Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
If you’re a Windows user you’re probably familiar with Cortana, the personal assistant that Microsoft added to Windows beginning with the initial 2015 release of Windows 10.
Personally, I’ve never been a fan of Cortana and removing it has always been one of the first things I did any time I got a new PC or reinstalled Windows for some reason. [Read more…]
Question from Trevor: Rick, I have an HP laptop running Windows 11.
When I close the lid it goes into sleep mode, but I’d rather have it just shut down all the way because I’m usually going to just leave it in my laptop bag and not use it for a while.
Is there a way to make it do that? Thanks.
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
If you’ve recently started using Windows 11 for the first time you’ve probably noticed that Microsoft has drastically changed the look and layout of the Start Menu.
Personally, I’m not a huge fan of the changes, but they are what they are.
This post discusses some of the changes Microsoft has made to the Start Menu. It also offers tips for personalizing it to make it easier to use and a generally more efficient tool.
If you’ve been using computers for a while you probably know that a hard drive or SSD failure, a horrible virus infection or some other catastrophic event can result in data loss.
If that ever happens you, you’ll need to be able to restore the drive’s contents from a backup.
The question is, which backup software should you use to create your backups? [Read more…]
Question from Kerry: I have a Windows 11 question for you if you don’t mind.
I used to be a Windows guy, but when Microsoft stopped supporting Windows 7 I decided to switch to a Mac.
Well, my Mac recently bit the dust and I decided to switch back to Windows. Long story short, I ended up buying an HP all-on-one desktop computer with Windows 11 on it.
Back when I was using Windows 7 I could open the Control Panel from the Start menu, but that’s apparently not the case with Windows 11. I’ve looked high and low and I can’t find it.
I’m pretty sure Windows 11 still has a Control Panel because I think I remember seeing it mentioned on your site before. Can you tell me how to find it? [Read more…]