Wednesday 11th November 2015
Updated 03/05/2023: The method of accessing the document mentioned under File & Printer Sharing - Home Groups has been updated.
This Blog
I plan to summarise what we cover at each Computer Club and publish
this at computerclub100.blogspot.com
The blog includes links to any documents issued, and email and
Twitter addresses to keep in touch. Over time, this should build up into an archive of the Computer Club
discussions, Q & A, topics and documents.
Windows 10 – Update
A significant update to W10 will be released very soon - possibly tomorrow, i.e 12th Nov. Known as the ‘Windows 10 Fall Update’ or by
its codename ‘Threshold 2’ or TH2 or Build 10586. I understand it will include the following enhancements, although I have not yet verified all these for myself:-
1.
Version No ‘1511’ will show when you run
winver. Meaning 2015, Nov. It will also show the Build number as before,
but the date code is easier to understand. To run winver, use Windows Key+R to bring up the Run box and type winver and press Enter.
2.
Option to use your W7/8 Product Key to activate
when (re)installing rather than ‘digital entitlement’ only.
3.
Coloured Title Bars. Go to Settings, Personalisation, Colours.
4.
Start Menu will show “occasional suggestions” of
apps to download from the Windows Store.
You can disable this by going to Start, Settings, Personalisation.
5.
New Find My Device feature can be found in
Start, Settings, Update & Security which can track your device if it is
lost. Device needs to have GPS.
6.
Edge gets tab preview – mouse over a tab and a
thumbnail of the web page will appear.
7.
Edge will be able to sync Favourites and the
Reading List across devices.
8.
Skype becomes 3 apps – Skype Video, Messaging
and Phone. Skype desktop version is still
available.
9.
Sway app allows you to create and share photo
presentations.
10.
For tablet and devices with little storage, you
can choose to store apps on alternative storage such as an SD card. Go to Settings, System, Storage to configure.
11.
Context Menus (i.e. right-click menus) have been
smartened up.
12.
The Start Menu can cope with more tiles (up to
2048).
13.
Improved Cortana can now work without a
Microsoft Account.
14.
The ‘Ask Cortana’ feature now works in PDFs as
it does in Edge.
15.
The Login screen can now be changed to a plain
colour instead of the Windows ‘hero’ image.
16.
You can configure the most recently used printer
to become the default. Settings,
Devices, Printers & Scanners, Let Windows manage my default printer.
17.
Other bug fixes and tweaks.
Note that this is a big update and could take a couple of hours. Anyone doing the upgrade from W7 or W8 to W10 after this upgrade is released should go straight to the latest version.
There will be two major updates next year in Spring and Autumn codenamed
Redstone 1 and 2.
Q: What will happen to a W7/8 system which has already pre-downloaded W10 but not yet installed it? Will it install this and then do the TH2 update, or will it re-download W10 and install once?
A: I don't know, but I will try to find out.
Q: What will happen to a W7/8 system which has already pre-downloaded W10 but not yet installed it? Will it install this and then do the TH2 update, or will it re-download W10 and install once?
A: I don't know, but I will try to find out.
Windows – Standard Users
This is in response to an email question. I’ve mentioned before that it is a good idea
from a security view point, to log on to Windows as a Standard User most of the
time. If your system was compromised by
malware or a hacker, this would restrict what they could do. I mentioned this in the recent Guide to
Windows 10 at the bottom of page 4 – I have put a copy of the Guide into the
Computer Club Documents link (on the right of this blog) for reference.
Essentially, Standard Users should not be able to access anyone else’s
files or change security settings etc.
So you would set up two user accounts on a PC – one being a
password-protected Administrator account which you would use when necessary,
and the other would be a Standard User account which you would use most of the
time. Any other users you add should
also be Standard Users.
What I also found was that setting up a HomeGroup made a slight change to what Standard Users could see. Without HomeGroup, the Standard User cannot see the folders of other users. With a HomeGroup, the Standard User can see the folder list of other users, but they will not be able to access any of those folders.
What I also found was that setting up a HomeGroup made a slight change to what Standard Users could see. Without HomeGroup, the Standard User cannot see the folders of other users. With a HomeGroup, the Standard User can see the folder list of other users, but they will not be able to access any of those folders.
It is possible to modify Permissions which grant or deny a particular
user access to a file or folder. This is
a complicated area and it is not recommended to tinker with it if you don’t
know what you are doing! This site
explains more for anyone who really wants to know:-
I would recommend taking an image backup before making any changes to
permissions.
Cortana Not Working After Upgrade
This was in response to another email query recently. After a laptop was upgraded from W7 to W10,
Cortana could not be enabled and said it was ‘not available in your
region’. The solution to this is to go
to Start, Settings, Time & Language, Region & Language and set the
Region to USA. Use ‘Add a Language’ to
add English (United States). Also set
Speech to English (United States). Now
reboot and turn on Cortana. Set the Region/Language
back to UK and reboot and all should be well.
Q & A
Q: Printer/Scanner not working correctly after upgrade to Windows 10.
A: Uninstall and re-install Printer/Scanner using original CD or download from manufacturer's web site.
Q: Word installed in Standard User works OK. When logged on as Admin User, Word goes through a long configuring process.
A: Not sure. I had a similar thing when switching between two different versions of Word on one machine.
Q: USB printer on Vista comes up with 'installing new hardware' every time it is connected, even though it has already been installed.
A: Try removing device using Devices and Printers in Control Panel and right-clicking on the printer. Disconnect the printer and reboot. Install the printer from the original installation software, connecting the printer when instructed.
Update: After the Computer Club, I found this web site:- http://www.thedave.ca/geek/windows-vista-usb-device-detection-problems/
which might offer a solution.
Discussion
General discussion about alternative language keyboards, translation of web pages in Google search, Google Translate app on Android etc.
Q & A
Q: Printer/Scanner not working correctly after upgrade to Windows 10.
A: Uninstall and re-install Printer/Scanner using original CD or download from manufacturer's web site.
Q: Word installed in Standard User works OK. When logged on as Admin User, Word goes through a long configuring process.
A: Not sure. I had a similar thing when switching between two different versions of Word on one machine.
Q: USB printer on Vista comes up with 'installing new hardware' every time it is connected, even though it has already been installed.
A: Try removing device using Devices and Printers in Control Panel and right-clicking on the printer. Disconnect the printer and reboot. Install the printer from the original installation software, connecting the printer when instructed.
Update: After the Computer Club, I found this web site:- http://www.thedave.ca/geek/windows-vista-usb-device-detection-problems/
which might offer a solution.
Discussion
General discussion about alternative language keyboards, translation of web pages in Google search, Google Translate app on Android etc.
File & Printer Sharing – Home Groups
Issued Sharing Files and Printers Over a Home Network. Click this link to see the document:-
Issued Sharing Files and Printers Over a Home Network. Click this link to see the document:-
On W7, 8 and 10
you can easily set up a Home Group to share files and local printers between
machines on your home network. You can
also do this on XP and Vista machines, although that is a little more
complicated.
Next Session
Wed Dec 9th 1:30pm to 3:30pm.
Topic: Accessibility Options
Future Topic: Using Cloud Storage to save and share files.
