I had a big problem with Chrome running slowly and lots of aw snap errors. It took me a while to fix it, but I’ll share my secret with you. It sounds weird but I promise it helps.
Read More »Fix Chrome running slowly and lots of aw snap errors
Sometimes a Windows computer is so broken that you have to run system restore from the command prompt. If you’re reading this, I don’t have to elaborate. This works in Windows 7, Windows 10, and any other recent version.
And when a system is that broken, you can expect to run into a couple of snags. Maybe you can’t even get a command prompt. Or maybe you got a command prompt but the executable file is buried. Here’s how to solve those two problems.Read More »System restore from command prompt
Wiring an old house for Ethernet can be challenging but offers real benefits. Wired Ethernet is faster and more reliable than wireless, so devices that have a wired connection can take advantage of it. Having wired connections also allows you to distribute wireless access points throughout your house for better, faster coverage.
So you even if you’re a heavy wireless user, there’s a lot to gain from having good wired connections. Believe it or not, you can do it with simple tools and very little tearing into your walls.
After upgrading to Windows 10, when I unhibernated my laptop the next morning, my wifi connection didn’t work. The connection dropped and I couldn’t reconnect. Forgetting the network and reconnecting didn’t help. Any time I tried to reconnect to my wireless network, I’d get the message that Windows 10 can’t connect to this network.
The problem seemed to be in the power management.
Are you getting a 0xc1900201 error installing Windows 10? I got both that and 0xc1900200. Here’s how I fixed it.
I upgraded my venerable Dell E1505 to Windows 10 over the weekend. It was harder than it needed to be, but I got it running. It’s an old machine, but for some tasks, it can handle Windows 10.
Here’s how I got the Windows 10 install working.
Windows 10 uses homegroups, but if you have systems that don’t understand homegroups and want to share a Windows 10 printer by UNC (the old school way to share a network printer), it’s not obvious how to go about doing it.
I couldn’t find a way from the GUI, but it’s still possible to share the printer from a command line.
One of the new features of Windows 10 is better file compression, which was intended to help Windows fit better in low-resource devices like tablets. But it’s helpful on computers with SSDs too. But for whatever reason that option doesn’t show up on mine.
But you can still compress your system files even if the Disk Cleanup utility (which you can also launch from the Free up disk space by deleting unnecessary files control panel) doesn’t show the Compress system files option.
Read More »Compress system files doesn’t show up in Disk Cleanup
Sometimes you may need to change your printer’s IP address, such as after you rearrange your network. It’s not hard to do, it’s just not always immediately obvious where the settings are.
This method works in Windows 7 and Windows 10. It probably also works in Vista and Windows 8, but I don’t have those versions anymore.
If you replace your wireless router with another one, your Windows machines may give you a red X along with this error message when you try to reconnect: the settings saved on this computer for the network do not match the requirements of the network.
The quickest, easiest fix is to forget the network and reconnect. Here’s how to forget a network in Windows 7, and how to forget a network in Windows 10.
Last week at work, I noticed some odd events in an event log, and when I investigated them, I found they were part of a failed ransomware attack. This got me thinking about how to prevent ransomware at home.
Ransomware, if you aren’t familiar, is an attack that encrypts your data and demands a ransom, usually around $300, in bitcoins, and you get a short deadline until it destroys your files. More often than not, paying the ransom is the only way to get the files back, so it’s much better to prevent it.