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.
“We’d also suggest you run full scans with your security tools to verify there’s nothing nasty going on behind the scenes.”
WINDOWS UNINSTALLING A ROGUE PROGRAM
After installing a program in Windows 10, my computer has slowed to a crawl. How can I get this off my PC when everything keeps hanging and crashing? Jake Palmer
Click the Start button, then hold the Shift key as you select ‘Power > Restart’. This will bring up the ‘Choose an option’ screen. Select ‘ Troubleshoot’ followed by ‘Advanced options’ and finally ‘ Startup Settings’. Click ‘Restart’ and the boot menu will appear — press F5 to access ‘Safe mode with Networking’. Once in Safe mode, remove the programs you suspect are cluttering up your PC by right-clicking the Start button and choosing ‘Programs and Features’. While you’re here, we’d also suggest you run full scans with your security tools to verify there’s nothing nasty going on behind the scenes — note, they won’t be running automatically, so you’ll need to launch them from the ‘ Start > All apps’ menu. One final check — open File Explorer, right-click your system drive and choose ‘Properties > Tools’ tab. Click ‘Check’ followed by ‘ Scan drive’. If any issues are found, they should be fixed on the next reboot. Nick Odantzis
SECURITY WINDOWS 95 SECURITY
APC, I’m in trouble. My Dell Inspiron 800 with a Pentium-class processor and 60MB hard drive, running Windows 95, is stuck at the log-in screen. I haven’t used it in more than two years, and I’ve forgotten the password. I stopped using it because it was showing the symptoms of a virus, but Norton Antivirus couldn’t find anything. Is it possible to recover or clear my password so I can create a new account, perform a controlled upgrade, and recover my data? I have Windows 7 and Windows 8 upgrade discs. Or should I upgrade to Windows 10? David Plotke
Let’s start with your first issue: getting into Windows 95 so you can recover whatever information might be on that hard drive. When prompted to log in, press Cancel instead. This
should get you into the operating system, albeit without network access. Hit Start, then Find. Search for all files with the *.pwl extension, then delete them. The next time you go to log in, the password should be blank.
Once you grab those files, find the nearest recycling centre and drop that Inspiron off. Surely it’s approaching 20 years old, right? Windows 7 requires a DirectX 9-class graphics device, and it’s probable that you don’t have the requisite 1GB of RAM installed. Windows 8 asks for processor features your Pentium lacks. You get the idea. No modern OS will run sufficiently well to make an upgrade worth attempting — and that’s assuming your 60MB hard drive is really a 60GB repository. APC team
MEDIA MP3 METADATA IN A SNAP
I’ve got a load of MP3 files I’d like to add the correct metadata (artist, track, album cover and so on) to. What’s the best program for quickly adding this information? Bob Collins Download MP3tag from www.mp3tag. de/en — this allows you to add metadata for one or more tracks quickly and easily (for example, select all your tracks and quickly apply universal information such as album artist or title). There’s also a handy tool should your filenames include the artist and track information. Select ‘Convert >Filename – Tag’. Adapt the ‘Format string’ box as required — use the ‘>’ button to add extra elements. A handy preview quickly reveals if you’ve got the right data selected — click ‘OK’ to apply the tags. Cat Ellis
ADMIN EASY REMOTE MANAGEMENT
I’m sure I’m like many of your readers in the fact that, as the known ’tech guru’, I’ve ended up being the default tech support for friends and family — and my mother in particular. What’s the easiest way of remotely managing her PC? Rufus Cox
For a quick and simple option, we’d suggest Google Chrome’s Remote Access Desktop extension. You’ll need to install Chrome on your mum’s PC ( chrome.google.com), plus log into your own Google Account in Chrome on that PC — set up a separate user for yourself if necessary. Once set up, you won’t need Chrome to be running or be logged into Chrome, as your user for the feature to work. Here’s a detailed step-by-step guide to getting it up and running:
1. Sit at the PC you wish to control. Click the user name and choose ‘Switch person’ to sign into your Google Account. Type chrome:// extensions into the Address Bar, then click ‘Get more extensions’ to find and add Chrome Remote Desktop.
2. Next, type chrome://apps into the Address bar and select Chrome Remote Desktop. Follow the prompts to authorise it and link it to your Google account. Once done, click ‘Get started’ under ‘My Computers’ followed by ‘Enable remote connections’.
3. Now, install the desktop host by selecting ‘Accept and Install’ to download the host installer. Doubleclick this and follow the prompts to install it and set up a six-digit PIN for secure access — you’ll need this each time you attempt to connect from your PC.
4. If you’ve set up browser syncing on your own PC, the Chrome Remote Desktop will automatically be installed when you next open Chrome. Repeat step two, then click ‘Enable remote connections’ and select your remote PC to connect and take control.
HARDWARE SURFACE STYLUS STOPPED WORKING
The stylus on my first-gen Surface tablet has stopped working. I’ve checked the power function for USB/HID connections, but can’t seem to fix the problem. Theresa McHugh
If you’ve not performed a full power shutdown for a while, start by shutting down the Surface normally using its power button. Then when it’s off (or apparently off), press and hold both power and volume-up buttons together for a minimum of 15 seconds. Once done, release the buttons, leave the Surface for 10 seconds, then power up normally — this should fix the problem. If it doesn’t, try the full power off again, but after 10 seconds, hold the volume up button while you press and release the power button. When the Surface logo appears, release the volume button and you should enter the BIOS — from here,
you should be able to verify that the stylus is working, and on rebooting from here the problem should be solved. Matt Hanson
HARDWARE M.2 FRUSTRATIONS
Back in November last year, I purchased an ASUS Z10PE-D8 WS workstation motherboard that theoretically supports bootable M. 2 drives. However, I’ve spent hours on the phone with company reps and a couple of techs, and I’ve scoured the internet collecting information on how to configure this board so that Windows 7 sees the M. 2 SSD as a bootable device, all to no avail.
At this point, I’m ready to clean it up, take pictures, and put it on eBay for sale at a cut-rate price. I am using a Samsung SM951 purchased online. And I have used this M. 2 SSD in two other machines hosting ASRock X99 OC Formula and MSI X99 Mpower motherboards, both without any issues. Any suggestions? Irvin J. Halter
Our first (and no doubt unpopular) suggestion would have been to give Windows 10 a try. However, he wanted to get a more technical explanation straight from the source. ASUS’s representatives responded with the same advice, though. You’ll encounter the fewest compatibility problems and enjoy the best possible performance by going into the BIOS and setting your Option ROMs to UEFI mode in the Advanced tab’s ‘CSM Configuration’ menu and going from there. That’s not to say the Z10PE-D8 is blameless for your frustration, while other motherboards are more easily made to work under Windows 7, but at least there’s an easy workaround in sight. APC team
WINDOWS WINDOWS UPDATE QUERY
When Windows Update schedules a reboot, what happens when it reaches that point? I know it logs me out and reboots, but does it return to where I left off? And will it update my PC if the computer happens to be asleep when that scheduled point is reached? Stu Robertson
No, when Windows logs out, reboots and updates, it’ll return you to the login screen. When you next log in, any programs you had running will have been shut down, so it’s just like loading Windows from scratch. Another thing to beware of is if you had any open documents they’ll have been closed and unsaved changes lost. If your PC is asleep when the scheduled moment arrives, then Windows will wake it to perform the update in the same way — again, don’t put it to sleep without saving or closing documents first. Cat Ellis
HARDWARE LAPTOP GPU UPGRADE?
Greetings, I have an excellent 17-inch laptop, but its discrete graphics module seems to have died. It was a GeForce GTX 670M with 3GB GDDR5. I’m now running some games on the integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 engine, but as you know, that’s pretty slow. I’d like to replace the card, but I can’t find a seller other than eBay. Is that the only option? Also, I don’t need such a fast GPU for most of my games; what would you recommend for older engines, like the ones used in
StarCraft and Diablo 3? The specs are: MSI GT70, Intel Core i7-3610QM, 17.3-inch 1,920 x 1,080 display, 16GB DDR3 RAM, 128GB SSD, 500GB hard drive. Mike Abed
Based on the specs, that appears to be a 2012-era GT70. Unfortunately, MSI was
“You’ll encounter the fewest compatibility problems and enjoy the best possible performance by going into the BIOS and setting your Option ROMs to UEFI mode.”
not using replaceable modules back then, so your best bet for a working GPU is something scrapped from another laptop. eBay may indeed be your only hope.
These days, MSI has its GT72 and GT80 platforms, both built to accommodate upgrades. Several online vendors sell do-it-yourself kits that include an MXM graphics module, cooling solution, thermal compound and pads, and documentation. None of this helps you out of your current conundrum, but it’s nice to know that some of today’s gaming notebooks are more enthusiast-friendly. APC team
NETWORKING BETTER PERFORMANCE WHEN GAMING ONLINE
I have a question about internet speed that’s been bugging me. I play a lot of first-person shooters — mainly Battlefield and Call of Duty. I think I have a pretty decent system for those titles: an ASUS Maximus VII Hero, an Intel Core i7-4790K, 16GB of DDR3, a Samsung 750GB 840 EVO, and Windows 10 Professional. Here’s the thing: I have a newer fibre internet connection. Is there a point where internet speed no longer factors into gaming performance? We don’t (yet) do any video or audio streaming, so bandwidth shouldn’t be a problem. Steve Vanetti A question similar to this came up a couple of months back, and it turned out that online gaming isn’t very bandwidth-intensive at all. Although games vary in the amount of throughput they chew up, their demands are lighter than streaming audio, much less video. You didn’t say anything about performance issues, but we noticed the missing graphics card mention. If you’re seeing a slow-down or stuttering of any sort, it’s possible that’s your bottleneck — particularly in
Battlefield, which is more GPUbound than Call of Duty. APC team
SOFTWARE A QUICK CATALOGUING PROGRAM QUERY Do you know of a free program that’s suitable for cataloguing and printing my DVD and CD collections? Jim Duncan
Take a look at Data Crow ( datacrow. net) — this is a free and open-source tool that provides you with all the tools you need to build both DVD and CD collections via its Movie and Music Album nodes. It requires Java, and be sure to right-click the installer and choose ‘Run as Administrator’ after downloading to ensure it’s able to install itself to your Program Files directory.
The program takes a little bit of getting used to — the quickest way to use it is to enlist the help of built-in online services such as Amazon and IMDB. Simply enter search terms, then add any or all of the matching items (it’s easy to build up entire TV series for example). Changes are saved automatically as you make them. You can analyse and organise your collection a number of ways, plus generate reports in a number of formats you can then print out. Nick Peers
“If you’re seeing a slow-down or stuttering of any sort, it’s possible that’s your bottleneck — particularly in Battlefield, which is more GPU-bound than Call of Duty.”