the 64 bit disc onto my desktop computer? I had to replace the hard drive and I don’t have a set of recovery discs.
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
Question from Leonard G.: Rick, I have a question about one of my biggest pet peeves. After all these years, why does a computer still have to be restarted after many Windows updates are installed, but other updates install just fine without requiring a restart?
You’d think by now that Microsoft would have figured out a safe and dependable way to install ALL Windows updates in the background with us never even having to know they were installed. I hate having to stop what I’m doing on my computer just so Windows can shut down and “finish” installing an update!
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
By now you have probably heard that by default, Windows 10 is pretty nosy about your browsing and computing habits. After all, the new Windows’ privacy issues have been well documented.
If you’ve made the decision to skip the upgrade to Windows 10 in order to avoid those privacy concerns, guess what? A handful of recent Windows Updates have brought some of Windows 10’s nosy “tracking features” to Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. [Read more…]
Question from Brenda Y.: I have a BIG problem Rick, and I really need your help. My computer (Lenovo desktop w/ Windows 7) was installing updates last night when it just shut off. It does that sometimes when my heat pump turns on.
Anyway, when I turned it back on it refused to boot up all the way into Windows. It’ll start, then hang up after the Windows logo is displayed. I even tried booting it into Safe Mode but it gets stuck there too.
I’d like to try to do a System Restore, but I can’t because the computer won’t boot up at all. Is there any way to do a System Restore manually without having to actually have Windows loaded?
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]