A few of our clients have to remote into their office PCs from their 14″ or 12″ laptops. They found the text was too small on the remote PC and they couldn’t change the text size. If the remote PC is running Windows 7, Microsoft has a hotfix for this problem. This hotfix can be…
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A client had a Windows XP computer running a business critical app. This 9 year old PC kept freezing up recently. The problem was fixed by simply blowing up the dust on the CPU heat sink. We see similar problems a few times a year. Our suggestion is to avoid leaving your computer directly on…
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When installing Windows 10 or 7 via CD/DVD disc or USB flash drive, this error message may occur – “A required CD/DVD drive device driver is missing. If you have a driver floppy disk, CD, DVD, or USB flash drive, please insert it now. Note: If Windows installation media is in the CD/DVD drive, you…
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We recently virtualized a Microsoft Small Business Server 2008 (SBS2008) from an aging machine to a VM hosted by a new replacement server. The steps can be helpful for other physical to virtual conversions. The tool we used was Disk2VHD. Check file system using “SFC /SCANNOW” and “CHKDSK C: /F”, and reboot the server Run…
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I should have posted this earlier. To upgrade your Windows phone to Windows 10 Mobile, you will need to install and run Upgrade Advisor which can be downloaded from Microsoft Store on your Windows phone. This is the only way to upgrade. Many Windows phone users have been waiting for their phone company to push…
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Sometimes, this happened after we received a new Windows 7 PC and tried to run Windows Update. Here is how we fixed it. – stop Windows Update service – install April 2015 servicing stack update KB3020369 – install KB3172605 – restart
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Yes. Here is the link https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/accessibility/windows10upgrade This offer from Microsoft ends on Dec 31st, 2017
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Microsoft announced the availability of a new Office 365 datacenter region in Canada this May. Canadian organizations now have the option to move their Office 365 core data (Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, etc) back to Canada. This option is available until October 31, 2016, and can be done by simply sending the request from your…
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RAID is multiple hard drives that are grouped together to gain better performance and/or failure redundancy. A server should always use RAID rather than a single hard drive. Depending on how the hard drives are “grouped”, RAID has different types, such as RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 10, RAID 50, RAID 60, etc. Here are…
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A recent network troubleshooting led to a faulty cable which was made by our client. Here are some common mistakes we have seen when our clients running/making/terminating their own network cables. T568B standard was not followed Not all 4 pairs were used CAT5 cables were still used Cables were not properly tested after being terminated Plenum cables…
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Many of our clients are travelling or work from remote. Here are some quick thoughts about security for the mobile users Do not use a public or a shared computer to remote into the corporate network. Do not use a public WiFi or a HotSpot to remote into the corporate network. You can tether your laptop to your cell…
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A couple of clients told me that Internet Explorer froze up or crashed every day. This problem actually happened to me long ago. That’s why I installed Chrome and Firefox as alternatives to IE, later setting Chrome as my default browser. I still use IE for web sites running ActiveX, such as Remote Web Workplace…
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Two weeks ago, Microsoft switched the automatically-offered Windows 10 upgrade to a “Recommended” Windows update. If your Windows Update settings were configured to download and install “Recommended” items, Windows 10 upgrade process will be in turn scheduled unless the user interfered. You may see the following message on your screen. Regardless you click on “OK”…
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We think this is a software bug that Microsoft should look into. It has happened on one of our client’s computers (Lenovo i5, Windows 7 Pro, MS Office Home & Business 2016, for very simple and light use) from time to time. We have not found a permanent solution yet, but we do have some…
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Do you have to upgrade the firmware or BIOS on your computer devices? Usually only if necessary. Recently, a client reported that his Asus wireless router in home office seemed to stop functioning properly after he upgraded its firmware; all his wireless printers went on strike. This wireless router had a “check for new…
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