windows.do Posts

Windows 7 End of Life January 14, 2020

Every dog has his day and we’re now rapidly approaching end of life for the venerable desktop operating system, Windows 7.  This means that after January 14th 2020 there will be no further security or stability patches released for the operating system. Operating systems are…

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Getting Started with Hyper-V in Windows

If you use Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise, you can create Virtual Machines (VM) that will run on your desktop.  These can run test or evaluation environments for a variety of operating systems, including Windows and Linux.  These VMs run in Hyper-V which you can…

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Block Internet Access in Windows 7

Some people need will really to continue using Windows 7 after support ends on January 14th 2020.  This will be for mission-critical purposes, such as operating machinery or static equipment.  If this is the case you should ensure that the PC is completely isolated from…

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View the Reliability History of your PC

If you experience problems on your PC, you can get useful and easy to understand information about crashes and errors from the Reliability Monitor.  To open this, search for reliability in the Start Menu.  This displays a graph showing different days, and events on your PC over…

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Boost your Productivity with Windows key shortcuts

Access Special Characters Easily in Windows

It can be quite often on a PC when you need access to special characters such as foreign currency symbols, specialist mathematical characters, or common foreign language characters.  Traditionally in Windows you’ve had to open the Character Map app, find the right character, and in the…

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How to Pause Updates in Windows 10, and Why You Might Want To

Looking Back: The Windows 7 Power Users Guide

As Windows 7 finally ends all support I looked back at the book that started it all, my self-published Windows 7 Power Users Guide.  I had previously written a 68 page Power Users Guide for Windows Vista which the new media editor at Windows Vista:…

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Customise and Configure your Laptop’s Trackpad

If you use Windows 10 on a laptop you can configure and customise your trackpad to help you get more from it, and work in more of a way that makes you both comfortable and productive.  From Settings, open Devices and then Touchpad.  Here you will find options…

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Search for Files, Documents and More in Windows

Microsoft have revamped the search facility in Windows 10 to make it much simpler to use.  You can search either from typing when the Start Menu is open, or by clicking in the search box, or the magnifying glass icon that sits next to the…

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Taming and Controlling Windows Update

Windows Update can sometimes be a pain.  While it’s both necessary and helpful to have security and stability updates automatically delivered to your PCs, this all too often results in restarts and downloads happening at the most unhelpful times. Fortunately it’s very easy to control…

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