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MS-DEFCON 2:
Patch reliability is unclear. Unless you have an immediate, pressing need to install a specific patch, don't do it.
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Newsletter Archives
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A wide-ranging trio of questions
Posted on March 22nd, 2021 at 01:06 Comment on the AskWoody LoungeLANGALIST
By Fred Langa
This week’s top reader-submitted questions cover quite a spread of topics, starting with some unexpected lithium-ion battery behavior.
Then we examine the reasons for a reader’s deep misgivings about the safety and reliability of cloud-storage services, and we’ll wrap up with a super-simple, three-click solution for a notebook PC whose unplugged performance is simply too slow for practical use.
Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.11.0 (2021-03-22).
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Freeware Spotlight – Distant Desktop
Posted on March 22nd, 2021 at 01:04 Comment on the AskWoody LoungeBest Utilities
By Deanna McElveen
It’s unfortunate that I paid for an annual renewal of Team Viewer just before I found Distant Desktop.
I might have made a different decision. This newly discovered remote-control software is totally free for personal and commercial use, AND it has everything I use and love.
Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.11.0 (2021-03-22).
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How to set up and use a Microsoft account in Windows
Posted on March 22nd, 2021 at 01:02 Comment on the AskWoody LoungeMICROSOFT ACCOUNTS
By Lance Whitney
A Microsoft account offers you a single sign-on method to log in to Windows on any computer.
A Microsoft account is a quick and convenient way to use the same credentials to sign in to different Microsoft applications and services. This type of account can connect you to Office, Outlook, OneDrive, Skype, the Microsoft Store, and Xbox Live. A Microsoft account is required for you to access certain services such as Office on the Web and, more importantly for this series, OneDrive.
Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.11.0 (2021-03-22).
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Dealing with printers
Posted on March 22nd, 2021 at 01:00 Comment on the AskWoody LoungePATCH WATCH
By Susan Bradley
Keeping printers up to dateOnce upon a time, I purchased an HP LaserJet 4L printer that would just keep on printing, year after year, until the plastic door on the top of the printer finally broke off. After my initial installation, the printer driver was never updated.
Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.11.0 (2021-03-22).
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Woody Leonhard – A new life in paradise
Posted on March 15th, 2021 at 01:08 Comment on the AskWoody Lounge
ISSUE 18.10 • 2021-03-15 PROFILES
By Chris Husted
Is he having fun yet?
Late last year, after 28 years of publishing everything everyone needed to know about Windows, esteemed AskWoody founder Woody Leonhard retired. He disappeared from our screens, but never drifted far from our thoughts. That voice we had grown accustomed to, calling out Windows for its shortfalls – sometimes with a roar, sometimes a grumble, but never a whimper – had gone.
Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.10.0 (2021-03-15).
This story also appears in the AskWoody Free Newsletter 18.10.F (2021-03-15). -
Windows’ semi-secret “back door” still exists!
Posted on March 15th, 2021 at 01:06 Comment on the AskWoody LoungeLANGALIST
By Fred Langa
All current Windows, including Win10 20H2, contain an old, sneaky workaround that lets you log in to a PC even if the usernames and passwords are scrambled, unknown, or forgotten.
You can even use this method to create a new administrator account on a PC that doesn’t have one and then use that new account to log on and perform recovery or repair operations.
Plus: Win8/10’s free, automated, Robust File Copy — Robocopy — to the rescue!
Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.10.0 (2021-03-15).
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Windows and Linux Interoperability
Posted on March 15th, 2021 at 01:04 Comment on the AskWoody LoungeLINUX
By Sandra Henry-Stocker
If you, like me, have both Windows and Linux systems on your network, you don’t have to walk from one desk to another to work on each of them in an isolated fashion.
Instead, there are some very useful options for Windows-Linux interoperability. They allow you to move files between the systems, log in from one system to the other, and mount file shares so that you can use Linux files on Windows or vice versa. You can even run commands remotely between the systems. In this article, we’ll take a quick look at these options.
Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.10.0 (2021-03-15).
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A $1,000 hot technology? It’s quite a steal.
Posted on March 15th, 2021 at 01:02 Comment on the AskWoody LoungePUBLIC DEFENDER
By Brian Livingston
Every technology has unintended consequences, but this is ridiculous.
Essential elements in the devices we use every day — lithium, platinum, palladium, rhodium, basic semiconductors — are soaring in price as demand outstrips the facilities we humans have built to extract and produce them.
It’s gotten so bad that common street thieves are stripping tech parts from autos and trucks simply to fence the “hot” components, which are literally worth more than their weight in gold.
Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.10.0 (2021-03-15).
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March madness drives printers to blue screen
Posted on March 15th, 2021 at 01:00 Comment on the AskWoody LoungePATCH WATCH
By Susan Bradley
The month of March is not starting off well for those of us who patch Windows 10 machines.
Patchers who have installed the March Windows 10 updates are reporting that upon printing to various printers, they receive a blue screen of death (BSOD), thus crashing their machines. While it doesn’t appear to impact every Windows machine/printer combination, it is widespread enough that Microsoft pulled these particular updates while it investigates.
Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.10.0 (2021-03-15).
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MS-DEFCON 1 – Blue screens of death triggered by patches
Posted on March 10th, 2021 at 17:23 Comment on the AskWoody LoungeISSUE 18.9.2 • 2021-03-10
PATCH WATCH
By Susan Bradley
Don’t patch!I’ve moved the patching alert status to DEFCON 1.
I don’t do this lightly but we are seeing issues with printing after the March updates are installed. Ghacks reports blue screens of death (BSOD) are being triggered after printing. At the moment, it is unclear whether this is the result of the March operating system updates or just the Windows 10 versions, but for sure the Windows 10 releases are triggering these blue screens of death.
Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Alert 18.9.2 (2021-03-10).
Learn more about MS-DEFCON! -
MS-DEFCON 2 — It’s time to defer March updates
Posted on March 8th, 2021 at 14:45 Comment on the AskWoody LoungeISSUE 18.9.1 • 2021-03-08
By Susan Bradley
It’s the start of the patching week.
We are a day away from the official start of patching season. While Microsoft started the March patching madness early, with a critical patch needed for its mail servers, we have yet to see what’s in store for those of us that merely use their Windows as workstations.
Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Alert 18.9.1 (2021-03-08).
Learn more about MS-DEFCON! -
Using Windows 10 Quick Assist in reverse
Posted on March 8th, 2021 at 01:08 Comment on the AskWoody LoungeISSUE 18.9 • 2021-03-08
QUICK TIP
By Will Fastie
Instead of helping someone with remote control, Quick Assist can be used as a demonstration tool.
The simple difference between a screen-sharing tool (Skype, Zoom) and a remote-control tool such as Quick Assist is that the latter is one-way. Once the session is underway, the roles of the two systems involved cannot be swapped.
Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.9.0 (2021-03-08).
This story also appears in the AskWoody Free Newsletter 18.9.F (2021-03-08).
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