Tag: microsoft | Scottie's Tech.Info

Upgrade your motherboard without reinstalling Windows 10

You’ve upgraded to Windows 10. All is well.

But then one day, you decide to upgrade your motherboard, processor, and RAM…

With Windows 7, you didn’t have anything to worry about. Most likely, Windows would reactivate after your upgrade, and if it didn’t, an automated phone call to Microsoft was all it took to get back up and running.

But then came Windows 10: You now have a digital entitlement, which then changed to a digital license, which means… ??? Furthermore, until recently your ONLY option was to reinstall everything.

So how the heck do you reactivate Windows 10 after a major hardware upgrade?

Download Windows Essentials 2012 because it’s going bye-bye

Last month, I wrote a lovely article entitled How to remove date stamps from photos in Windows 7, 8 and 10. The trick was to use Windows Photo Gallery since it’s a pretty powerful and handy bit of photo-organizing and editing software.

Apparently, Microsoft will end support for Photo Gallery (and all of Windows Essentials 2012) on January 10, 2017. That’s in a few short weeks!

Fear not though, because it’s still available for download now from MS’s site. And even after January 10th, you can download the full version below!

Windows 10: Can’t uninstall Microsoft Security Essentials? No problem!

You upgrade to Windows 10. All seems to be going well.

There’s only one problem: Every time you reboot, you get an error message about Microsoft Security Essentials.

“No problem!” you think. I’ll just uninstall it. Nope!

Worse yet, Windows 10 is very confused, since Windows Defender is basically the same program. Defender won’t run, and neither will Security Essentials.

What to do? Read on!

Protect your Privacy in Windows 10

Oh, boy.

It seems that everybody is up in arms about the diabolical new Windows 10 features that – by default – share quite a bit of private data with Microsoft.

This revelation was coupled with a new Privacy Policy released by Microsoft on 1 August 2015.

I’ve read the policy, and frankly, it isn’t much different than anybody else’s policy these days. Privacy is out; spying is in!

Fortunately, it appears that in a few easy steps, you can easily turn off most of these “features” and thereby make Windows 10 far more privacy-friendly.

10+ Fixes for Common Problems in Windows 10

Well, Windows 10 is out, and you might have already installed it.

As usual, a few things are “broken”, and there a few other things that some people will find rather different/annoying.

And as usual, it’s pretty easy to fix most of it.

For those of you who still haven’t even been able to upgrade to Windows 10, Fix #1 should take care of that problem.

Once you’re done, check out the other 9+ tips and tricks!

Windows 10 Preview: Yes, they’re fixing everything

If you’ve been anxiously awaiting Windows 9, you’re in for a long wait. But Windows 10 will be coming next year!

You see, the official explanation is apparently that, “7 8 9” – 7 ate 9 – so Microsoft will be going straight to Windows 10. Isn’t that cute? No, because Windows 8 still sucks.

Furthermore, instead of releasing Windows 10 in April 2015, we now apparently have to wait until the end of next year. Because, ya know, taking Windows 8 and making it not suck takes way, way longer than making that much-hated “Start Screen” in Windows 8.x.

You may recall me ranting about why I left Win 8 and switched back to Windows 7.

So, the question on everybody’s mind is: Will the next version of Windows fix everything wrong with Windows 8?

The State of Technology Address at the End of 2013

Oh, 2013, what a high-tech year you were!

From the general recognition (finally) that the US government was spying on everyone, everyone’s dog, and everyone’s dog’s lawn presents, to the almighty Mobile Revolution, to the 64-bit iPhone with 2X the awesome, to the complete abortion that is Windows 8/8.1…

Yes, it was a year to remember in the tech world.

Pay no attention to all those fireballs everyone was talking about.

As 2014 rolls in, I thought I would take a brief, syrupy-sweet and fluffy look at The State of Technology.

Goodbye Google Translate, Hello Bing Translate!

Until recently, I got a lot of use out of Google Translate. It worked great, it was fast, and its web page translations were good enough.

But then, something changed.

Now when I use Google Translate in Firefox to translate a certain URI, it seems to get stuck in some kind of loop and then craps out.

So I found a lovely alternative: Bing Translate!

Download the Elusive Windows Live Standalone Installer

Let’s say you’ve just installed Windows 7, and you notice that Windows Photo Gallery is now missing. That’s because it was pulled out of the OS and plopped into the Windows Live Essentials 2011 suite.

Well, that’s not so bad, because Windows Live is free. You need to download the Live installer, which will then allow you to download only the apps you want. The problem comes when you have to do this on multiple machines with a limited internet connection.

Windows updates can be downloaded in standalone form, so why not Windows Live? It’s just not very convenient. Surely there is a standalone installer that you can download once and install later on multiple machines??

In fact, there is. It’s just a huge pain in the arse to find it, especially on Microsoft’s web site.

Not to worry! I found it for you. Watch out, though: it’s 138MB! You can still install only the apps you want, but no internet connection is required and it’s perfectly friendly for low-bandwidth connections.

UPDATE: It’s now called Windows Essentials 2012. Click the button below to download!

Have fun!