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One feature of Search that I used to use, but so far as I can see has been removed in a previous “improvement” is the ability to search for documents by date. There are numerous occasions when I know I drafted something this morning, yesterday, or last week, but can’t remember what I called it or where I (or Windows) put it, and search by date would find it for me.
Is it still there but well hidden, or is there an add-on or replacement for Search to restore this feature?

Whilst Banks use “authentication methods which are as secure or better than Authy or OAUTH”, all the ones which I’m aware of require the use of a mobile phone.  As Susan says, this leads to the risks associated with SIM-card attacks, and also means that you need to have a mobile signal as well as an internet connection in order to log in.

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rc primak

The eighth-generation processors were released in 2018, but this document on Windows Drivers is dated April 2020?
So it seems that a processor released in 2018 will comply with a document released two years later, but processors released before 2018 won’t comply!
Further on in the “Update on Windows 11 minimum system requirements” it says “As we release to Windows Insiders and partner with our OEMs, we will test to identify devices running on Intel 7th generation and AMD Zen 1 that may meet our principles.”
Is what they really mean that they have tested eighth-generation and later processors, but not earlier ones?
As various people have commented, it appears the only people who are going to gain from Windows 11 will be the OEM manufacturers, and the malware operators who can target people who continue using perfectly adequate Windows 10 systems after the OS is officially eol and therefore security issues are not being patched.

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rc primak

I followed your advice and put in the Registry Key to defer the next feature release and also altered Office to the semiannual channel.

It is now taking 4 minutes plus to open Word, Excel or Powerpoint files from One Drive or sometimes hanging completely! Trying to save a new Word file to One Drive also hangs with “Not Responding”. A few files that are only local open and save normally, as do non-Office files.

I’m running Microsoft 365 Family on Windows 10 Home version 20H2.

Advice please!

There is no mention of Canon printer drivers.

Am I OK un-pausing updates on Win 10 Home 2004 with a Canon printer?

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opti1

“Successful work-from-home staff need a dedicated workspace that’s quiet and free from distractions such as child care, pets, family interruptions, and various other background noise.”
That is all very well if you are recruiting someone to work-from-home on a regular basis, but the current situation is very different.
In the UK (and I assume the USA is much the same) schools and child-minders are shut except for the children of essential workers who cannot work from home.
Your pet will expect attention whilst you are at home, and will not realise that you are working from home because of a lockdown and cannot give it that attention.
Whilst most people would think twice before ringing their partner about something trivial during working hours, the situation is very different if the partner is in the next room, or even sitting alongside them at the same dining table!
Some people prefer absolute quiet as the best working environment whilst other prefer music (of various styles), and this is even more the case if there are children in the house.
This means that even people who normally work from home will have distractions such as child care, pets, family interruptions, and various other background noise in the current lockdown.
The boss cannot just say “You are going to work-from-home during the lockdown, and must have a dedicated workspace that’s quiet and free from distractions such as child care, pets, family interruptions, and various other background noise.” They need to say “You are going to work-from-home during the lockdown, and I realise you will have distractions such as child care, pets, family interruptions, and various other background noise. How can I enable you to be as productive as possible (hardware, software changes in your work), or is that impossible and I should put you on furlough during the lockdown?”

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Amy Babinchak, MrJimPhelps

Windows 8 desktop is actually better than Windows 7 desktop, even if for a small margin.

Is it possible to boot direct into the Desktop? I thought the boot could only go into that awful Metro interface (which is probably fine on a smart phone or tablet, but is ridiculous on a desktop with a widescreen monitor).

Thank you for this link – I’ve never previously seen that blog, which seems principally aimed at developers rather than users.
However, I think that jwitalka is being unduly alarmist in implying that Thunderbird is going to be frozen as it now is.
Looking at:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird/Proposal:_New_Release_and_Governance_Model,
which is a link from that blog post it says “we are proposing to adapt the Thunderbird release and governance model in a way that allows both ongoing security and stability maintenance as well as community driven innovations for the product”.
My reading is that they are stopping innovation, but continuing maintenance of Thunderbird. Unless there is any major change in email, I do not think there is much innovation needed, but, like any program, it does need maintenace, which they say it will get for the foreseeable future.

Why do you say:

Note that Mozilla is stopping future development of its Email program Thunderbird. I suspect both Thunderbird and Windows Live mail will be available for the forseeable future but will no longer be enhanced.

I can find nothing on getsatisfaction about future development of Thunderbird being discontinued, and the new version 14.0 was only issued yesterday!

I’m not familiar with the Bullzip PDF printer, but it appears to serve the same purpose as PDFCreator from Sourceforge, which I use on a regular basis, and find very effective if not entirely intuitive. The latter is under the GNU General Public License, whereas the Bullzip licence is described as “FREEWARE with limitations”, and therefore PDFCreator may be more suitable in some cases.

One issue I have found with PDFCreator, that probably also applies to the Bullzip PDF printer, when mixing scanned documents and those printed direct from other applications is a page size problem. Most PDF display software gives the default printer scaling as “Fit to printer margins” or similar wording. This needs to be switched to “None” before printing the scanned documents to a PDF, otherwise the scanned pages are smaller than the directly printed pages.

The office I worked in before I retired used Outlook on a professionally set up and maintained Exchange server, and I found it efficient and easy to use. However, on my home PC without the Exchange server I found it, as others have said, clunky and inefficient, and continued to use Messenger on a RISC PC.
I am now in the process of migrating everything off the RISC PC to my Windows machine (before the former dies), and Thunderbird is the best programme I have found for use on the Windows machine, it is free and being maintained. I do have issues with it, notably in composing HTML emails (which I have reluctantly adopted as they seem to have become standard) although it displays received ones without problem.

i use an email account provided to me by my phone company. about a year ago, they announced that they would use Gmail — so we all had to make up a Gmail addy. i still use my old address, but by going thru google, does this mean i am being ‘watched’ by google too?

It could be – Virgin Media (a UK cable company) started using Google Apps to manage its email service about 18 months ago, and all Virgin email addresses got the email about changes to the privacy policies. There has been an apology saying it was a mistake, and that “Google has no access to any personal, account or password information”, but there has not yet been any explanation of how or why the error occurred!

Another way is to start using another search engine. I have started using searchpage and this is based on Google.

For some time I have used EveryClick , which gives money to charity. It is now based on Yahoo, and I find it good for most searches, although occasionally I do have to resort to Google.:(

I have tried to find a search engine called “searchpage” using both EveryClick and Google without success – could you post a link please, but if it is based on Google there is a good chance that Google still get your information.

When converted, every page had an image of the text overlaying the text itself.

That is a technique used in Document Management Systems. When the company I worked for until I retired for installed a DMS, hard copy documents were scanned in this format so that if you look at or print them, they appear the same as the original, but the DMS software can index them and perform word searches on them.

I have searched both Microsoft’s website, and those of several vendors trying to find the details of how this pack can be used, but cannot find anything beyond the Microsoft statement “Package contains one disc with a license key that can be entered on as many as three machines.”

Can it validly be used on any three machines? Do all the PCs have to be in the same house, and owned by the same person or a relative?

Could I validly install one copy on my wife’s desktop, one on a laptop owned by our Church and one on a desktop belonging to my daughter who lives 125 miles away?

If there are restrictions, if I upgrade a PC using one of the Family Pack licences, then give it away or sell it, is the licence still valid?

I should be grateful if someone who has one of these packs can clarify the licence terms.