administrator

Microsoft is rewriting a "Productivity Score" feature that businesses could have used to monitor staff performance. The data will now be only available in aggregated form. The feature is designed for IT and network administrators in businesses that ... use Microsoft 365, the subscription version of what was once known as the Office suite. The idea is that the administrators can get a better idea of which features are being used most, which would show where IT administrators might need to focus support. Individual User Data Revealed The problem was that the feature showed these figures on an ... (view more)

Google has released a security update fixing a major flaw in the Chrome browser. While Chrome normally updates automatically, it's a serious enough problem that it's worth manually checking for updates to the browser in order to be certain. The bug ... was highlighted by the Center for Internet Security, a non-profit organization that crowd sources security problems and fixes. It says the flaw could be exploited simply by the user visiting a compromised web page. It says that: "Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code in the context of the ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Barry S. writes: " Dear Dennis, I read with interest your article on how to shut down Mozilla Thunderbird gracefully using a series of 'taskkill' commands. The issue I have is that Thunderbird eats an enormous amount of memory if ... I leave it running over a period of 24 hours or more. When I try and send an email, the words in the email window (as I'm typing them) come out in spurts. This drives me crazy as I am a fairly quick typist. I tried setting up a batch script to run (using Task Scheduler) to gracefully close Thunderbird and restart it every 24 hours, but for some ... (view more)

A key security feature in Windows doesn't work as planned. It's not a vulnerability in itself, but means that hackers who find bugs in software are much more likely to be able to do damage. The problem is with Address Space Layout Randomization ... (ASLR). It deals with the way a computer organizes different programs in memory. As an analogy, it's like organizing vehicles of different sizes and makes in a parking lot. Most operating systems support ASLR, which means that when a program starts up and needs to use the computer's memory, it's assigned a random location. In the analogy, think of cars ... (view more)

How to Fix: 'Your Power Plan Information isn't Available' Infopackets Reader Cindy G. writes: " Dear Dennis, I am running Windows 7 Pro and I'm trying to defrag my hard drive. I'm using Piriform Defraggler and it says that it will take over a day to ... complete. That's fine - however, every time I shut my monitor off and leave the computer to do its work, it keeps going to sleep. I have gone to the Power Options in the Windows Control Panel, but all I see is a message stating that 'Your power plan information isn't available'. I am completely perplexed by this as I have a Windows 7 laptop and my ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Sam S. writes: " Dear Dennis, A few days ago I booted my computer to the Windows 10 desktop, but now my Windows 10 start menu doesn't work. If I click on the start menu, it doesn't do anything at all - no menu, no tiles - nothing ... at all! The only options I have are the Windows 10 task bar which allows me to click on Microsoft Edge browser, so I can at least get on the Internet. Can you tell me why my Windows 10 start menu disappeared? I need to get into my tiles so can access my apps. Thanks for any help you can offer. " My response: This is a very vexing problem (based on ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Leslie B. writes: " Dear Dennis, I just recently upgraded to Windows 10 and now when I run iTunes, I receive error 54 - whatever that means. I am unable to access anything in iTunes. Can you help? " My response: From what I ... understand, iTunes error 54 refers to a general input/output (I/O) error. This means that iTunes is having trouble reading or writing to a file or folder on your hard drive. This can be caused by various things, including a corrupt file, locked or inaccessible files or folders, or if an .m4a file could not be converted to a lower bit rate. The latter ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Stacie M. writes: " Dear Dennis, I upgraded to Windows 10 over the weekend, but unfortunately many of my programs appear to be incompatible. For example, a program either gives me an error and immediately exits, or it runs but ... doesn't work properly. If I would have known that my programs won't work with Windows 10, I don't think I would have upgraded. Is there anything I can do to make my programs compatible with Windows 10? " My response: When I first upgraded to Windows 10, many of my favorite programs wouldn't work properly, either - similar to what you describe. For ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Dave T. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently installed Windows 8.1 on my netbook and downloaded all the updates which took almost 2 days to complete. Towards the end there was a slew of failed updates which did not install; one of ... them which was a cumulative patch for Internet Explorer. I read that to fix the issue I need to open a command prompt as Administrator user and then run 'sfc /scannow' to fix the failed updates, but I cannot seem to run cmd.exe as the Administrator user. When I try and run 'sfc /scannow', I get the error message that 'You must be an administrator ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Bill F. writes: " Dear Dennis, Thanks for your article on how to reset the admin password for Windows 7 and 8 . I have an old Windows XP machine and can't login because I lost my password. Do you have similar steps on how to reset ... the admin password for Windows XP? " My response: The steps to reset the administrator password for Windows XP is different than what what was previously described in the article for Windows 7 and 8. Note that if you can login as the "Administrator" user, you can also use this account to reset any user password on the system. So, the steps below ... (view more)