Wednesday 13th July 2016
News
Windows 10 – Anniversary Update
This is the second big update to W10, the first was last November. Called the Anniversary Update, it is scheduled for release on Tuesday 2nd
Aug 2016, approximately a year on from the release of W10 on 29th July 2015.
For more detail on the changes, see my Sway at https://bit.ly/W10-AU (note that you need to type the capitals).
These big updates will continue – probably once or twice each year.
Windows 10 - Microsoft Change
‘Get Windows 10’ Prompt
Many people reported finding the Microsoft ‘Get Windows 10’ box
confusing and potentially misleading, as we mentioned last month. They have now changed it to this, much
clearer option:-
Read more about this here:-
Windows 10 – End Of Free Upgrade
If you are running W7 or W8 and want to take advantage of the free
upgrade to W10, you only have until 29th July. However, if you are happy with W7/8 you can
continue using them – they are supported with security updates and bug fixes
until the following dates:-
Windows 7 14th
Jan 2020
Windows 8 10th
Jan 2023
Windows 10 - $10,000 Payout For
Failed Upgrade!
Californian woman, Teri Goldstein, received $10,000 (approx. £7,500)
after her PC upgraded to Windows 10 without her permission and was virtually
unusable. Is the above change to the
prompt a result of this?
Read more about this story on the BBC web site at:-
Windows 7 – Slow Checking For
Updates
For some months now, checking for updates on Windows 7 (and Vista) has
been very, very slow. The ‘Checking for
updates’ phase could take several hours – on Vista machines, this has taken
over 12 hours in my experience!
Microsoft has now released an update for Windows 7 which apparently
resolves this issue (not sure if there is a fix for Vista). Update KB3161608 is a ‘roll-up’ of other
updates released in June 2016. It
includes KB3161647 which is, I believe, the one that fixes the update
problem. This is currently an ‘optional’
update, so ensure you have optional updates selected or perform a manual update
and select this one.
Hard Drive Size Compared To 40
Years Ago!
We looked at a modern 2½ inch hard drive found in most laptops and
compared this to a 14 inch diameter disk platter from a hard drive dating back
to the 1970s. Amazingly, the 14 inch
disk could only store 5MB of data, while the relatively tiny 2½ inch drives
commonly hold 500GB – that’s 100,000 times more information stored in a
physically much smaller space, and at a fraction of the cost!
Roku Streaming Stick
We previously discussed using a Roku Stick which plugs into the HDMA port on your TV and connects wirelessly to the network to stream a large range of channels and services to your TV. We initially discussed this to use with older smart TVs which soon will not work with BBC iPlayer due to changes in the way iPlayer works. Rather than buying a whole new smart TV to solve this issue, you can simply add a £40 Roku Stick.
Last month, Margaret had an issue with her Roku Stick which seemed to have stopped working. She has since replaced it with a new one which now works OK, so it was obviously faulty.
OneDrive and Other Cloud Storage
Brian asked a question which related to syncing - does deleting a file from OneDrive delete it on devices. In Windows 10, the OneDrive desktop app is active by default and will sync selected OneDrive files/folders to the OneDrive folder on your PC. To configure this, if the OneDrive app is running, locate it's icon in System Tray (next to the clock on the Taskbar) and right-click on it and select Settings. On the Accounts tab, click the Choose folders button and select which OneDrive folders/files you wish to sync to your PC. Note that these files fill take up space on your hard drive, so only sync ones you actually need. You will find a OneDrive folder on your PC (using File Explorer) which contains these sync'ed files. Personnaly, I tend to not use this sync function, but to simply upload files/folders as and when I choose by going to OneDrive.com and signing in with my Microsoft Account.
If the OneDrive app is not running, just click Start and type OneDrive to locate and run the app. After right-clicking the OneDrive icon in the System Tray and selecting Settings, if you then select the Settings tab, you will see a tick-box where you can choose to start OneDrive automatically each time you start Windows.
Other online storage is available. Google Drive can be accessed by anyone with a Google account (i.e.a Gmail account). Go to drive.google.com or click on the apps symbol from any Google web function (e.g. Mail, Calendar, etc). This article explains more about using Google Drive:-
https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2424384?hl=en
If the OneDrive app is not running, just click Start and type OneDrive to locate and run the app. After right-clicking the OneDrive icon in the System Tray and selecting Settings, if you then select the Settings tab, you will see a tick-box where you can choose to start OneDrive automatically each time you start Windows.
Other online storage is available. Google Drive can be accessed by anyone with a Google account (i.e.a Gmail account). Go to drive.google.com or click on the apps symbol from any Google web function (e.g. Mail, Calendar, etc). This article explains more about using Google Drive:-
https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2424384?hl=en
Another popular cloud store service is Dropbox (www.dropbox.com) although this only offer 2GB of storage for free.
OneDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox all offer free storage (you can pay if you need more) so why not try using at least one of them. If you already have a Microsoft Account or a Google Account, you are ready to sign into OneDrive or Google Drive.
It's worth noting that you can share files or folders in these cloud services. So, for example, if you have a large number of photos which you would like to share, you could upload these to a folder on one of the cloud services. You can then simply send a link to this folder (by email) to friends or colleagues that you would like to allow to view these photos. This is a much better option than sending large numbers of photos as attachments to emails.
OneDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox all offer free storage (you can pay if you need more) so why not try using at least one of them. If you already have a Microsoft Account or a Google Account, you are ready to sign into OneDrive or Google Drive.
It's worth noting that you can share files or folders in these cloud services. So, for example, if you have a large number of photos which you would like to share, you could upload these to a folder on one of the cloud services. You can then simply send a link to this folder (by email) to friends or colleagues that you would like to allow to view these photos. This is a much better option than sending large numbers of photos as attachments to emails.
Next Session
Wed 10th Aug 1:30 to 3:30pm.
