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Cloudeight InfoAve Weekly Issue #896 Volume 18 Number 7 December 11, 2020 Dear Friends, Welcome to Cloudeight InfoAve Weekly Issue #896. Thank you very much for subscribing and for being a part of our Cloudeight family. We appreciate your friendship and support very much! Please share our newsletters and our Website with your family and all your friends. A comment from Frank I am a longtime subscriber to Cloudeight. On Dec 2, Darcy connected remotely to my computer to clean it up. I watched with awe as she did her thing (magically). I'm not certain about everything she did but she did a fine job. She suggested I use One Drive and she set that up for me thank you very much. I had an outdated Genie drive that was slowing everything up, so she turned it off. Thank you so much, Darcy. A comment from Clint Good morning TC. I just wanted to thank you again for the professional job you did this week on my desktop PC. You allayed all my fears of intrusion into my computer and even complimented me about the condition I keep my system (that's mainly because I take your advice and subscribe to the newsletter) ... Clint. A comment from Helen Thank you to Darcy for all her help with my computer. I had a Bad bout of Covid for several weeks and then was put on quarantine for two, my contact with family was important to me. Low and behold my computer decided to be unfriendly to me. DARCY TO THE RESCUE. She had it up and running like new in no time, what a Blessing these two are to us. Thanks a bunch. Helen A. A comment from Patricia Thanks so much, TC. You wouldn't quit helping me until you got it right and I am appreciative of your help in time of need with my computer. My computer runs so much better now. Thank you and Happy Holidays to both you and Darcy for the great work you do. A comment from Norm Greetings from Down Under. I wanted to add my thanks for the prompt work that you performed on my computer a couple of nights ago. No doubt that after a few years of heavy usage my computer needed some cleaning up and some adjustments were necessary. With your swift working of the Windows system my computer has enjoyed a great tune-up. Once again, your ability and skills have made my computer run smoothly again. Regards from a very long-time subscriber and best wishes to you and TC for a safe and healthy festive season. Norm A big THANK YOU to Frank, Clint, Helen, Patricia, Norm, and everyone who wrote to us this week. We appreciate your kind words and your support very much! EB & TC. Cloudeight Direct Computer Care computer repair keys are always a bargain. Get more information here. THANK YOU FOR HELPING US! When you support us with small gift, you help us continue our mission to keep you informed, separate the truth from the hyperbole, and help you stay safer online. Plus, our computer tips make your computer easier to use. Did you know that we provide support to thousands of people? Every week we help dozens of people via email at no charge. The questions and answers you see in our newsletters are from the email answers and help we provide to everyone free of charge. Thanks to your gifts, we do a lot more than provide this free newsletter. We help you recognize online threats, fight for your online privacy, provide you with the knowledge you need to navigate the Web safely, provide you with suggestions for safe, free software and websites, and help you get more out of your PC. Please Help us keep up the good fight with a small gift. Interested in making an automatic monthly gift?
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Jenny can't find our article about Windows 10 copy/paste
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Maureen might have been scammed Attention Cloudeight SeniorPass Holders! Announcing our new SeniorPass Telephone Hotline Service Don't have a Cloudeight SeniorPass? It's a great deal. Learn more here. During this global crisis, we are offering a special telephone hotline service to all SeniorPass holders. There are reports of many COVID19 scams targeting seniors. If you are approached by a scammer or encounter something suspicious, you can use our hotline to discuss your situation with us. We check into it for you and do all we can to help you.If you currently have a SeniorPass, all you need to do is contact us. Send us your telephone number and a brief message/a> describing your problem and we'll call you back during normal business hours. If you don't yet have a Cloudeight SeniorPass and you'd like to know more about our SeniorPass, please see this page. Please note: Currently, our telephone hotline service is only available to SeniorPass holders in the United States due to international call restrictions. Three Rare Windows Tips Here are three rather arcane Windows tips. They may be known to few, but they can be useful for every Windows user. 1. Taskkill Windows borrows a feature from Linux. Taskkill allows you to terminate a running process (program) from the command line. Here’s how you use it: Hold down the Windows key and tap the R key. In the run box type CMD and press Enter. A Command prompt will open. Type Tasklist at the prompt. You’ll see a list of running processes. Next to each process you’ll see a PID number. To kill any running task, type Taskkill /PID xxx (where xxx represents the PID number of the task you want to terminate). You can kill more than one process at time like this: Taskkill /PID xxxx /PID xxxx /PID xxxx (xxxx = the PID number of the task you want to kill). There are a lot more modifiers too. If you are interested, see Microsoft TechNet's article on Taskkill here. Why would you want to use this? Because you can? Or maybe your computer is frozen, and you can’t access Task Manager. Or maybe you're trying to rid your computer of malware and you have to kill its process(es) before you can remove it. Sometimes malware prevents you from ending a process using Task Manager /End process. 2. Edit user accounts using the command line Hold down the Windows key and tap the R key. In the run box type CMD and press Enter. Now type control userpasswords2 at the prompt, and press Enter. 3. Create a desktop shortcut to Task Manager You can access Task Manager by right-clicking on your taskbar and choosing Task Manager, you can use CTRL+SHIFT+ESC, or you can use the three-finger salute (CTRL+ALT+DELETE) and click “Task Manager” on the menu which appears. Did you know that you can also create a shortcut to Task Manager and leave it on your desktop, drag it to your quick launch toolbar, or taskbar (Windows 7 & newer) or put in on your start menu? You can, and it’s easy to do. Right-click on your desktop and choose “New” “Shortcut” and copy and paste the following (in bold) into the “type location of the item” field: %windir%\system32\taskmgr.exe Once you’re created your shortcut, you can drag its icon to your start menu, quick launch bar, taskbar (Windows 7, Windows 8.x, Windows 10) or simply leave it on your desktop. The next time you need to launch Task Manager, just click your new shortcut.
How to Find Out How Much Data Your Computer is Using Here's a tip that you'll find interesting if you've ever wondered how much bandwidth you're using and what programs are using it. This is just an FYI tip, but if you're on a metered connection (your ISP charges for bandwidth or limits your bandwidth) this tip can help you save money by making sure you stay under your limit, as well as telling you which programs are using the most bandwidth. Let's get started. Press the Windows key + i (or right-click the Start button & click Settings) to open Settings. Next click on "Network & Internet". Under "Status", you'll see the total data usage for your device. Click on the "Data usage" button to see what programs are using the most data.
After you click the "Data usage" button, you'll see a list of all the programs on your device that use data. More importantly, if you're on a limited data plan, you can set a data limit here and Windows will warn you as you approach your data limit. Programs are listed with those using the most data at the top. The data usage is upgraded automatically and continuously, so you'll always have an up-to-date view of your device's data usage, as well as which programs are using the most data.
If you scroll to the bottom of the list of programs, you'll see a "Reset usage stats" button.
You can use that button to reset the data use counters to zero. However, it only resets the counters on your device, it won't, of course, change your device's actual data usage. So, whether you're simply curious about your data usage, or you have
limited bandwidth and you need to know where you stand, we hope you
found this tip useful. If You Use Gmail, Give Yourself Room to Write! If you use Gmail, then you’re familiar with the size of the default compose window. When you click the “Compose” button in Gmail the compose window appears in the bottom right corner of Gmail. It looks like this:
If you’d like to make the Gmail compose window bigger and have it open in the middle of your screen, it’s easy to do. Here’s how… Open a Gmail compose window and look for the 3 vertical dots in the bottom right corner. Click the dots and choose “Default to full screen”.
The next time you click the Gmail compose window you’ll have more room to write – and the window will open in the center of your screen.
Click on the thumbnail image above to see the full-size Gmail compose window actual size. Now you’ll have plenty of room to write! Want more tips, tricks, and information? We have thousands of Windows tips, tricks, and more on our InfoAve web site. Subscribe to our free InfoAve Daily newsletter.
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Download Authentic Windows System Files from Microsoft Servers
I can’t tell you how many times I got a message from Windows that I was missing some DLL or SYS file. And it didn’t take long for us to learn there are dozens of sites where you can download DLL, SYS, and other Windows files. The trouble is, most of those sites, don’t have the correct files and worse, bundle the DLL, SYS, and other Windows file with PUPs or malware. It didn’t take us too many visits to these suspicious and sometimes unsavory sites before we began to wise up. We’re wiser now and don’t even bother trying to find missing files to download. We’ll use System Restore or DISM and SFC scans to fix the missing file problem But we know that dozens of those suspicious DLL, SYS, and Windows files sites exist because they get a lot of visitors. Or should we say “victims”? Today we’re featuring a site where all the Windows system files are authentic, up-to-date, and come directly from Microsoft servers. Our site pick, Winbindex has a searchable index of Windows 10 system files that you can download directly from Microsoft servers. If you’re one of the many people who upon receiving an error message that your computer is missing a DLL, SYS, or other Windows system file go on a web hunt to find the file your computer says your missing – Winbindex will save you a lot of trouble and a lot of time. No more questionable files from shady sites and no more files bundled with malware or PUPs. Winbindex allows you to search and download individual Windows 10 system files including SYS, DLL, and EXE files. Just type the name of the file you’re looking for in the search box on the site, and you’ll get results of clean files showing the SHA256 hash (authenticator) of each file. You can even filter results by file version, system type (32-bit or 64-bit), update, or Windows version. Once you find the file you’re looking for, click the “Show” button to display the file. The “Download” button starts the download. While the search results may display many different file types, you can only download executable files namely DLL, EXE, and SYS. If you want to read the interesting story of Winbindex, read
this interesting post from the developer’s blog. The Virus that Stole Christmas It’s another gray December day. I’ve been walking for about an hour and my legs and back are starting to bother me. I’ve been walking too much lately and I’m not a young man anymore. Who am I kidding? Not a young man indeed. Let’s spare the euphemisms and tell it like it is – I’m an old coot for sure. I’m lucky to be walking at all. But old coot or not I still walk four to five miles a day – and sometimes I pay for it with aches and pains that I drown with ibuprofen and Tylenol. I’ll say Tylenol because it’s hard to spell acetaminophen or paracetamol as it’s called in most of the rest of the world. Anyway, I sit down on a bench to rest my aching legs, and a gentle snow begins to fall, and it begins to look a bit like Christmas. Being an old coot, I can tell you I’ve never seen anything like the year 2020. It’s been a zinger from beginning to end. Not only because of the pandemic which has been going on since ins late February… but I’ve never seen people so divided and so angry. Some people say Covid-19 is just another cold or flu while others are sure it’s a threat to their families and loved ones – and some even fear it will kill them. Being an old coot with several – and I hate this word – “comorbidities"... Read the rest of this essay here. What does bandwidth mean? According to the official definition: "Bandwidth is a term used to describe how much information can be transmitted over a connection. Bandwidth is usually given as bits per second, or as some larger denomination of bits, such as Megabits per second, expressed as Kbit/s or Mbit/s. Bandwidth is a gross measurement, taking the total amount of data transferred in a given period of time as a rate, without taking into consideration the quality of the signal itself." According to us - If you have a swimming pool containing 50,000 gallons of water and you try to drain it with a garden hose, it will take you about 17 days to drain (or download) all the water out of that pool. Now if you have a fire hose - i.e., a big thick pipe, you can drain (download) the water in about 2 days. So, the fire hose has more bandwidth than the garden hose? See? The bigger the hose the more water flows through faster. Just think about it for a minute. THANK YOU FOR HELPING US! When you support us with small gift, you help us continue our mission to keep you informed, separate the truth from the hyperbole, and help you stay safer online. Plus, our computer tips make your computer easier to use. Did you know that we provide support to thousands of people? Every week we help dozens of people via email at no charge. The questions and answers you see in our newsletters are from the email answers and help we provide to everyone free of charge. Thanks to your gifts, we do a lot more than provide this free newsletter. We help you recognize online threats, fight for your online privacy, provide you with the knowledge you need to navigate the Web safely, provide you with suggestions for safe, free software and websites, and help you get more out of your PC. Please Help us keep up the good fight with a small gift. Interested in making an automatic monthly gift?
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