Windows Tips

Infopackets Reader Peter F. writes: " Dear Dennis, Thanks so much for your newsletter. I've been a long time subscriber (about 10 years now) and enjoy reading your Windows tips. I took your advice some time ago regarding antivirus software, and have ... been using Avast antivirus (free) ever since. I have never had an issue with it - except for today when Avast popped up with an 'Avast Software Updater' notification in the bottom right hand corner near the clock. I have never seen this notification before. When I clicked on it, Avast opened up with a new window with the title 'Software Updater' ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Bryan M. writes: " Dear Dennis, Thanks for your excellent article on how to disable Thunderbird email attachment reminders ! I have somewhat of a related question. When I leave Thunderbird running in the background and if I'm ... surfing the web or perhaps even writing a document, Thunderbird pops up constantly with a new email notification window in the bottom right of my screen (by the clock), and it stays there for about 5 seconds. I imagine this wouldn't be an issue for most people, however I have multiple email accounts set up with Thunderbird and I receive a lot of emails ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Barb S. writes: " Dear Dennis, I just upgraded to Windows 10 and did not like the default email client, so I decided to give Mozilla Thunderbird a try. So far it is an excellent email program; however, one thing that is driving me ... nuts is the way that Thunderbird constantly pops up with a message 'Found an attachment keyboard: attached' every time I type in 'attached' or 'attach', when composing an email. I would prefer not to be reminded of this every time I type those words. Is there any way to disable the Thunderbird attachment reminder messages, or whatever they're ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader John D. writes: " Dear Dennis, I just upgraded to Windows 10 recently. When I click on File Explorer by the Start menu (which brings up This PC or "My Computer" in previous editions of Windows), I now see C and D drive and now a ... drive E which appears to be empty - it is only about 1 gigabyte large. I don't know where this drive came from but I have no use for it and would prefer not to see it. Is there any way to remove this drive letter in file explorer? " My response: Some manufactures will assign partitions on the hard drive for Windows or BIOS recovery or some other ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader David F. writes: " Dear Dennis, Our company is running Windows Server 2008 Standard edition. One of the things that has been broken for a very long time is the right click context menu. For example, if we login as the ... Administrator on the server and try and right click an icon on the desktop, nothing happens. The right click context menu is also missing on all of our machines connected to the domain. Can you help? " My response: Admittedly I was not sure why this was happening but had a suspicion it was related to a group policy object setting. Group Policy Objects (or GPOs ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Pat P. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently had to rollback Windows 7 because the system appeared to be corrupt. The rollback worked. However, now whenever I try to open MS Office it starts up with a message that it is configuring MS ... Office, then says 'MS Office requires validation'. I chose the option to activate on line (or by phone), but then all I get after that is a message that MS Office could not be activated because the product key is invalid. What do I do now? " My response: I did have this exact same problem a few months back with another user. The scenario was ... (view more)

I've been repairing computers now for over 23 years and for the last few years, I began offering my computer repair service online . One of the most popular repairs I do today is to fix Windows Update; sometimes, however, Windows Update is too far ... corrupt that it requires a complete reinstall of Windows in order to fix the issue. The same can be said in other situations where Windows is too far corrupt that it cannot be repaired even by someone with as much experience as I have . Based on this, users ask me "Why is my Windows corrupt?" and "How can this have happened?" I thought I'd write an ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Ray F. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have a problem with Google Analytics tying up my web browser with a 'waiting for www google-analytics.com' messages every time I visit a site. It shows this message in the action box on the lower ... left of the browser as the page loads. This goes for about 20 to 40 seconds and will not let me pass it; I have to wait for it to complete before the page will fully load. How do I get rid of this? Thanks for a great website and newsletter. " My response: This is a good question. The reason why the analytics is there is so that the website operator ... (view more)

Infopackets Bill P. writes: " Dear Dennis, I am using Windows 10 and Firefox. Recently I went to sign onto my banking website and entered in the wrong user name during the sign on. A few days later I went to sign onto the bank again and it seems ... that Firefox saved the incorrect user name to that field (note - I am not using the Firefox password manager to fill my fields, I am doing it manually). Normally when I visit my bank website, I enter in a few characters for my user name and then Firefox usually presents me with the correct user name as part of the field - sort of the same autocomplete ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Barb J. writes: " Dear Dennis, I just upgraded to Windows 10. When I click on 'This PC' from the Start menu, my drive letters are missing from Windows explorer. Previously, I was using Windows 7, and when I clicked on My Computer ... it would show the C drive (my hard drive), and D, E, and F drive which are memory card slots. Why are my drive letters missing from explorer in Windows 10? Is this a feature I can change? " My response: Sometimes when you do a major upgrade from one operating system to another, settings from the previous operating system get misconstrued and weird ... (view more)