We fix readers’ computing problems
APC and its readers can be one giant helpdesk. If you have a technical problem, chances are one of us can solve it.
DRIVERS MONITOR SCREEN STRETCHED I updated to the Windows 10 Anniversary Edition and now my monitor screen is stretched. Both Device Manager and IOBit Driver Booster claim my drivers are up to date. What’s happened? Scott Spiers
First, we confirmed Scott’s problem was down to an incorrect resolution setting, which he confirmed it was (the screen was ‘stuck’ at 1,024 x 768-pixels). We next asked for Scott’s PC model, which revealed his Dell PC was powered by an AMD Radeon HD4300/4500 card. Sadly, this generation of cards isn’t supported in Windows 10 — AMD seemingly drops support for older graphics cards much quicker than its rivals Nvidia and Intel. Nevertheless, Scott didn’t have this problem prior to the Anniversary Update, and a quick check online revealed that other Radeon HD4000series owners had successfully got their cards working in Windows 10 by downloading the last supported version of the driver — 13.1. Although rated for Windows 8, it should work in Windows 10 too. Get this from bit.ly/ ati-legacy — download the Software Suite version, then double-click the setup file and follow the prompts to install the drivers. Graham Barlow
INTERNET ONEDRIVE AFFECTING INTERNET PERFORMANCE I have recently set up OneDrive for my own use, taking advantage of the 1TB free storage I get as an Office 365 user. I’ve got about 10GB to upload to the cloud, but, after setting up OneDrive, my internet connection — and powerful PC — have almost ground to a halt. What’s the problem, is it fixable? Ian McAndrew
The obvious cause of this problem was OneDrive itself — it appeared to be consuming all available internet bandwidth as well as overwhelming the PC. Luckily, there’s a way to rein in its demands — click the ^ button on the Taskbar Notification area, then right-click the OneDrive icon and choose Exit. Next, open your browser and perform a speed test at www. speedtest.net — make a note of both download and upload speeds (multiply by 1,000 to get the equivalent figure in KB/s). Now type “OneDrive” into the Search box and click the ‘Desktop app’ link to restart OneDrive. Next, rightclick its Taskbar Notification area icon as before, but this time, choose ‘Settings > Network’ tab. Select ‘Limit to:’ under ‘Upload rate’ and set this to half your connection’s upload speed in KB/s — for example, 500KB/s for a 1MB/s connection, or 4,000KB/s for an 8MB/s connection. You can set a download limit ,too, but in most cases, it’s capping the upload speed that will fix the problem. Click ‘OK’ and you’ll find your PC and internet connection recover while OneDrive continues to work in the background. Nick Peers
WINDOWS MOVE USER FOLDERS TO NEW PARTITION My Windows 10 PC has a large data partition I’d like to store documents and other personal files on. How can I point Windows to this partition? Donald Lincoln
We’ve put together a short step-by-step guide that reveals how to move your data and let Windows know where it’s now residing. It’ll also show you what to do after a reinstallation in order to regain access to those folders using your newly recreated user account. Create a named folder (such as ‘Donald’) on your data partition, then create folders inside this for Documents, Pictures, Videos and any other system folders — including
desktop and downloads — that you want to move. Open File Explorer and click ‘This PC’ to reveal six of your user folders (or browse to ‘C:\Users\ <Username>’ to reveal more such as Searches or Favourites). Start by right-clicking the Documents folder and choosing ‘Properties’. Switch to the ‘Location’ tab and click the ‘Move...’ button. Navigate to the named folder you created in Step 1, then select the Documents folder and click ‘Select Folder’ followed by ‘Apply’ and ‘Yes’. Repeat for each folder you wish to move. If you later reinstall Windows using the same user account, simply repeat Steps 2 and 3 to pair the folders with Windows again; if not, you may get a prompt about access being denied — if so, click ‘Continue’ to regain access. Cat Ellis
SECURITY SECURE DIGITAL DOCUMENT STORAGE I’m sure this will resonate with other readers who are trying to switch from paper to digital — what’s the best way to back up this data and keep it secure? Colin Sexton
The simplest solution is to use cloud storage such as Dropbox, Google Drive or OneDrive, but you may want to take an additional step for particularly sensitive documents — if you use Veracrypt ( veracrypt.codeplex.com), for example, create an encrypted container file inside your cloud storage to store private files inside, providing an extra layer of security.
If you own a network drive that’s billed as a ‘personal cloud’, you could eschew all third-party services and use that instead — either with its own proprietary software (such as Western Digital’s MyCloud) or using the opensource ownCloud ( owncloud.org) solution instead. Again, employ it in conjunction with VeraCrypt or similar service to ensure your data is doubly encrypted. Nick Peers
LINUX ELEMENTARY FIREWALL
Being your average non-technical computer user who is trying his best to embrace Linux and all its wonderful choice of distros, can you explain in really easy-to-follow instructions how to set up a firewall?
I’m using elementary OS on one PC and also run Ubuntu 14 and 16 on two others. I think you have explained this a few times in your publication, but it never seems to be easy to set up and the instructions always seem to be complete gobbledygook to the average computer user!
Also, is it true that Linux distros don’t need security suites or is this a complete myth? When you look online at Linux forums, there always seems to be conflicting advice as to whether a security suite is needed or not! If one is needed, then can you please advise me of the best one I can use bearing in mind I am not that well clued up on computers! Stephen Green
There are no known malicious viruses or malware out in the wild, which is why some people say you don’t need security software. Linux is also fundamentally more secure than Windows, but neither of those mean it’s impervious to future attacks. My preferred line of defence against malware is Rootkit Hunter, which checks critical system files every day and warns of any changes. It also looks for suspicious network activity. It’s not the most newbie-friendly of programs, but once set up, it gets on in the background and the only time you will notice it is when it emails you a warning. Once you have installed it, you need to edit, as root, /etc/defaults/ rkhunter. Make sure CRON_ DAILY_ RUN and CRON_ DB_ UPDATE are set
“Is it true that Linux distros don’t need security suites or is this a complete myth? When you look online at Linux forums, there always seems to be conflicting advice as to whether a security suite is needed or not!”
to “yes” and set REPORT_ EMAIL to your email address. To initialise the database, open a terminal and run: $ sudo rkhunter --propupd
This will set up the starting point as the current status of your system, so it’s best run immediately after installation when you know it’s clean. Now it will regularly check for suspicious activity or changes and email you if it finds anything. Firewall functions are handled by the Linux kernel, so all the firewall programs you find are interfaces to this with varying degrees of user-friendliness.
You may also find your internet router has a firewall, it’s best to set this up first as it stops unwelcome traffic reaching your computer in the first place. You should also make sure that no port forwarding is enabled unless you are running a server. That way, all incoming connection requests will be ignored. Both Ubuntu and elementary OS have firewall configuration programs in their software centres, just search for “firewall”. The Ubuntu one is easier to use, but you can also find this in elementary OS under the name ‘Gufw’. Once installed, they provide a point-and-click way of allowing and denying connections, both incoming and outgoing, as well as a view of recent activity. APC Team
WINDOWS MICROSOFT ACCOUNT PASSWORD GLITCH
I changed my Microsoft Account password and now I keep getting this Windows error message: “You need to fix your Microsoft Account for apps on your other devices to be able to launch apps and continue experiences on this device.” Help! John Wallis This is linked to the password change affecting an app or service previously linked to that account. Ordinarily, it can be fixed by going to the Windows Store app and signing in, but John kept getting an error code — 0x8013153B — whenever he tried to open it. We pointed him to three options: type “Find and fix” into the Search bar to access the ‘Find and Fix Problems Control Panel’ (click ‘View all’), then run ‘Windows Store Apps’, ‘Background Intelligent Transfer Service’ and ‘Windows Update’ in turn. All three reported problems and attempted fixes, but to no avail.
Next, we went to the Microsoft Store reset options in Tweaking.com’s Windows Repair tool ( www.tweaking.com), but also to no avail. But after running Windows Repair, the Store gave a different error, which John investigated. This led him to running inetcpl.cpl from the ‘Start > Run’ box, then clicking ‘LAN settings’ under the ‘Connections’ tab, which revealed the proxy server box had been ticked — unticking this and clicking ‘OK’ twice resolved both the Store and account problems. Nick Peers
MAC MAC ADMIN ACCOUNT SHENANIGANS
When I bought my iMac a couple of years ago, I used Migration Assistant to set it up from my old MacBook. But that laptop used my wife’s
“My Windows 10 PC has suddenly stopped booting — after a lengthy delay at the initial boot screen, all I see is a flashing white cursor.”
account as its primary user, and that was transferred across to the iMac. Each time I start up my iMac, it opens in my wife’s name, and I have to log out and back in to access my account. How can I adjust the iMac so that mine is the main account, and my wife’s account is removed? Colin Heaton
The first admin user account that’s created is special in macOS, so although it’s possible to fudge things in the ‘Users & Groups’ pane and in Terminal, it’s far better to make the necessary changes by setting up from a clean installation of macOS. Ensure that your iMac is fully backed up, preferably keeping an extra copy of important documents, including your keychain. Keep the backup ready with a high-speed connection to your iMac, then restart in macOS Recovery (hold ‘Command-R’ at startup) and use Disk Utility to erase the startup disk, then install macOS on it, making yourself the sole and admin user. During setup, use Migration Assistant to transfer just your documents and settings from the backup.
HARDWARE FLASHING CURSOR AT BOOT TIME My Windows 10 PC has suddenly stopped booting — after a lengthy delay at the initial boot screen, all I see is a flashing white cursor. It may be linked to a recent Windows update process. Could you shed any light for me? Adam Collette
This usually happens when your PC’s UEFI or BIOS changes your boot drive settings, which, in turn, is often symptomatic of your main boot drive no longer being detected by your PC. While it could indicate hardware failure in a worse-case scenario, it’s often simply a case of powering down the computer, opening the case and checking the cables connecting your drives to the motherboard.
When you next boot up, you may need to enter your UEFI or BIOS setup utility to verify the drive is detected again, plus make it the primary boot device. This may be as simple as going to the Boot section and making it the first option under ‘Boot Priorities’, or you may need to first locate a section called something like ‘Hard Drive BBS Properties’ if you have more than one hard drive installed. Once done, save your changes and exit — you should find Windows now boots correctly.
WINDOWS ANNIVERSARY UPDATE INSTALL ERROR
My Sony VAIO won’t update to the Anniversary Update (v1607). It consistently fails, and shows the following error code: 0x800705b4. Its constant attempts to download and update are really eating into my monthly allowance. Do you have any ideas that will help with this very frustrating problem? Steve Dale
There are a number of fixes you can attempt for this one. First, type “troubleshoot” into the Search box to access the ‘Troubleshooting Control Panel’. Click ‘Fix problems with Windows Update’, then click Advanced followed by ‘Run as administrator’ before clicking Next.
If this doesn’t work, reboot, then press ‘Windows-R’, type “services.msc” and click OK to open the Services console. Right-click ‘Background Intelligent Transfer Service’ and choose Stop. Now open File Explorer and navigate to ‘C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution’. Select everything in here — folders and files — and delete it. Not all files will delete, but it’s crucial both Download and Delivery Optimization folders are removed (if they refuse to do so, reboot, stop the BITS service once more and try again). Once deleted, reboot and see if Windows Update now works correctly. If not, try downloading the standalone installer (go to ‘Settings > Update & Security > Learn more’, then click the ‘Get the Anniversary Update’ link), or download the latest version of the Media Creation Tool and ‘upgrade’ Windows to the latest version.