windows 10

Infopackets Reader Pat S. writes: " Dear Dennis, I am running Windows 7 and I'm trying to shrink my C drive, but Windows won't let me shrink it to the desired size - even though I have tons of free space. I have a 500 GB drive and I'm trying to ... shrink the volume to 250 GB. Whenever I try to shrink the C drive it only lets me shrink 70GB. Can you help? " My response: I have had this problem many times in the past - especially when I am trying to shrink the C drive for my clients so that I can split the drive in half and make a disk image backup onto the second partition. The reason why you can ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Sam S. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently upgraded to Windows 10. During the installation procedure, it asked me to enter in an email address. I did that, however, now I can't remember what password I used for the email address - ... and now I can't login to Windows 10! I am completely locked out of the system. How can I get back in if I don't know my email password for Windows 10? If I'm able to get back in, how can I set it up so I can login without having to use the email login? " My response: This is a very frequently asked question. The short answer is that you can attempt ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Jim N. writes: " Dear Dennis, Ever since I upgraded to Windows 10, I have no sound. I have looked at all of my speaker / headphone volume settings, and have searched Google for 'windows 10 sound not working' and 'windows 10 sound ... drivers', but nothing seems to apply to my situation - my sound simply does not work. I realize that this is a very common problem, but having no sound in Windows 10 is driving me nuts. Is there a simple fix for this or should I go back to Windows 7? " My response: I can tell you that based on my experience, the sound in Windows 10 cuts out ... (view more)

Windows 10 will officially require more memory to run on many computers this summer. It's only a minor change but is the first time the official specifications for Windows have significantly increased in the past seven years. The biggest of the ... changes is the minimum memory specification for 32-bit computers, which is doubling from 1GB to 2GB. The specification for 64-bit machines was already 2GB and will remain unchanged. The change doesn't mean machines with 1GB of RAM will stop working. Instead, it means computer manufacturers will now have to include at least 2GB of RAM to be ... (view more)

Microsoft's attempts to get all users running Windows 10 has taken yet another step further. It's now rolling out a sneaky way of getting users to "consent" to the update. As we've previously covered, Windows 10 is now classed as a "Recommended ... update" which means it will download and attempt to install on all Windows computers where the user hasn't actively changed the update settings from their default. After that reclassification, some users started seeing a pop-up message saying that Windows 10 was ready to install and the scheduled upgrade time. The ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader 'Sisi' writes: " Dear Dennis, After I upgraded to Windows 10, I can no longer connect to my wireless network. However, when I connect my laptop to my router using a ethernet cable, it works fine. How can I get my wireless network ... to work again? " My response: There's a lot of reasons that the WiFi won't work after upgrading to Windows 10. The top two reasons are that the driver for your wireless network adapter needs to be updated, or it's possible that Windows 10 does not support your wireless adapter. With that said, I'll describe a systematic approach to resolving this ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Dave C. writes: " Dear Dennis, I am currently running Windows 8.1 and am thinking to get the free version of Windows 10 before the deadline on July 29, 2016. I am currently running Hyper-V on my system and have a very important ... virtual machine that I've compiled. I was wondering if I upgrade to Windows 10, is there a chance that my virtual machine will stop working? I do not want to lose it. " My response: One of the beautiful things about virtual machines is that they are portable. So, if one of your virtual machines grew to eat up a lot of resources (for example), you can ... (view more)

Worldwide PC sales have fallen to their lowest level in almost a decade according to new estimates. It's also now four years since sales rose year-on-year. The figures come from analyst Gartner, which gathers together data from a range of sources. ... Strictly speaking, it estimates shipments to retailers rather than actual sales to consumers and businesses. That can have a lag effect, but doesn't affect overall trends - over the long run, sales affect how many units retailers order. (Source: gartner.com ) According to the company, shipments between January and March this year totaled 64. ... (view more)

Microsoft is to make the dreaded "Blue Screen of Death" (BSOD) a little less likely to leave people feeling helpless. Users may be able to hold a smartphone up to the screen and get a link to an explanation of the problem. The screen appears when ... Windows encounters a serious problem that causes it to completely crash. When this happens, a blue screen with a cryptic error message is displayed, and sometimes the system will reboot automatically. For the most part, a blue screen involves an incompatibility or fault between Windows and software or a hardware device. At the moment, the ... (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)