If your computer is running Windows 10, and it meets the requirements to upgrade to Windows 11, you might be tempted to try it.

 

If you know how to do that upgrade, you’ll probably be fine. There are a few minor differences, but there’s not a huge learning curve from Windows 10 to Windows 11.

However – if you do that upgrade and you’re not quite sure you want to stay with Windows 11, you need to make up your mind pretty quickly. From the time you do the upgrade, you have 10 days to decide if you want to switch back to Windows 10.

My guess is that once you have done that upgrade, you will just go ahead and stay with Windows 11 for two main reasons:

1. It’s not difficult to make the transition and just start using it
2. You’ll have to upgrade to Windows 11 eventually anyway, and now it’s done.

For the record, you don’t need to upgrade to Windows 11 yet. Windows 10 is supported until October 2025.

The post 422 Trying Windows 11? You have 10 days to switch back first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Based on 22 years as a computer tech, I highly recommend that you set a restore point before installing any new software.

A restore point is a snapshot of your system settings and files at a specific point in time. It can be used to restore your system to its previous state in case something goes wrong during software installation or any other system changes.

Installing new software on your computer can sometimes have unforeseen consequences, such as conflicts with other programs, causing system instability or even crashes. Without a restore point, it can be challenging to revert back to a previous state if something goes wrong. A restore point ensures that you have a backup plan and can easily undo any changes made to your system.

To create a restore point:

1. Click the Start menu and type “create a restore point” in the search box.
2. Click the “Create a Restore Point” option from the search results.
3. In the System Properties window, click the “Create” button.
4. Give your restore point a name, such as “Before Software Install.”
5. Click “Create” again and wait for the process to complete.

Once the restore point has been created, it’s time to install your new software. If anything goes wrong during installation, you can easily use the restore point to revert to the previous state. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start menu and type “system restore” in the search box.
2. Click the “System Restore” option from the search results.
3. In the System Restore window, select the restore point you created before installing the software.
4. Click “Next” and then “Finish.”
5. Wait for the restore process to complete.

By creating a restore point before installing any new software, you can easily undo any changes made to your system and ensure that your computer is running smoothly. It’s a simple step that can save you a lot of time and frustration in the long run. So, don’t forget to set a restore point before your next software installation!

The post 421 Create a restore point BEFORE any install first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

I used and recommended LastPass as the best password manager for years. But it’s time for a change.

The idea behind a password manager program is that it can remember all of your passwords for you. So you don’t have to use easy-to-remember passwords that are insecure. And you don’t have to use the same password for all of your accounts (really bad idea).

And LastPass was the choice for most computer security professionals for a long time. My first blog post recommendation here was around 10 years ago.

But Lastpass has unfortunately gone downhill. In recent months, LastPass has been compromised multiple times by hackers trying to get at user data. In one case, a Lastpass employee’s home computer was hacked and some user data was possibly obtained. And a recent update from LastPass broke something in the program – I was not even able to log in to my bank account using it.

Also, LastPass has been criticized because their announcements of these breaches have not fully stated the severity of what happened. They have tried to balance giving out all the necessary information with trying to maintain a positive image as a company.

So, I have been doing research in order to learn what to recommend. There are a few password manager programs to choose from. My  recommendation is a program called BitWarden. There is a consensus among security techs that it is strong and trustworthy. And, I’ve been using it now for about a month and I’m happy with it.

You can get Bitwarden at Bitwarden.com.

There is a free version for personal use, but there’s also a $10 annual subscription that gives you some more features.

Setting up your account is easy. Like most password manager programs, it can run as an extension inside Chrome or other browsers to make it really easy to login to all your website accounts. Bitwarden can also generate really good passwords for you so you don’t have to sit and try to think of random letters and numbers to come up with something.

Here’s the basic process to migrate over from LastPass:

• Export all of your password info from your LastPass account, and save that in a spreadsheet temporarily on your computer.
• Install the Bitwarden extension in your browser (such as Chrome).
• Import your password info from the saved spreadsheet into Bitwarden.

There are some details involved in each of those steps, but it’s too much to include here. If you need help moving from LastPass to Bitwarden (or getting started with a password manager for the first time), I can handle that for you through my Remote Support Service.

For settings in Bitwarden, my personal preference is to have the login information autofill whenever the account page loads – it just makes things easier. I also set the vault timeout to “Never” – but you might prefer a different option, depending on your computer and level of concern for security.

I highly recommend a password manager program. Everything I have seen so far tells me that Bitwarden is a good option.

The post 420 It’s time to switch away from LastPass first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

I’m still seeing a LOT of these showing up, and clients still contact me to see if they are legitimate. Here’s how to identify this scam.

 

There’s a good chance you’ve gotten one of these emails at some point over the past several months. The scammers have been sending out a LOT of them – sometimes over 200,000 in a single day.

They tend to follow a predictable format. They are supposedly being sent from Norton or McAfee, and the basic message is that your credit card will be charged $199, $299, or even $399 (the dollar amount varies) to renew the service that you have supposedly subscribed to.

 

Of course, the recipients of these emails are not going to be charged anything. That’s just to get your attention.

The REAL goal of these scam emails is to get you to call the phone number. They know that people will read this and think, “Wait a minute, I don’t subscribe to those crappy antivirus programs – what’s going on?” And the person will see that big notice that says “For information about your order, please call…”. Or it might even say, “To cancel this renewal charge, call this number”. And of course the person doesn’t want to pay that charge, so they call the number.

That’s the big mistake here – calling the phone number. That’s exactly what they want you to do. Never call the number.

When you make that phone call, you will be talking to a professional scammer who is very good and very clever at this game. He will sound very convincing. A lot of people are tricked by this.

When the scammer has you on the phone, he will tell you that he needs to remote in to your computer in order to uninstall the software and process your refund. But in the background, he’ll be installing other malicious software and more unattended remote access tools – so that he can get into your computer anytime, even when you’re not on the phone with him.

If the scammer senses that you are especially gullible, he might ask you for your credit card information in order to “process the refund”. You obviously don’t want to give a scammer your credit card information.

The key to success is this: if you get an email stating that you owe some money, or that your credit card will be charged, or has been charged, don’t call the number on the email. In fact, if you want to, you can forward the email to me at [email protected] and ask if it’s legitimate.

I have one client who gets a lot of these emails. Every time she would call me or email me asking if it’s legit. Finally I told her to just put a note near her computer to remind her that these are all just scams. Then I was in her home recently, and saw this on her desk. Smart!

 

The post 386 The Norton and McAfee billing scam first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Do you have all your photos automatically saved to your Google Photos account? What if you want to download all those photos and save them to your computer? Here’s how.

 

Storing all of your photos on Google Photos is a good thing. It’s kind of like an automatic backup for the photos you take on your phone, and it’s free.

But over time, you can accumulate a LOT of photos on there. And if that’s the only place where those photos are saved, it would make me a little nervous. What if your Google account gets hacked into, and you no longer have access to it? Or something else happens, and you can’t log in? I’m a lot more comfortable if all those photos – which might represent years or even decades of events – are stored in a second location. Specifically, my computer.

When you have all those photos also stored on your computer, you have control of that. In addition, if you follow my recommendations, you’re backing up your computer regularly. So that means those photos would also be backed up. When you store your important things in more than one place, one of them can go haywire and you still have the others.

And how do you get these photos from Google Photos to your computer? Well, you could right click and download them one at a time. If you only have a few, that might be okay. But most people have hundreds or even thousands of photos there. So we need a more efficient process.

For this we’ll use a service that Google provides, called Google Takeout. It’s at takeout.google.com.

When you go there and log in to your Google account (if you’re not already logged in), you’ll see LOTS of data that Google is storing for you. Your Chrome history, your calendar, your contacts, and many more things.

But for this exercise we’re just concerned about the photos. So at the top of the list of data, click where it says “Deselect all”, then scroll down to the Google Photos section and check that one box out to the right:

And if you did not already know this, you’ll also be downloading all of your videos that are stored there as well.

Now, scroll all the way to the bottom and click on Next Step.

Now you can choose the option that says “Export once” (unless you want to set this up on a recurring schedule). I recommend keeping the “.zip” file format:

 

Now click on Create Export in the lower right.

And here’s where we wait. In fact, we might be waiting quite some time. Google will even tell you, it might take hours for them to complete this task. They even say it might take days. Not much you can do about it though; it’s going to take however long it takes. When it’s done, you’ll get an email (at your Gmail email address) to let you know they have created the export. Now all you have to do is click the link to download it. Once the download is on your computer, you can store the files where you want. You can leave them inside the zipped folders, or you can take them out and store them in your Pictures folder, whatever you prefer. The important thing is that they are still on Google Photos, and they are also stored on your computer. And after your next overnight backup, they will also be on your backup drive. The post 385 How to download all of your Google Photos images first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

If your computer is currently running Windows 10, like most Windows computers currently are, there’s a new major update that’s just been released – it’s Windows 11. It’s not something you want yet.

For quite some time, Microsoft said that the last version of Windows would be Windows 10. They said they would just continue to update it, as they’ve always done.

But as they have done in the past, what Microsoft said they would do turned out to be different from what they actually did. Windows 11 was officially released on October 5, 2021 – just 3 weeks ago.

The general rule for any software is that you don’t want to use it when it first comes out. The old saying “Pioneers get arrows, settlers take the land” sort of applies with computer software. The early versions will likely have bugs. So you definitely don’t want to put new software on any computer that you have to rely on.

Right now, Microsoft is saying that Windows 11 will be rolled out gradually. Most people probably won’t see it come in automatically until after the first of the year (2022). But, once again, Microsoft’s actions are subject to change. Remember when Windows 10 came out, and they said you don’t have to get it if you don’t want to? But LOTS of people ended up seeing it on their computers even after opting very clearly to NOT get it.

I can’t really say for sure if Microsoft will force it in. What I can say is that Windows 10 is working fine, and it will be supported until October 14 of 2025. That’s 4 more years to use your current computer and your current operating system. I might jump into Windows 11 before Windows 10 ends, but definitely not right now.

So how do you keep Windows 11 from coming into your computer?

At the moment, it’s not a very simple process. I’ve done this for several clients remotely already. These are the basic steps:

1. Check computer’s internal drive to make sure it’s healthy
2. Check to confirm that the computer has been fully backed up
3. Check how long it’s been since the last restart (and restart if needed)
4. Create a new restore point (so we can get back to the current state if something goes wrong)
5. Back up the registry (again, playing it safe if things go haywire)
6. Add two (or three) specific things to the Windows Registry
7. Restart the computer

Here is my official position on the process I just described above: I do not recommend you do this, unless you are a computer tech and understand what you are doing.

The Windows Registry is like the “brain” of the Windows operating system. So going in and editing it is kind of like doing brain surgery on your computer. If you know what has to be done (in step 6 above) and you know how to do it, it’s fine. If you’re not sure, or you make one mistake in the Registry, your computer may not boot up again.

I’ve been doing this now for a couple of weeks for my current clients. I can do it through my Remote Support service (pricing and details here). Call or email me if you have any questions about it. Whoever you hire to do this, make sure they know what they are doing.

Once Windows 11 is blocked from coming in, you have 4 years to decide what to do. By that time, you might even decide it’s time to get a new computer. And of course, the new computer will have Windows 11 already installed.

The post Blocking Windows 11 from coming in first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

If your hard drive starts to show signs of failure, you want to know that as soon as possible. Here’s how to get that alert nice and early.

When someone says to you, “I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?” what do you say? For me, I am a “bad news first” kind of person. Get it out of the way and on to the good stuff. And if it pertains to my computer, even more so.

If my computer’s hard drive is having a problem, I want to know about it as soon as possible. The earlier it can be detected, the earlier it can be fixed. It also means there’s less of a chance of losing any important data (even though I do two different backups every day).

So I have a system that is completely automated, and it checks the health of my computer’s internal drive daily. And here’s some good news:

1. This process/system is completely free
2. It’s easy to set up

Here’s how you do it.

First, you install a little program called Crystal Disk Info. I’ve written about it before. You can get it here. There are different programs listed on the website but what you want is CrystalDiskInfo Standard Edition. Just click on the Installer option, and it will download. Then you can install it. It won’t try to sneak anything else on to your computer.

So now you have it installed, but it doesn’t do anything unless you double click the desktop icon to run it. When you run it, it will show you a window with a button that says Good, Caution, or Bad. That’s really the only indicator you need to look at. If it says Good, just close the window and go on with using your computer. If it says Caution or Bad, your hard drive is most likely in the process of failing so we need to deal with that.

But I said this whole thing is automated, right? That means we need to set it up so that you don’t have to try to remember to run Crystal Disk Info regularly. Here’s how:

Open the program, then at the top click on Function. In the drop down menu, look for the word Startup, and click it.

 

This means that every time your computer starts up, Crystal Disk Info will run automatically. And you’ll see the report about your hard drive’s health.

For me, that means every single day. My nightly routine, when I’m done using my computer for the day, is to restart it and then plug in the overnight backup drive. So when I restart it, I see the drive health report first thing.

If you don’t do this, your computer’s drive could be in the process of failing for several days or weeks and you wouldn’t even know about it. Better to find out early and take action!

The post Check your hard drive health every day – automatically first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Did you know that Google Chrome can run a quick Safety Check on your computer? Here’s how to do it.

 

Open Chrome, and click the 3 dots in the top right, and choose Settings.

Then, scroll down to the Safety Check session and click on “Check now”.

Chrome will take a few seconds and check for:

1. Is Chrome up to date?
2. Are there unsafe passwords stored in Chrome? (My recommendation is that you don’t store ANY passwords in Chrome or any other browser.)
3. Is browsing protection enabled?
4. Is Chrome running any malicious extensions?
5. Is there harmful software running on your computer?

This is what the results on my computer looked like:

If you’re practicing safe computing, and your computer is properly protected, the Chrome Safety Check shouldn’t find any problems. If the Safety Check does alert you to something that needs to be fixed, and you’re not sure what to do, contact me.

Keep in mind, this is a very basic checkup. Your computer may have problems or security issues that would not be detected by this Chrome process. Be sure to have good security on your computer, and make sure all your software is kept up to date (this can be automated).

The post How to do a Safety Check using Chrome first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

There are some people who use computers, but don’t do text messages.  That sometimes presents a problem for them, but there’s a way to get around it.

 

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.

When you go to set up a new Microsoft account, one of the things they will want you to provide is a phone number – and they assume this will be a cell phone that receives text messages. Microsoft is not asking for your phone number so that they can text you all the time with spam messages. They want to have that in place in case you ever need to verify your identity.

This usually comes into play when you forget your Microsoft password. When you click on the “Forgot password” link, they’ll offer to send you a text message to the phone number you have on file, in order for you to prove that you are the person who owns that Microsoft account. Then you can reset the password. It’s a pretty quick recovery process, but you have to have that phone number already on file with them in order to do that.

But sometimes I’ll have a client who has just never bothered with text messaging. So they don’t really know how to get a text message. Or, maybe they’re using an older style phone, or a no-contract phone that doesn’t do text messaging. We come to the place where you have to get a confirmation text message in order to configure the new Microsoft account, but how do you do that when you can’t get a text message on your phone?

Google, of course!

If you have a Gmail email account, you already have the ability to do this. Just go to this website: voice.google.com and  sign in with your Gmail email address and password.

Then, just go through their process of setting up a Google Voice phone number. You can even choose one that starts with your own area code if you’re in the US (not sure how it works outside the US). Once you have your phone number assigned to your account, you can use the Google Voice service to make outbound calls, or for people to call you at that number. And guess what – you can also send and receive text messages from that number! All the instructions and configurations are at the website, voice.google.com.

So when Microsoft (or any other website) needs a phone number that receives text messages, just give them your Google Voice phone number. In fact, you might want to use that number even if you are able to get text messages on your actual phone – might help reduce the number of spam message you get on your phone.

 

 

The post An alternative way to send or receive text messages first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

When you’re online, do you find yourself constantly having to manually type in your name and address when creating a new account? Here’s how to do that with one click.

 

You know what I’m talking about. You see something on the internet you want to purchase, and it’s for sale on some website where you haven’t bought anything in the past. So you need to create an account.

That means you have to type in your full name, your street address, your city and state, your zip or postal code, your phone number, etc. These are all things you’ve typed out a hundred times before. Why can’t your computer just remember these things and enter them FOR you.

Good news – it can!

This is a great feature that’s available in Chrome. I’m sure it’s in the other browsers as well, but I use Chrome mostly so that’s what I’ll be referring to here.

Chrome will store all of that personal identity information inside a special section in Chrome settings. Then, when you go to a website form that asks you to fill all of that out, Chrome recognizes that it’s a form and what it’s asking for, and offers you the option to have it all automatically completed.

Here’s how you set this up:

In Chrome, click the 3 dots up in the top right, then click on Settings

 

Now look for the section called “Autofill” and click on “Addresses and more”

Now, where it says “Save and fill addresses”, make sure that switch is turned on (to the right). And click the Add button to enter your address information –

In the next window that opens, you enter your information. There are places for your country, name, organization, street address, city, state, zip, phone and email –

Click Save and you’re done.

Now, if you want to test this, go and create a new account somewhere online. You’ll see that when you place your cursor in the “Name” field (or any of the other fields on that form), Chrome will offer you the option to auto-fill the form with whatever information you have stored.

A couple of things to also keep in mind:

First, you can store more than one set of info. For example, you might have a physical address, and a different address (such as PO Box) that you use for mail purposes. These can be stored separately and you can just use the appropriate one when needed.

Second, you can also store payment methods (such as your credit card information) in Chrome, but I don’t recommend doing that. I also don’t recommend storing your account passwords in Chrome. If anyone gets access to your computer (such as if it were to get lost or stolen), or someone hacks into your computer, they can get access to that information that is stored in Chrome and it could mean a huge headache for you.

The post Use Chrome to fill in your name and address first appeared on The Computer Tutor.

Your Windows computer has a clipboard feature that you are probably not even aware of!

 

Before I tell you today’s tip, a little background or “setup” information so that everyone is on the same page.

One of the most useful features of a computer is the ability to Cut and Paste or Copy and Paste. If you don’t use this, you should learn how to do it. It’s really easy and comes in very handy all the time.

Here’s how it works in a basic example – let’s say you have a Word document that has five paragraphs. You want to move the second paragraph down to the end of the document. Well, you could just retype the whole paragraph at the end, and then delete it from its original spot. That would achieve your end result. But there’s a much easier way!

You can highlight the entire paragraph, then tap CTRL + X (this is the “cut” part of Cut and Paste. When you do this, two things happen:

1. The paragraph disappears from the Word document (don’t worry, it’s not gone)
2. The paragraph gets stored temporarily on the clipboard (keep this in mind; we’ll come back to it)

Now, you go to the end of the document and put the cursor where you want that paragraph to appear. Now you tap CTRL + V (this is the “paste” part). And there’s your paragraph, where you want it.

That’s how Cut and Paste works.

If instead of CTRL + X, you did CTRL + C, that means you are “copying” instead of “cutting”. So when you paste, the paragraph will be at the end of the document, but it will also still be in its original position.

So what’s the clipboard?

When you Cut or Copy, whatever you have highlighted gets stored on the Clipboard. You won’t see this on the screen though. Think of the Clipboard as being an “invisible” thing that temporarily stores whatever you are cutting or copying. You can’t see it, but it’s there and it’s doing what it’s supposed to be doing.

So that’s the background of how Copy/Paste and Cut/Paste works. Now here’s today’s cool tip:

You can actually view the past items you have put on your clipboard, and paste them over and over. Here’s how: hold down the Windows key, and tap the letter “v”. Windows + v.

You’ll see a little window pop up on your screen, and there are the last several items you’ve cut or copied. I’m not sure how many it’s able to display, but I just checked mine and it shows the last 16 items.

So if you need to paste something over and over, you don’t have to go back to the original, highlight it, and copy it again. Just click to display the Windows Clipboard, and grab it from there.

And by the way, it doesn’t matter if you copied text or an image – they will all show up in the Windows Clipboard.

The post How to view your clipboard history first appeared on The Computer Tutor.