Newsletter Archives

• Getting rid of local administrators

  Posted on June 21st, 2021 at 02:41 Susan Bradley Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  ON SECURITY

  

  By Susan Bradley

  Administrator rights are easy to set up but hard to remove.

  Once upon a time, we always configured Windows computers with full administrative rights. We thought nothing of it; it was an expected and a normal part of getting a computer system ready to go. We took being an administrator for granted because we needed to install software and run programs that required administrator rights.

  Then people — attackers — began to realize that user accounts with administrative rights were the keys to the kingdom, making it easier for them to gain access to a system and do their dirty deeds.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.23.0 (2021-06-21).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, On Security Administrator account, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Patch Lady Posts, security, Standard account, Windows

• Targeted zero-day vulnerabilities; will more attacks be seen soon?

  Posted on June 14th, 2021 at 02:42 Susan Bradley Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  PATCH WATCH

  

  By Susan Bradley

  Solutions for six exploited vulnerabilities are included in this month’s patch releases.

  Months like these always leave me in a quandary. Sometimes fixes appear before anyone in the wild has been affected, but sometimes there are users who have been impacted. Should I urge everyone to immediately patch without testing? Or should I keep with my tried-and-true recommendations — don’t panic, and wait to ensure there are no side effects with these updates.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.22.0 (2021-06-14).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Patch Watch AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Patch Lady Posts, Patch Watch, Windows

• The Next Windows

  Posted on June 7th, 2021 at 02:44 Will Fastie Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  MICROSOFT NEWS

  

  By Will Fastie

  What is it? We don’t really know.

  By now, the news is out that Microsoft will host a livestream event on Thursday, June 24, 2021, at 11 a.m. Eastern Time. The event does not have a title; the livestream page on Microsoft’s site just says, “Join us to see what’s next for Windows.”

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.21.0 (2021-06-07).
  This story also appears in the AskWoody Free Newsletter 18.21.F (2021-06-07).

  AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft News, Windows News AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft, Microsoft News, Windows

• Win7 to Win10 activation trouble

  Posted on May 24th, 2021 at 01:03 Fred Langa Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  LANGALIST

  

  By Fred Langa

  A subscriber lost his Win7 product key and wonders what will happen if his free Win10 upgrade fails to properly activate, especially now that the old, manual “get a replacement key” methods no longer work!

  Surprisingly, the original product key might still exist in several unusual locations, even after the upgrade — but digging it out could take some doing. Here are the options, with additional information about what happens if you don’t activate!

  Plus: More on OneDrive’s permanent vs. impermanent local copies.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.19.0 (2021-05-24).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, LangaList AskWoody Plus Newsletter, LangaList, OneDrive, Windows, Windows Activation

• From bad to worse: A repair goes awry

  Posted on May 10th, 2021 at 01:04 Fred Langa Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  LANGALIST

  

  By Fred Langa

  Sometimes, well-intentioned repairs can actually make things worse than before. That’s what happened to a reader who was trying to correct a Windows login error but ended up with a completely unbootable PC!

  Is it possible for him to get Windows running again with its already installed software still intact and working? Or is a full reinstall in his future?

  Plus: The care and feeding of that little coin-cell battery on your PC’s mainboard.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.17.0 (2021-05-10).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, LangaList AskWoody Plus Newsletter, hardware, LangaList, Repairs, Windows

• A wide-ranging trio of questions

  Posted on March 22nd, 2021 at 01:06 Fred Langa Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  LANGALIST

  

  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).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, LangaList AskWoody Plus Newsletter, LangaList, Power settings, Windows

• Windows’ semi-secret “back door” still exists!

  Posted on March 15th, 2021 at 01:06 Fred Langa Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  LANGALIST

  

  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).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, LangaList AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Back Door, LangaList, Windows

• Windows and Linux Interoperability

  Posted on March 15th, 2021 at 01:04 Sandra Henry-Stocker Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  LINUX

  

  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).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Linux AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Linux, Windows

• Taking the plunge with a new PC

  Posted on June 3rd, 2019 at 02:20 Tracey Capen Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  Buying a new PC was once a fairly simple shop-and-buy process. There wasn’t much to consider beyond memory and drive capacity — and maybe an upgraded video card.

  But recent innovations have made choosing a new machine more complicated. Intel’s Optane technology, for example, claims to make a hard drive as responsive as an SSD!

  See the full story in the June 3, 2019, AskWoody Plus Newsletter (Issue 16.20.0)

  Hardware, LangaList, Tech Help AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Buying PCs, hardware, LangaList, Windows

• Windows 1903 gets its first update

  Posted on June 3rd, 2019 at 02:19 Tracey Capen Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  Microsoft’s most recent “feature release,” better known as Version 1903, received its very first patch — and it’s optional!

  What’s apparently fixed is the very thing that blocked my initial install of Version 1903. If an external USB device or SD memory card is plugged in, the device is reassigned to an incorrect drive letter during the installation process.

  See the full story in the June 3, 2019, AskWoody Plus Newsletter (Issue 16.20.0)

  Patch Watch, Windows Patches/Security AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Office, Patch Watch, patching, Windows

• Delete the updates?

  Posted on April 26th, 2009 at 06:36 woody Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  Reader RM writes:

  Woody,

  What happens to all the Vista Updates after they have been installed. Are these files still on my computer, and, can I delete them or just leave them alone?

  Many updates leave dregs on your hard drive, primarily because many updates can be “uninstalled” and the snippets are necessary to return your PC to its original state.

  Some people advise that you can delete the dregs, and give instructions for doing so manually. I say, “Why bother?” If you’re running out of room, follow the instructions in any of my books to run Windows Disk Cleanup. Better, go out and splurge $50 and get a second, big, hard drive. If you aren’t running out of room, fuhgeddaboutit.

  Other Delete updates, Disk Cleanup, Uninstall updates, Windows
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