Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
A while back I wrote a post explaining why I believe Microsoft’s Windows Update procedure needs a lot of work.
At the time I was hopeful they’d have their act together by now, but I’m afraid that simply isn’t the case.
Virtually every Windows Update they’ve released this year has been buggy and caused problems for a significant percentage of Windows users.
In short, the problem seems to be getting worse instead of better.
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…]
If you’ve ever used a Pro or Enterprise edition of Microsoft Windows you probably know those editions come with a handy tool called the Group Policy Editor, or GPedit for short.
In a nutshell, the Group Policy Editor allows you to make hundreds of advanced tweaks to a PC’s Windows installation that aren’t available via the Control Panel or Settings app.
The thing is, GPedit isn’t available in the Home version of Windows, just the Pro and Enterprise versions.
This short video shows how to add a fantastic open-source group policy editor tool to ANY version of Windows (and explains why you might want to): [Read more…]
Question from Rita: My laptop has Windows 11 on it and when I turned it on yesterday morning I noticed that it had installed an update.
Ever since the update there’s been a little Weather icon on the Taskbar right beside the Start button.
Every time I move my mouse towards either the Start button or the icon just to the right of the Weather icon a screen pops up showing the weather along with what appears to be about a thousand news reports.
This is irritating me to no end. Is there any way to remove that Weather icon from the Taskbar? [Read more…]
One of the things I like most about Microsoft Windows is the ability to create shortcuts on the Windows Desktop that simplify the execution of common tasks.
For example, I find myself creating a lot of System Restore Points on my PC so I created a handy desktop shortcut that creates a new Restore Point every time I click on it.
This particular shortcut makes it easy for me to quickly create a Restore Point at any time without having to wade through a series of menus. [Read more…]