A slow PC startup can be pretty annoying. This usually results from various computer issues. If your computer is acting sluggishly, here are four ways to speed up your PC startup.
External hard drives have become essential these days as they tend to be very useful to many users. They are usually used for storing system images like system backups, Windows installation media, or for personal use. However, if you are not able to utilize your external drivers for some reason then that could be a huge problem. One of the common issues with hard drives is when your USB device or external hard drive just keeps connecting and disconnecting. This kind of issue could be caused by a faulty USB port, some issues with the USB drivers, your computer’s Power Options, corrupted or damaged system files, and many other factors.
The connecting and disconnecting issue with USB devices and external hard drives isn’t really new and has been experienced by many users for years now. Although this issue has somewhat decreased in Windows 10, there are still some users who encounter it every now and then. Worry not though for there are fixes that you can try to resolve the problem.
Refer to the following straightforward solutions to resolve the issue with your USB device or external hard drive.
Option 1 – Plug your external device on a different port
If your USB device keeps on connecting and disconnecting then the first thing you can do is to try connecting it to a different port. This will help you isolate the problem. In some cases, the port where the USB is connected can be malfunctioning or obsolete so you need to check that possibility by plugging your USB device into a different USB port.
Option 2 – Update or reinstall your USB drivers
As mentioned earlier, the problem could be due to some issues with the USB drivers. It could be that it has to be updated or you need to reinstall it. To do that, follow these steps:
First, click the Start button and type “device manager”.
Then click on the “Device Manager” from the search results to open it.
From there, look for the “Universal Serial Bus controllers” option and then right-click on each one of the USB drivers and select the Update Driver from the menu.
Restart your PC and then click the “Search automatically for updated driver software” option.
You also have the option to update the motherboard and the USB driver from the manufacturer’s official website.
Option 3 – Try turning on the USB External drive
There are times when your system turns off some drives in order to conserve your computer’s power, etc. as a result, the driver that’s required to run your external hard drive properly ends up getting disabled. To fix this, you can prevent your system from turning off your external USB drive by following these steps:
You need to make sure that the external drive is connected to your system first.
Next, go to the Start Menu and type “device manager” in the field, and click on the appropriate result to open the Device Manager.
After opening the Device Manager, expand the category of the Universal Serial Bus controllers.
Then double click on your USB Mass Storage device and take note that the name might be different on your system.
Now go to the Power Management tab and uncheck the checkbox for the “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power” option and click OK to save the changes made.
Option 4 – Turn off USB Selective Suspend
Another thing you can try is to turn off USB Selective Suspend especially when the issue has something to do with the Power Options. There are certain systems that are configured to disable USB devices after some time which could be the root cause of the problem. Thus, you need to turn off USB Selective Suspend. Here’s how you can do it:
In the Start Menu, search for “control panel” and open the related search result.
Then go to Power Options and click on the “Change plan settings” option.
Next, select “Change advanced power settings” and look for the USB settings and then expand it.
From there, you will see the USB Selective Suspend setting. Disable it and click OK.
Now restart your computer and check if it resolves the problem or not.
Option 5 – Format your drive
To get started formatting your drive, tap the Win + E keys and then go to the access page of the drive.
Next, right-click on the drive and select Format.
After that, uncheck the “Quick Format” option and then format your drive properly.
Now once the formatting process is finished, unplug the drive and plug it back in afterward.
Check if the error is already fixed. If the drive is not initialized, tap the Win + R keys and hit Enter.
After opening the Run dialog box, type “diskmgmt.msc” and hit Enter to open Disk Management.
From there, right-click on the drive volume and select initialize disk.
Next, select the correct partition type and proceed.
When you have a program, you know before you even start to use it or even know how that you are going to have problems with it.
There are always going to be error messages and things that don’t work on any program you buy or download; guaranteed.
Even some of the most famous program developers in the world make mistakes from time to time and it is a small price to pay for the programs you get and that is a fact. Microsoft Outlook is like any other program; it has its errors. Here are some of the most common errors for Microsoft Outlook on your computer.
1. Problem receiving emails
Sometimes you can be waiting on really important emails. It is really infuriating when you know that they have been sent, however every time you check your email box, there is nothing there!
Your inbox is empty and your patience is wearing thin, so could it possibly be an error with Microsoft Outlook? There is a high probability that this is the problem. The program can be a bit slow on receiving emails sometimes, often even by days.
This can be caused by any number of things, from having too many emails coming through or having too many emails in your inbox.
If you click ‘send and receive’ at the top, it should speed up your emails coming through, however, so give that a try if you’re waiting on anything to come through. If this doesn’t work, however, your inbox may be full.
Try permanently deleting some useless messages and then click ‘send and receive’ again. All your emails should come through then!
2. General slow performance
Outlook, while it has its advantages, can often be very slow. It is probably slower than some other email programs that require a browser but it is quicker to access, which may make up for this fact.
However, sometimes sluggish performance can be really irritating, so it may be wise to try and fix it if you can. One of the reasons it may be acting slow is if you have too many other Windows applications open.
Applications that may interfere with your Outlook’s speed could be anything from Microsoft Word to Windows Live Messenger. If any of these are open, try closing them and see if that helps with the speed problem.
3. Corrupt files
.dbx files are not accessible by Microsoft Outlook. Therefore, they can cause problems with your emails if you have them within them.
To solve this problem, you may have to delete all of your attached email accounts and then reattach them before you can open your emails again.
These corrupt files can also cause you to be unable to delete emails. You will need to transfer these deleted corrupt files into a separate deletion folder as this is usually caused by the folder being corrupt.
Of all the other most frequent problems with Microsoft Outlook, however, this is probably the least likely to happen, which shows how few problems there actually are with this application after all that!
Conclusion
So there are the most common problems with Microsoft Outlook! Not much wrong at all, is there?
It is common knowledge that when you open a file that contains viruses, it will automatically infect the operating system. This is why most antivirus programs like Windows Defender won’t allow the opening of a file or execution of any associated program if they detected that the file or program could potentially harm the computer. In situations like this, you may get an error stating, “Operation did not complete successfully because the file contains a virus”.
In addition, it is also possible that this error message can pop up even for known programs. To open the program or file that triggered the error, you will be given a couple of options in this post but make sure that the program or file is really safe to open and does not contain any virus. You can open the file or execute the program by disabling the Windows Defender or any antivirus program temporarily. You could also try to add an exclusion in your antivirus program or repair File Explorer or run the Disk Cleanup tool. For more details, refer to each one of the options provided below.
Option 1 – Try to temporarily disable the Windows Defender program
Although you could encounter this error with any antivirus program, it is more common in Windows Defender. Thus, you can try to disable it for a while when you open the file or execute the program. To do so, follow these steps:
First, click on the Start button and go to Settings > Update and Security > Windows Security.
Here, select the “Open Windows Security” option located in the right pane.
After that, click on the “Virus and threat protection” option.
Next, click on Manage settings under the Virus and threat protection settings.
Then turn off the switch for both Real-time protection and Cloud-delivered protection.
Now restart your computer and try to open the file or execute the program again and see if it works.
Note: Do not forget to enable the Real-time protection and Cloud-delivered protection back in Windows Defender.
Option 2 – Try adding an exclusion in the Windows Defender program
Open the Windows Defender Security Center from the system tray area.
Next, click the “Virus & threat protection” option and then open the “Virus and threat protection settings”.
After that, scroll down until you find the “Exclusions” and click on the “Add or remove exclusions” option.
Then click the plus button and select the type of exclusion you want to add and from the drop-down list, select Folder.
Next, navigate to the path where the file or program is located.
When a User Account Control or UAC prompt, just click on Yes to proceed.
Now try to run the program or file again and see if it worked. If it did, then make sure to turn on your antivirus. However, if it didn’t work, proceed to the next given options below.
Option 3 – Try to run a System File Checker scan
System File Checker or SFC is a built-in command utility that helps in restoring corrupted files as well as missing files. It replaces bad and corrupted system files with good system files that might be the cause why you’re getting the errors 0x8024a11a and 0x8024a112. To run the SFC command, follow the steps given below.
Type “cmd” in the Start search and then right-click on the appropriate search result.
Next, select “Run as administrator” to open Command Prompt with admin privileges.
After opening Command Prompt, type in sfc /scannow
The command will start a system scan which will take a few whiles before it finishes. Once it’s done, you could get the following results:
Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.
Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them.
Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them.
Now restart your computer and see if the problem is fixed or not.
Option 4 – Run the Disk Cleanup tool
You can also try using the Disk Cleanup tool. To use it, refer to these steps:
Tap the Win + R keys to open the Run dialog box and then type “cleanmgr” in the field and hit Enter to open the Disk Cleanup window.
After that, select the drive you want to clean.
Now click OK to clean the disk and restart your computer.
Virtual Reality or VR for short has come a long way from its infant stage and as 2022 is in half period we are looking at the VR market and reflecting on what has changed in one year. For starters, games have increased in quality and quantity while the hardware price has decreased making the whole VR experience a little closer to a wider audience.
Many companies have tried to get on the VR bandwagon but also many have failed. What remained are staples in VR hardware from large companies that have started with VR early and kept improving their headsets.
So with great pleasure, we are presenting the remaining best 3 virtual headsets so far of 2022 brought to you from Sony, Valve, and Meta.
SONY PLAYSTATION VR
If you want VR on consoles then there is really one option, and that is SONY VR. Premium Virtual Reality solution from SONY, sadly you can do this only on Playstation 4 and Playstation 5. Sony managed to pull off great quality hardware and packed with its exclusives on playstore at a very affordable price that is still cheaper than other products.
While waiting for the Sony PlayStation VR2 headset this one is still a great option and quality is still among the top of the game. From the time of its release until today, many AAA titles have been released for it as exclusives that you can not play any other way and some of them are really worth it.
VALVE Index
Altho there are headsets like HTC Vive Cosmos Elite that have some features that place it as a better solution than Valve Index, Index is still an overall better VR headset as a whole product but its price is something that is keeping it still way out of reach of your standard user. The price, however, is really an illusion since it applies only when buying the system first time, you see Valve has created this headset as a modular design system making it upgradable meaning that you can, for example, buy newer controllers only and they will work perfectly with rest of hardware.
The modular design will save you money when you want to upgrade your VR system but as said entry price is steep. Besides its somewhat higher price than competitors, it is also notable that Index is a positional tracking VR set which means that it relies on a base station in order to locate the user. This means that once set, it is not so easy to change its location of use.
However, its quality and steam use are unmatched, high-quality games and compatibility that no other headset with steam will even pull off probably make Index one of the 3 best headsets out there. Half-life Alyx, arguably and currently one of the best VR games ever made so far was specifically designed for Valve Index and other games are behaving also incredibly nice with this headset, so if you want a great powerhouse for PC VR gaming, you will no go wrong in purchasing Valve Index.
META QUEST 2
Cheapest of the three and coming in various iterations, Meta has established itself from the beginning as a leading player in VR technology with its oculus line of products. Quest 2 is the next product in their line and it comes with 128GB and 256GB versions.
Meta has removed the need for the Facebook account for its VR systems and now you can use them without the need to send any kind of data to meta. Priced fairly for its entry 128 models this standalone VR set improves in any way possible from its previous iteration and sets the bar for what will come in VR's future.
Offering both wired and wi-fi connection with its standalone battery Quest 2 also is packed with a large library of games and it is user friendly as your typical game console but still allows some under-the-hood tinkering if you wish so.
Also, Meta's Vr solution since it uses inside-out tracking makes it incredibly easy to just pick it up and carry it with you wherever you go.
As you know, System Restore is a useful tool in Windows operating system that helps users in fixing system issues by undoing any recent changes to the computer that may have caused the problem. However, there are times when you might encounter some issues when running this tool and one of these issues is when System Restore suddenly gets stuck or hangs up on initializing the restoration of the Registry in Windows 10. If you encounter a similar problem, read on as this post will guide you on what you can do in such cases.
There are several things you can do when you face this kind of problem in System Restore. First, you can try to wait it out, give it more time to load, which should not take longer than 5 minutes. And if it’s still stuck after that time, give it another hour. However, if nothing changed after an hour, then you need to troubleshoot the problem further. Keep in mind that you must not interrupt System Restore by shutting it down abruptly, it could result in an unbootable system.
To get started in troubleshooting the problem, you need to follow each one of the suggestions offered below.
Option 1 – Try to use the Windows Recovery Environment
The first troubleshooting option you need to try is to simply tap the power button for about 10 seconds. This is what you have to do when you have to interrupt System Restore or reset your Windows 10 computer. Tapping the power button for 10 seconds will perform a hard shutdown and once your computer shuts down, restart your computer again and follow the steps below but before you do that, make sure that you have a Windows bootable USB or DVD.
First, insert the bootable USB or DVD and boot into it, and select the “Repair your computer” option.
Next, once you see the manufacturer logo on your computer, tap the key to enter into Windows Recovery Environment.
After that, change the Boot sequence to DVD drive under the UEFI Firmware settings and restart your computer.
Once your computer has restarted, select the boot order and make changes accordingly as displayed in the BIOS.
Option 2 – Try to run the Automatic Repair Utility
You might also want to use Automatic Repair in fixing the error. To do so, follow the steps below.
You can start by creating and booting from a bootable Windows 10 USB Stick.
After that, click on Repair your computer located on the bottom left corner when you are on the initial Windows Startup screen.
Next, click on Troubleshoot, and then on the other screen, click the Startup Repair option.
Now select the operating system you want to repair. Once you do that, it will start to repair your operating system. Wait until the process is completed and then check if the problem’s now fixed.
Option 3 – Try to run System Restore in Safe Mode
If you can’t boot into your Windows 10 computer, you can try to run System Restore again in the Advanced Startup Options.
Boot your computer into Safe Mode.
After that, select an option > Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Startup Settings > Restart.
Once your computer has restarted, tap the F6 key to enable Safe Mode with Command Prompt and to run System Restore from there.
Now in Command Prompt, type the “rstrui.exe” command to run System Restore in Safe Mode. This will help in fixing the problem since it would be safer to perform System Restore of the computer.
Blue screen locale id 1033 error as the name suggests, is a type of BSoD error. This error may occur during Windows startup, program load, or while the program is running. The error indicates poor PC maintenance and occurs without any warning.
The error message is prompted in the following format:
Problem signature: Problem Event Name: BlueScreen OS Version: 6.0.6002.2.2.0.16.7 Locale ID: 1033
When the error occurs, the computer screen turns blue and the user is unable to view or access the program. It is advisable to fix the error right away, virtually because BSoD is a critical PC error, it can pose serious threats to your system.
Error Causes
The two most common causes of the occurrence of the Blue Screen Locale ID1033 error code are:
Registry issues
Viral infection
Further Information and Manual Repair
You don’t need to hire a technician or be a computer whiz to resolve Blue Screen Locale ID1033 error code. Here are some methods that you can try to resolve this error on your PC. These methods are easy to perform and result-driven.
Method 1: Perform a PC Scan by Downloading an Anti-Virus
Since this error is indicative of a viral infection, it is suggested you perform a PC scan by installing an antivirus on your system. Make sure you download an antivirus that is powerful and has the ability to scan all kinds of viruses.
Method 2: Clean and Repair the Registry
Another alternative method is to clean and repair the registry.
The Registry is a component of the PC that stores all information and activities performed on the PC. This includes both important and unnecessary files like junk files, cookies, internet history, temporary files, invalid entries, bad registry keys, and more.
These files not only accumulate in the registry but also damage and corrupt it thereby generating error codes like the Blue Screen Locale ID1033 error code.
The new upgraded Surface Laptop Go 2 is the new iteration of the affordable original Surface Laptop Go aimed to offer good performance at a lower price of under $1000. The new version is not anything vastly different from the original but it comes with much-needed upgrades.
The biggest and main upgrade is the CPU, the Surface Laptop Go 2 is packing now Intel Core i5 1135G7, an Intels 11th generation CPU that should increase battery life. The laptop is also coming with an improved WEB camera and the cheapest one comes now with 128GB of storage instead of 64GB. Price went up from $550 to $599 which is not a big increase considering what was upgraded.
The bad news of new models is that sadly they are still packing only 4GB of RAM, that's really not enough for most applications released in 2022 and the screen is having a relatively low resolution of 1536 X 1024.
Microsoft is still offering all the color variations as in its first offering but added as well a new Sage color that is muted green in tint.
When we look at hardware it seems a little weak but for this price, there is not much competition in the field, and after all this line of models is aimed to provide good performance for an affordable price. If you really need something better you will go with a standard Surface or MAC book instead.
The new laptops are available to pre-order at Best Buy and Microsoft’s online store, and they’ll start shipping on June 7.
When you run a program in Windows 10, error 0xc000012f may pop up, mentioning that the files and binaries you’re trying to run are corrupted. Error 0xc000012f means Bad Image, denoting that the program’s executable or one of the supporting modules is corrupt. Or there is probably a DLL mismatch.
This error usually manifests itself after a windows update or after installation of some application, in order to fix it follow the steps below:
Perform SFC scan
Press ⊞ WINDOWS + X to open the Windows menu
From the menu choose command prompt (admin)In command prompt type sfc /scannow and press ENTER
Leave the computer for the operation to be completed and Reboot your computer
Run DISM
Press ⊞ WINDOWS + X to open the Windows menu
From the menu choose command prompt (admin)in command prompt type: DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth and press ENTER
wait for the process to be finished and Reboot your computer
Reinstall application
If this error has been popping up after the application install remove the installed application and install it again. There is the possibility that the application installer has by accident corrupted some files, reinstalling it might fix the issue.
Uninstall Windows update
In some cases, Windows update can introduce this issue, go to Windows updates, into advanced options, and uninstall the latest update to see if this will fix the error.
Install Visual C++ Redistributable
Go to the official Microsoft website and download C++ redistributable package and install it
Install new windows update
If there is a new Windows update install, there is a chance that in the last update something went wrong and it is very likely that it was fixed in the last one.
A very serious data breach has happened to the unfortunate GoDaddy hosting service placing a little over 1.2 million accounts affected. Security breaches sadly are not a rare occurrence but this time it is a little different.
Each time when the company is breached data is stolen and that places the company in a bad light usually because its user database has been compromised and people are concerned about their data being misused. This is very rational fear and concern but this time things are a little bit different than usual, why is that, you might ask?
Well, as before mentioned GoDaddy is a hosting company and the vector of attack was aimed at the part where it is hosting WordPress. Attackers were able to get their hands on the sFTP credentials of customers on that server meaning that all of the websites are also been relieved of their user base as well.
This potentially means that there is a high chance that all of the hosted web site's content is also compromised, meaning that your data could also be compromised even if you were not a GoDaddy customer, all you needed to do is to be a member of any site hosted on their platform.
GoDaddy has reset WordPress passwords and private keys, so it’s already taken the steps required to stock the attacker from exploiting anything with the passwords obtained. The company is in the process of generating new SSL certificates for customers.
Bad thing is that the attack used a compromised password to get into systems all the way back around September 6th, 2021, the breach was discovered on November 17th, 2021, which is more than a 2-month active time where the attacker could harvest tons of data. The outcome of this attack will be seen in the upcoming time, until then be safe, and Just in case change your passwords.
From the menu choose command prompt (admin)
In command prompt type sfc /scannow and press ENTER
Leave the computer for the operation to be completed and Reboot your computer
Each time when the company is breached data is stolen and that places the company in a bad light usually because its user database has been compromised and people are concerned about their data being misused. This is very rational fear and concern but this time things are a little bit different than usual, why is that, you might ask?
Well, as before mentioned GoDaddy is a hosting company and the vector of attack was aimed at the part where it is hosting WordPress. Attackers were able to get their hands on the sFTP credentials of customers on that server meaning that all of the websites are also been relieved of their user base as well.
This potentially means that there is a high chance that all of the hosted web site's content is also compromised, meaning that your data could also be compromised even if you were not a GoDaddy customer, all you needed to do is to be a member of any site hosted on their platform.
GoDaddy has reset WordPress passwords and private keys, so it’s already taken the steps required to stock the attacker from exploiting anything with the passwords obtained. The company is in the process of generating new SSL certificates for customers.
Bad thing is that the attack used a compromised password to get into systems all the way back around September 6th, 2021, the breach was discovered on November 17th, 2021, which is more than a 2-month active time where the attacker could harvest tons of data. The outcome of this attack will be seen in the upcoming time, until then be safe, and Just in case change your passwords. 