Help! Wifi has stopped working

Everything was OK until Wednesday. Now I have lost my wifi connection!!

This story has been repeated many times this week. Luckily you can fix it quite easily.

1. Open the device manager (in Windows 10, you do this by right-clicking on the Start button and selecting Device Manager. In Windows 7,  click the start button type "dev" the search box, then select Device Manager).

2. Click the small triangle next to "Network adapters" and then find the wireless adapter in the list.

3. Right-click on it and select "Uninstall".

4. Restart the PC.

5. After restarting, the go to the wifi symbol near the clock, select your wireless network, and connect using the password.

XCOPY bug

I have used XCOPY as a command line tool to back up machines that won't boot. A Windows 10 machine will give you access to a command window where you can copy any files you need to keep to a USB drive.

But I have been getting "Out of memory" errors, which then cause the copy operation to crash. The message is misleading - all it means is that the copying has come across a source filename which is too long (more that 128 characters).

The simplest solution is just to use ROBOCOPY with a syntax like:

ROBOCOPY /E C:\users\user\Documents G:\backups\person\Documents

If you want to copy a single file, name it:

ROBOCOPY C:\Windows\System32\Config\ G:\backups\person\ SOFTWARE

Windows Tablet - Forgotten Password

I did the classic thing - set up my new Windows 10 tablet with a local password and then promptly forgot it! After trying a few hundred random passwords I set about hacking back in. The business with booting from a separate copy of Windows 10 is required because a normal Windows reset or access to the command prompt on booting requires knowing the user password.

1. Plug a USB hub into the USB port
2. Plug in a keyboard and mouse
3. Plug in a bootable memory stick with Windows 10 on it
4. Hold down the Shift key whilst clicking Reboot
5. Select Troubleshoot -> Advanced options -> UEFI Firmware Settings, then Restart
6. Use the keyboard to navigate to Security -> Secure boot menu and turn off secure boot, then Save and Exit
7. After reboot, hold down the Shift key whilst clicking Reboot
8. Choose Use a Device -> UEFI:Removable Device and select the memory stick
9. In the Windows 10 install dialogue, select Repair your computer
10. Click Troubleshoot -> Advanced Options -> Command prompt
11. In C:\Windows\System32 rename utilman.exe to utilman.bak
12. Rename copy cmd.exe to utilman.exe
13. Reboot and click the Utility Manager icon on the login screen
14. In the command window, reset the password (net user <username> <password>)
15. Test the login
16. Repeat steps 3-6 and reset the filenames in C:\Windows\System32 (delete utilman.exe, copy utilman.bak to utilman.exe)
17. Make a note of the password!!

Windows 10 Activation

Once activated for the first time, Microsoft databases relate the copy of Windows to your computer's hardware. That means that, if you reinstall the PC, it should remember the association and automatically reactivate Windows for you. It usually does just that. But not always...

I did a "reset" on a PC that was not behaving very well. Resetting the PC replaces all the Windows files and it should activate itself automatically afterwards. Being cautious, I extracted the Windows product key and stored it - just in case.

1. After the reset, Windows was NOT activated.
2. I typed in the key that I had saved - activation failed.
3. I ran "slui.exe 4" which instigates phone activation.
4. I phoned the Microsoft number provided and went through the weird and long-winded process of phone activation - a robot commands you to input 9 6-digit numbers from your computer screen, and then gives you back 8 numbers to type in before submitting this to activate Windows - it failed.
5. The robot then offered to connect a Microsoft technician, and after a bit of a wait, I got someone whose English was not too great on the phone.
6. She tried to do phone activation on my behalf, asking for the 54 digits again. It failed.
7. She then offered to connect me to a Microsoft Technical Team member - but the call failed.
8. A repeat of the long-winded phone activation led me to being offered a Microsoft technician again.
9. The second technician also tried phone activation for me, and again it failed.
10. He then offered to connect me to a Microsoft Technical team member. The phone was on hold for many minutes but eventually someone answered.
11. This technician tried phone activation for me (for the fifth time) but when it failed he offered to remote control my PC and look at the problem.
12. I had to provide personal details - I suppose to put off anyone who was trying it on - which included full name, postal address and email address.
13. He then ran slmgr.vbs - a license management utility - with various arguments, to clean out the existing license, and then used it again to install a new license key and activate it.
14. Two hours later - bingo!! An activated copy of Windows 10!

The NickWorks Reversible Computer

When a computer is used to carry out calculations, energy is consumed. That’s why a desktop PC, a laptop or a tablet computer all require a power source – either a mains power supply or a battery.

But what is less well-known is that the entire process can be reversed. By carrying out sufficiently complex calculations, power can be generated at the CPU and harnessed to power an external device. For normal calculations, the amount of power generated is too small to measure, but NickWorks technologists have found ways to present increasingly demanding calculations which in turn have yielded significant amounts of power.

In the NickWorks demonstration below, a normal mains voltage desk lamp is powered directly from a computer’s CPU. This was achieved by presenting the machine with a particularly taxing prime-number calculation, visible on the screen.

Help! My Windows PC keeps shutting down!

There are a few things you should rule out:

1) Overheating.

Install the open hardware monitor from http://openhardwaremonitor.org/downloads/ and run the .exe file. It will monitor the CPU temperature – check that it’s not high (less than 70C  is OK).

Open the computer case and physically clean out all dust, concentrating on fans, grills and heatsink. Replace and re-check temperatures. It’s surprising how often this can make a difference.

Stress test the PC whilst monitoring CPU temperatures. Play a demanding game – or run the Prime95 torture test from http://www.mersenne.org/download/ - see if that causes any overheating problems.

2) Memory fault

Check the memory (run msched.exe).

3) Driver problems

Look at the the crash dump record (it’s easiest to use a Blue Screen Viewer eg http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html)

This will give a clue as to the cause of the crashes – it might be a driver problem, which may be resolvable be reloading a device driver.

Windows 10 installation

Windows 10 became available yesterday. Here are some notes on the NickWorks findings so far:

(1) As a free upgrade to most editions of Windows 7 and 8, Windows 10 does not have an expiry date set (unlike all previous versions of Windows, which all had a defined life-cycle, forcing users to upgrade to later editions). This is seen as a GOOD THING.

(2) Most versions of Windows 10 have Windows update enforced. You can't opt out of updates, or turn particular updates off. This is seen as a BAD THING for 2 reasons
  (a) If an update causes problems on a particular system, there is no way to stop it being applied.
  (b) In future Microsoft could look at charging for parts of their service and users might have no way to keep Windows working without paying.

(3) Installation of Windows 10 is not difficult - it is an upgrade to Windows 7 or 8 only, and you need to start from a licensed working machine with an eligible copy of Windows on it. Your programs (which you now have to call "apps") and your personal data are preserved by default.

 Most eligible users are being offered Windows 10 through a forced update which is placed in their system tray. Clicking on this allows you to start the update process - or check that your PC has suitable specification, and see which of your apps will be compatible.

(4) It is still possible to start the install without this, by visiting https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 - but you only need to read on if you did not get the automatic update offer.

There are two media creation tools available, 32 and 64 bit, so check your PCs architecture (to do this type "msinfo32" into the Run box and look at the entry "System type". x64 means a 64 bit system...X86 means 32 bit).

When you download and run the media creation tool, it allows you to choose whether to upgrade the current PC (in which case you don't have to tell it more about the system) - or to create the media for upgrading a different PC. If you choose the second option, you then have to tell it what options you want: Language, Windows 10 edition, and architecture (32 bit, 64 bit or both). The likely edition choices are Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Pro...the Pro version is for users upgrading from Pro and Ultimate editions of Windows 7 or 8. The "N" versions have no media player etc included.

 If you are downloading for the upgrade of a different machine, you get the choice of "ISO file" or "USB flash drive". If you choose "ISO file" it will download the Windows 10 installer and save it as a .iso file which you would then have to burn to DVD, then using this bootable DVD as your install medium. If you choose "USB" it will require you to plug in a USB drive with at least 3GB free and any old content will be erased. You can then use this drive as your install medium by booting the target PC from it.

 If you have chosen the "easy way" and run the media creation tool on the target PC, it will move on from downloading Windows 10 to doing the install. There is a choice of "what to keep" - the default is to keep personal data and apps. There may be a warning about the display language being reset.  It then checks that there is enough disk space - and off it goes - my test took 40 minutes to do the upgrade after downloading finished.