Daily Archives: November 1, 2020

• Tips for speeding up Windows PCs

  Posted on November 1, 2020 at 20:15 CST by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums
  

  TROUBLESHOOTING

  By Nathan Segal

  With each update and upgrade of our Windows machines, overall speed seems to take another hit.

  Additional memory and a solid-state drive can significantly improve the performance of some systems, but there are other factors to consider. While researching this topic, the Microsoft Doc article “Speed up your computer” popped up in my search results. It provides a helpful summary of tweaks that might put more zip back into a hard-working PC. Here’s my hands-on take on those suggestions.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.43.0 (2020-11-02).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Troubleshooting AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Benchmarks, PC performance, Solid-state drives, SSDs, System cleanup

• Puzzling browser (mis)behavior

  Posted on November 1, 2020 at 20:10 CST by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  LANGALIST

  By Fred Langa

  A subscriber’s Chrome and Firefox browsers, on just one PC, fail to correctly render a certain website.

  But Internet Explorer displays it perfectly. Moreover, neither Chrome nor Firefox exhibits the problem on other machines. What could account for such odd behavior on just one PC? Finding the answer will take some sleuthing.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.43.0 (2020-11-02).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, LangaList AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Brower rendering, Browser reset, Browser settings

• Windows 10 20H2 makes its official debut

  Posted on November 1, 2020 at 20:05 CST by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  PATCH WATCH

  By Susan Bradley

  On October 20, Microsoft formally released the next feature update for Win10.

  If you’re already running Version 2004, this will be a fast transition. It’s a relatively minor update. In fact, it’s already been offered to my Lenovo laptop — and even to my Surface device. And upgrading a test system took just a few minutes.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.43.0 (2020-11-02).

  Patch Watch AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Win10 20H2, Windows feature updates, Windows patching

• Freeware Spotlight — Alternate Password Generator

  Posted on November 1, 2020 at 20:00 CST by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  BEST UTILITIES

  By Deanna McElveen

  There’s never an occasion when a simple password is acceptable for an online account.

  The days of “[insert cat name]123” and “[insert kid name][insert birthdate]” are over — especially when applied to more than one online site. It’s likely that any short and easy-to-remember password you can think of has already been added to massive databases — some nefarious, some informational — of stolen credentials.

  OlderGeeks.com hosts several utilities from Alternate Tools, but today we’re looking at Alternate Password Generator (APG). It’s a free program that creates secure passwords.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.43.0 (2020-11-02).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Best Utilities, Freeware AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Brute-force cracking, Deanna's Freeware Spotlight, Password checking, Password generators

• Patch Lady – checking for updates

  Posted on November 1, 2020 at 14:45 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  On my 2004 machine at home I did a test.

  When you leave the machine alone for the month, you will not get pushed the optional .net update nor the optional preview cumulative update.

  

  It does show the “download and install” optional update.

  But if you check for updates… you’ll get the optional preview .net updates installed

  

  See the difference in behavior?  This is why I say don’t check for updates.

  Windows 10 Patch Lady Posts