Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Question from Carolyn S.: Hi Rick. I have a 4 year old HP Desktop computer running Windows 7 – 32 bit.
I bought the Windows 8.1 DVD but I don’t know whether I should install it in 32 bit or 64 bit mode.
This computer has a 64 bit CPU but just 4GB of RAM that I plan to upgrade at some point. I’ve heard that the extra RAM won’t do any good unless I install 64 bit Windows.
If that’s true, do you think it’s worth installing the 64 bit version? What do you suggest?
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
With all the malware, hackers and identity thieves out there these days, it’s more important than ever to install the latest Windows Updates just as soon as they become available.
Users of Windows 8.1 will find that it’s no longer possible to simply click Windows Update on the “Start Menu”. Instead, we have to manually check for updates in a different manner.
There are several ways to check for new Windows updates in Win 8.1, but this is the method that I use and recommend: [Read more…]
Question from Glenn W.: I have an old, but awesome 2008 era Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop that came with Windows Vista. It still works great except for the hard drive which just died on me with no warning.
I found out that I can buy a brand spanking new replacement hard drive for less than $50, but I don’t have a set of Windows Vista restore discs.
If I replace the hard drive can I also install Windows 8.1 in place of Vista? (I would actually prefer Windows 7 but they don’t sell it anymore.)
Or is this machine so old that only Windows Vista will work, which would mean I’m out of luck either way?
Sorry for the multiple questions, but this is all very confusing to me. I hate to throw away a perfectly good laptop just because the hard drive died.
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
In times past, loading the BIOS Setup Utility on most any PC was as simple as pressing a special key at the beginning of the boot process.
With some modern laptops and ultrabooks running Windows 8.1 however, it isn’t quite that easy.
But as long as you can boot the PC into Windows, you can load the UEFI (BIOS) Setup Screen from there. Here’s how: [Read more…]
Microsoft effectively killed off Windows XP in about a year ago, and many XP users are trying decide whether to upgrade their PCs to Windows 8.1, dump Windows altogether and switch to Linux, or simply replace their old PC with a new one.
Personally, I think switching to Ubuntu Linux is a great way to go if the PC is used primarily for email and Internet access, but as long as the hardware is new enough to support Windows 8.1, that’s a great choice as well.
If you decide to upgrade Win XP to 8.1, it’s a good idea to prepare for the upgrade before jumping into it. Here are my recommendations: [Read more…]