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Tune Windows to use your SSD more effectively

Dave Farquhar Windows October 20, 2025August 22, 2025

I saw a post recently on social media where someone was offering a free tool for optimizing Windows’ behavior with SSDs. It turns out it’s just a graphical front-end for a tool Windows already comes with called fsutil. But it’s a good reminder of how to optimize Windows for SSD use, the caveat being it works well on conventional hard drives too.

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.

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Windows 95 released August 24, 1995

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing, Windows August 25, 2025August 25, 2025

It was on August 24, 1995 that Windows 95 was released, amidst much anticipation. It was the most widely anticipated Windows release of all time, and the runner up really isn’t close. The idea of people lining up for blocks for a Microsoft product sounds like a bit of a joke today, and the more time goes on, the bigger of a joke it becomes. But I’m serious that in 1995 it happened.

Dave Farquhar

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Run Windows 11 on unsupported hardware

Dave Farquhar Windows April 25, 2025February 17, 2025

Windows 10 is going end of life in mid October, less than six months from now. It’s not supported on PCs with less than an 8th-generation Core i series processor, which leaves a huge number of systems that run Windows 10 more or less fine out in the cold. But there is a way around that. I’ve been running Windows 11 on unsupported hardware for a few months. And believe it or not, I almost like it better than Windows 10.

There’s no guarantee this will work forever. Microsoft may release future updates that require features present in newer CPUs. But this buys us some time beyond October 2025, at the very least.

Dave Farquhar

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Windows emergency restart

Dave Farquhar Windows July 18, 2023July 18, 2023

For about as long as I can remember, one of the most frequent complaints I’ve heard about Windows is that it doesn’t have an emergency restart or shutdown option, something equivalent to the Linux reboot command. It turns out Windows emergency restart existed, hiding in plain sight, all along. In this blog post, I’ll share the secret.

Dave Farquhar

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Change mouse direction on monitor

Dave Farquhar Windows July 10, 2023July 4, 2023

If you have more than one monitor, sometimes when you move your mouse to the edge of one screen, the mouse jumps to the monitor on the other side. Here’s how to change the mouse direction on your monitor when you have a setup with more than one monitor.

When you have two monitors, there is exactly a 50% chance that your computer will guess correctly which way they are arranged. On the computer gets it wrong, you can fix it easily enough. You just have to know where to look and what the computer calls the setting. Whether you have a Mac or a Windows PC, there is no setting for mouse direction, but there is a setting for multiple monitors. That’s the one you want.

Dave Farquhar

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Notepad++ wrap text

Dave Farquhar Windows June 28, 2023June 17, 2023

Wrapping text is an essential feature in any text editor, but the feature may be hiding somewhere you aren’t looking for it. Here’s how to wrap text in Notepad++.

Dave Farquhar

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What does OLE stand for

Dave Farquhar Windows June 6, 2023November 11, 2024

Sometimes, when dealing with Windows programming or Windows applications, you will find the acronym OLE. But what does OLE stand for, and what does it do? And this blog post, I will explain OLE and why it was important and still is, even though Microsoft doesn’t promote it any longer.

Dave Farquhar

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Notepad++ Go to line

Dave Farquhar Windows April 25, 2023April 22, 2023

Sometimes when you are editing a text file, you want to go to a specific line. Here’s how you go to a line in Notepad++, along with a few more go to tricks.

Dave Farquhar

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Replace carriage returns with commas in Notepad++

Dave Farquhar Windows April 4, 2023March 25, 2023

There are times when you need comma-separated lists but the data you have is separated by carriage returns instead. In this blog post, I’ll show you how to easily replace carriage returns with commas in Notepad++.

Dave Farquhar

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Fast Copy: Best and fastest copier for Windows?

Dave Farquhar Windows March 22, 2023March 23, 2023

People sure have strong feelings on their Windows copy utilities. Each of the command line utilities has their own strengths and weaknesses. But when it comes to copying with the GUI, a lot of times we just settle for Windows Explorer. Fast Copy is a utility that provides GUI ease of use with the power of the command line utilities. I think it might be the best file copier for Windows.

Dave Farquhar

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