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I like the snipping tool so much I remove my third party screen capture utility.
As for zoomit, no thanks. Microsoft’s Magnifier easily works a treat with everything I throw at it. (Windows 10 Pro)
I have both of these pinned to my task bar as I use them so often.

I’m somewhat comfortable with Defender but not completely. I have MalwareBytes anti-malware Premium and Malwarebytes anti-exploit Premium running as well. And for the machine I use for work, my employer insists on a specific commercial solution (which shall remain nameless ’cause I don’t like it).

I followed the Microsoft instructions here, and they worked jsut fine on a 16 GB USB3 thumb drive. It detected the thumb drive in seconds (seemed instant). I didn’t have any other external drives plugged in at the time. I have all the Win 10 updates installed. My Windows 10 Pro is the 64 bit version.

If you have the full acrobat client you can do it. even images can be OCR’d under Acrobat’s full package. But not with Acrobat Reader, I think.

I purchased the Intel Compute Stick with Windows 10 Home edition the other day. I’m delighted with it. I’m using it for streaming internet videos to my 79″ TV screen. Works a charm.

When I bought it, it needed to do heaps of Windows 10 updates. One of them wouldn’t take, as it needed an extra 14 GB or so above the built-in disc storage (the device only comes with 32 GB just under half of that gobbled up by the OS). So I added a 64 GB MicroSD card and tried again and this time the windows updates completed okay (took hours). Probably a 32 GB memory card would’ve done the trick, but I only had 64. It can take up to 128 GB. After that I did a system disk cleanup to remove the “old” windows files (a very long wait again) and got much of the disc space back on C:

I configured the OS to automatically save files and apps to the SD card D: instead of C:. I also created a separate normal user account to run my netflix in.

My hardware setup:
Intel Compute Stick with 2 GB memory and 32 GB on board (I assume SSD) drive.
I added a 64 GB MicroSD card.
The device has bluetooth capability, Wifi (single frequency) and a single USB2 port and single HDMI port.
The USB port can power a 4-way USB hub, but no bigger. The specs say if you want a bigger hub (say 8-way) it needs to be self-powered, not bus powered).
The 2 A power adapter that came with it has a micro-USB connection.

I tried it with a wireless keyboard/mouse via the USB port and internet via the wifi. Works fine
Tried it with a 3-port USB hub that also has a LAN port built in. Works fine with my wired LAN and the keyboard.

I found a BIOS update on Intel’s support site that has Bluetooth keyboard support for the BIOS system, so I copied that to a USB stick and ran it from the unpowered USB hub on the Compute stick. New bios installed fine.
Tested bluetooth keyboard under the new BIOS and it works fine for me, but it’s still experimental.

What am I using it for? For now I’m just using it to stream HD Netflix over WiFi to my very large TV via the HDMI port. I’m using the Windows 10 netflix app. I get very little to no noticeable jitter or pauses when watching movies this way. I’m very impressed. Means I don’t have to sacrifice my laptop to the purpose. I’m using an integrated wireless keyboard with trackpad combo and it works fine as a TV remote.

The device supports an Intel remote keyboard via an android or Apple mobile phone or tablet app, and I tested that via an android tablet and it works okay, but I can’t comprehend why they don’t also have an app for Windows Phone (which is my preference).

All in all a fun device and has its uses for me. By the way, my VPN works too.

I want to install a VPN I am using windows 10, I have done some research and it appears that most people like the functionality of, Private Internet Access, plus the price points, monthly and yearly. The installation appears to be very easy.

Could I get some input from this community as to your thoughts on Private Internet Access.

Thanks
Brian

I haven’t used that VPN, but I do use StrongVPN. Windows 10 has VPN support built right in (So does Windows 8/8.1). Once you have VPN account and credentials, it’s easy enough to plug them into Win 10. See http://strongvpn.com/setup_windows_10_pptp.html for how I do it via StrongVPN (it will also tell you what your IP address is at the top of the screen when you visit the site so you can test if it’s working). I believe this would work for others, as all you need is the VPN server address, and the username and password the VPN provider has given to you.
hth
(FWIW, I use Win 10 Pro, 64 bit on a Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro 1370 convertible notebook/tablet with an Intel Core m processor)

Don’t worry, you’ll have 200 years to sort it out, approx.

I have read it again, but cannot find what the future holds for my “lifetime” subscription, which lasts until 2207-07-11 – heaven forfend that this should be an accurate estimate of my lifetime.

The fact that this has been obfuscated suggests that the answer may be unattractive, i.e. that Penton publications group is going to be looking for more money from me. Please, though, just spell it out!

Thanks for the clear information about the changes. I’ll go have a look at the supersite, as I haven’t been there before so it’ll be interesting to trawl through there (I hope!).
One ball that seems to have been dropped from your article though, concerning mobile technology, is the Windows Phone platform. I’m a WP user and wouldn’t want to go back to Android, and certainly wouldn’t want to voluntarily enter Apple’s ecosystem either (been there, tried that, and I’m out of there). Would you please consider making the Windows Secrets or SuperSite app available on the Windows Phone platform too? Without a WP app, the other apps would be useless to me.
Thanks for considering this.
Paul

The Windows screen magnifier in Win10 is Window key and the Plus (+) key. This also brings up a little menu where you can control the magnification step granularity. Reduction is Windows and the Minus (-) key, and normal (no magnification) is Windows and Escape keys.
Regards,
Paul

Re the section on “Older apps cause QHD display glitch in Win10” I too have a Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro with QHD screen and experience this issue. I installed my Win 10 64 bit as a totally clean install and have the same display probs. The only solution I’ve found is to set the display resolution to 1920×1080 same as my external monitor, then I can see all the windows. If I go to the native 3200 resolution I have to use 250% magnification in the screen settings for normal, but many popup windows are just too tiny to read. The only solution to this is to use the Windows magnifier on those screens (Win and + key).
Also, my external 3D monitor was connected by a Lenovo USB3 hub and HDMI to that, but when I install the DisplayLink drivers (the latest are certified for Win 10) the screen on both the monitor and the built-in display flash and jump around after a couple of days. I’m still investigating this. For now I can only use the micro-HDMI connector on the laptop directly to the display without the DisplayLink drivers. I have all the Lenovo Win 10 rated drivers of course.
Paul

I followed a path like this to do a clean install of Win 10 Pro – purchased a key from MS. Downloaded the 32 bit and 64 bit combined ISO and burnt that to a blueray disc (at 5-6 GB it was a tad too big for a DVD). Works just fine and gives me options for the other machines in my home. The blueray disc boots from a USB BD drive into the installer just fine, ad asks me which system (32 or 64 bit) I want to install.

One of the aspects of the UEFI interface is that the OS can “speak” directly to the UEFI/BIOS and make changes in the settings, such that the UEFI/BIOS menu doesn’t act like it did before an OS upgrade.

In my UEFI/BIOS (Intel manufactured motherboard) there is a setting that is unavailable to the OS which allows me to insert into the boot menu an option that will allow me to boot directly into UEFI before the OS boot menu ever presents itself. In order to restore this setting, I had to boot into the Intel UEFI Reset Defaults setting, which involves a complete shutdown, holding the start button down until 3 beeps are heard, then releasing the start button.

That allowed me to boot directly into UEFI reset to default. I then went back through the settings and made my preference changes, one of which was the option to boot directly into UEFI. The boot sequence pauses and waits for my input. F2 will take me into UEFI, and ESC will proceed with normal startup.

This option may or may not be available for your motherboard, but it might be worth looking into, in order to restore some personal control to your machine. I don’t have to go through the OS in order to boot into UEFI settings, which is a comfort in the event that the OS won’t boot for some reason.

On my Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro 1370, I have a OneKey Optimizer (ballpoint pen push) button that used to do that. but of course I lost that functionality when I deleted all the SSD partitions to do a clean install. So now I have to rely on the hooks in the OS and/or timing the pushing of F2 at cold boot time to get into the UEFI.Going in via an OS menu is much cleaner and less frustrating and avoids multiple power shutdowns (with risk to disk memory states)

Does EasyUEFI now install? Does it show what you expect?

cheers, Paul

Yes, Thanks. EasyUEFi now installs and behaves as advertised. Not so sure that the program is all that helpful though. Easier now to reboot to the real UEFI to make changes there, if needed, but at least it gives me a peek at some of my settings without having to reboot, so I might keep it.

The problem is now resolved….
Firstly, the EasyUEFI program wouldn’t install. It insisted it’d only install in a system that had UEFI – which mine does have.
HOWEVER: my UEFI settings were set to allow legacy boots, with UEFI as the first try. Although Win 10 will install either way, unless UEFI is set to be the ONLY boot option (i.e. no legacy support in the UEFI), it will install without UEFI support and require an MBR partition. When UEFI start ONLY is configured, Windows 10 will install with UEFI support and only on a GPT partition.

I tried setting the UEFI to UEFI start only, but Win 10 wouldn’t start. So I set it back and backed up all my data… Then set UEFI to UEFI-only, again, and reinstalled Windows 10. The installer didn’t like my MBR partition so I had to convert to GPT (a bit of fiddling involved with the diskpart program under Recovery), then everythink went fine with the new clean installation. Following the installation I checked the advanced recovery options and it now shows all the goodies I was missing before, including the boot to UEFI setting.

Once I got all that working, I went back to the UEFI settings and changed it to allow legacy booting as a secondary option and see if it still boots okay. That now works, Win 10 boots fine with UEFI/GPT, and legacy boot is still available at boot time (which I needed for some other software).

Lessons learned: Install Win 10 on a UEFI machine with UEFI-ONLY enabled if you want the Windows 10 hooking into the UEFI. Once the installation is done you can change the UEFI settings to allow legacy start as an option. Systems without UEFI (i.e. BIOS only) of course don’t get these “choices”.

You were in Advanced Startup? Did you re-boot? It should be available when you re-boot from Advanced Startup. See How to Access UEFI (BIOS) Settings on Windows 10, 8 and 8.1 for details.

Joe

Thanks Joe. Yes and Yes, and it wasn’t. Here’s some screen photos of the sequence. Sorry for photos, but screen shots only work when logged in…

[*]from the desktop (or anywhere, really) click the start button or the windows key:
41720-DSC_1971
[*]from the start button, click on Settings:
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[*]From the Settings tile menu select Update & Security:
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[*]From the Update & Security menu, select Recovery, then select Restart Now under the Advanced Startup item:
41723-DSC_1976
[*]After clicking Restart Now, the user is force logged off:
41724-DSC_1977
[*]After some wait, the Choose an Option menu is returned. Select Troubleshoot:
41725-DSC_1979
[*]Then I get the Advanced Options screen. The only option is Startup Settings. Select that:
41728-DSC_1980
[*]The only option on the Startup Settings is to click Restart.
41726-DSC_1981
[*] Clicking restart reboots the PC then takes me to the Startup Settings screen:
41727-DSC_1982
[*]From the Startup Settings screen I can go into 9 different startup modes or do a normal reboot, but none of them take me to the UEFI.
[*]So, please, what have I missed? The UEFI setting should’ve been on step 7 above, but its clearly not there. Lots of other stuff in your link aren’t there either.

Thanks again for all the comments. What I’m getting (on a totally clean install – full SSD repartition and reformat during the install process. No artifacts from previous installations present) is not what everyone else is seeing, apparently.

Paul