Android malware spies while posing as a Update

In today's time, Wi-Fi is a common occurrence, each household has it, on town squares, there are free Wi-Fi hotspots, etc. But sometimes when relaxing at home WI-Fi can fail on us and stop working. If this happens to you do not lose your mind because we have several troubleshooting help tips and ways to get it back quickly so you can continue with your browsing and using your internet.

Restart the Router and Computer

Yes, we will start with this typical cliche in IT and tech in general. Surprisingly this method still proves over and over again to be true and effective. Over time some electric components simply start working a little bit differently, electrostatic electricity can accumulate on some parts and they can cause issues. By turning off the device and leaving it for some time you are discharging accumulated electrostatics and placing it again into normal working mode.

Unplug your router and leave it for at least 30s like that, a full 1 min is recommended, and then plug it back. Turn it on and restart your computer in order to reboot addresses.

Reset DHCP

If simple have you tried unplugging it and plugging it back in did not work let us reset DHCP. Click on the start button and type in PowerShell, then click on Run as administrator. Once inside the PowerShell type in the following command followed by ENTER: ipconfig /release and after the command finishes, type in: ipconfig /renew also followed by ENTER key. Try the connection again.

Reset TCP/IP stack

The next thing that we will try if the previous one failed is to reset the TCP/IP stack to eliminate corruption of settings files. Like in the previous step, press Start and type in PowerShell and click on run as administrator. inside type in: netsh int IP reset and press ENTER key. Wait for the process to finish and reboot your PC.

Reset WinSock

WinSock is yet another part of Windows OS that is responsible for network communication and resetting it could solve the issue. Again go to PowerShell as described in previous steps and type in this time: winsock reset and press ENTER. Wait for the process to finish and restart your computer.

Other things you can try

Change TCP IP setting back to automatic if you have set manual Ip address on your computer.

Update your network driver via the manufacturer's website of your network adapter. There is a chance that somewhat updates are available to address some issues discovered.

Factory reset your router on the back by locating the reset button on it and pressing and holding it for around 10s.

Turn off your firewall and antivirus protection in order to eliminate it from blocking your internet access.

It is officially confirmed, Windows 11 release date is October 5^th. Windows 11 will be released as a free upgrade to all registered Windows 10 users that have supported hardware for it. The rest of the users will be able to install it via ISO file as a clean installation if their computer supports Windows 10 hardware requirements. The official price for the license for Windows 11 has not yet been set but I assume after release it will be set. Priority for W11 will have users who are upgrading from W10 as stated by Microsoft. Also, it was officially confirmed that Android apps will not be running natively in this first release of Windows 11, that feature will come in a future update, official statement below:

"We look forward to continuing our journey to bring Android apps to Windows 11 and the Microsoft Store through our collaboration with Amazon and Intel; this will start with a preview for Windows Insiders over the coming months,"

The rest of the features will be all included inside Windows 11 on launch.

A few days ago we celebrated fixing of months-long PrintNightmare vulnerability by Microsoft, sadly a new bug and issue have been found. Firstly discovered Microsoft stated:

A remote code execution vulnerability exists when the Windows Print Spooler service improperly performs privileged file operations. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could run arbitrary code with SYSTEM privileges. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.

A few days ago, Microsoft officially released a patch that was supposed to finally fix it. As you might recall this vulnerability was present for quite some time, Microsoft's solution after a long struggle was to elevate certain privileges to administrator account only and remove user accounts from managing printers. It complicated things a little bit but it was stated payoff was worth it. The new issue now is that on a system that already had accounts created and set, old accounts still can hijack the system, patch issues address only accounts that are created after the fix is administrated, old ones can still do whatever they want. Once again of course Microsoft has stated that until it is again resolved you should again disable the Print Spooler service as a temporary workaround.

The Snapping feature was introduced as an essential part of Windows 11 and I like it very much, it lets you organize your opened windows much faster and with more control. However, some people do not like the feature, worry not because you can turn it off, or if you prefer you can just remove the showing layout option that is shown when hovering over Minimize/Maximize button.

Removing options all together

To completely turn off Snap layout in Windows 11 follow these steps

1. Open Windows 11 settings by pressing ⊞ Windows + I
2. Select System on the left part of the screen
3. In System options select Multitasking
4. At the top of Multitasking Click on the switch next to Snap Windows
5. Close settings

Changes will be automatically applied and you will no longer have Snap layout functionality.

Removing layout graphic from Snapping feature

If you like the snap Layouts feature but are not very fond of the layout graphic that is popping up each time you hover over Minimize/Maximize button do not worry, there is an option to turn just that off and keep the feature itself.

1. Open Windows 11 settings by pressing ⊞ Windows + I
2. Select System on the left part of the screen
3. In System options select Multitasking
4. Click on the Snap Windows menu
5. Deactivate Show Snap Layouts When I Hover over a Window’s Maximize button
6. Close settings

Now you will be able to use the Snap Layout feature without layout graphics showing. If you want to reverse any of these options and go back to standard-setting, just follow the steps and turn features ON.

As you know, Windows operating system comes with tons of features. Some of which are not intended to be used by normal customers or users directly which means that only a small percentage of the huge user base of the operating system leverages the use of such features. However, they’ve added some major value to the feature list of the operating system. You can find these features under the “Turn Windows Features on and off” option. This indicates that if you want to, you can just type in “Turn Windows Features on and off” in the search box and then enable any feature that you want to enable. Aside from that, there are other ways you can disable or enable the optional Windows Features in your Windows 10 computer.

Option 1 – via Control Panel

• Open Control Panel and select Uninstall a Program.
• After that, select the “Turn Windows features On or Off” option on the left side.

Option 2 – via Command Prompt

• Tap the Win + X combination on your keyboard or right-click on the Start button and then click on Command Prompt (Admin). Alternatively, you can also type “cmd” in the Cortana search box and right-click on the Command Prompt icon, and select the “Run as administrator” option.
• If a User Account Control or UAC prompt appears, click on Yes.
• Next, type in the following command to see the list of the available features.

DISM /online /get-features /format:table | more

• Now all you have to do is copy the name of the feature that you want to enable and for you to do that, you need to execute the following command:

DISM /online /enable-feature /featurename:[Enter the name of the feature here] –All

Note: Now if you want to disable a feature that’s already enabled in your computer, refer to these sub-steps:

• First, you need to check what features are enabled, and for you to find out, enter this command: DISM /online /get-features /format:table | find “Enabled" | more
• And if you want to check the detailed information about a particular feature, you can enter this command: DISM /online /get-featureinfo/featurename:[Enter the name of the feature here]

Option 3 – via Windows Powershell

As you know, the Windows Powershell is a very important tool in Windows 10, and a powerful one at that since you can do a lot of things using this command line. So while you use this tool you need to populate the list of available features first and then you have to download the feature your desired feature.

• Search for PowerShell in the Cortana search box and then run it with administrator privileges.
• Next, type in the following command to populate the list of available features:

Get-WindowsOptionalFeature –Online

• After that, enter the following command to install any feature you want to enable from the list of available features:

Get-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName *Type feature name*

• Now enter the following command to enable your desired feature:

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName “Type feature name” –all

• And if you want to disable any enabled feature, just enter the following command:

Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName “Type feature name”

Option 4 – via an external installation source

You also have the option to fetch the latest features from an updated offline source. The source could be an ISO any other type of image or just a folder. So you need to decide if you want to use Windows Powershell or Command Prompt.

• If you want to use Command Prompt, just enter this command: exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:< /All /Source:<Enter the path of the feature here>
• If you want to use Windows Powershell, use this command: Install-WindowsFeature –Source “<Enter the path of the feature here>”

Note: If you want to get the latest features, you need to get the latest version of the image of the operating system that you are trying to install the feature from.

Upgrading your Windows 10 computer does not always go smoothly and you often encounter not just one but various errors so, in this post, we are going to cover several Windows 10 upgrade errors such as 80240020, 8007002C, 80246007, 80070004. All these upgrade errors are related to the Windows Update folder. Thus, you need to clear the Software Distribution folder, repair the System Image and fix System Health in order to resolve all these Windows 10 Upgrade errors. Before you get started on the steps to resolve these tons of errors, you have to disable your security program for the meantime, disconnect your peripherals, remove USBs connected to your PC and then make sure that your PC is connected to the main power supply. Once you have everything covered, carefully follow the options given below.

Option 1 – Delete Windows 10 Update Files in the SoftwareDistribution folder

The Software Distribution folder in the Windows operating system is a folder that can be found in the Windows directory and is used to store files temporarily which might be required to install the Windows Update on your PC. Thus, it is required by the Windows Update and maintained by WUAgent. A lot of users tried deleting the files in this folder to fix the problem and so far it has worked. Like them, you can try clearing the Windows Update cache by simply deleting the contents of the folder named “SoftwareDistribution” since Windows apparently can’t clear and re-download the update contents once they are corrupted. Thus, deleting the contents of this folder will make Windows download the contents again which will fix the problem. To do that, follow the steps below.

• Open the WinX Menu.
• From there, open Command Prompt as admin.
• Then type in the following command – don’t forget to hit Enter right after typing each one of them.

net stop wuauserv net stop bits

• After entering these commands, it will stop the Windows Update Service and the Background Intelligent Transfer Service.
• Next, go to the C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution folder and get rid of all the folders and files thereby tapping the Ctrl + A keys to select them all and then click on Delete. Note that if the files are in use, you won’t be able to delete them.
• Once all the contents in the Software Distribution folder are deleted, restart your PC and then go back to Command Prompt and input the following commands again.

net start wuauserv net start bits

Since the folder has already been flushed, it will be populated afresh the instant your restart your computer and open Windows Update.

• Now Open Settings and check for Windows Updates. Windows 10 should begin the download right away.

Option 2 – Try using the DISM tool

Running the DISM Tool helps in repairing the Windows System Image as well as the Windows Component Store in Windows 10. Using this built-in tool, you have various options such as the “/ScanHealth”, “/CheckHealth”, and “/RestoreHealth”.

• Open the Command Prompt with admin privileges.
• Then type in the following commands and make sure to hit Enter right after you type each one of them:
  • Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth
  • Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth
  • exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth
• Do not close the window if the process takes a while as it will probably take a few minutes to finish.

Note: If it happens that the Windows Update client is broken, you need to run the following command to repair it then restart your PC and click on Update once again.

DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth /Source:C:RepairSourceWindows /LimitAccess

Note: The Windows Upgrade error, with error code 80240020 is an expected error message that happens when the upgrade requires customer user action. Thus, you need to do the following steps to resolve this particular Windows Upgrade error.

• Tap the Win + R keys to open the Run dialog box.
• Then type “regedit” in the field and hit Enter to open the Registry Editor.
• After that, navigate to this registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionWindowsUpdate
• Now right click on WindowsUpdate located in the left pane and then create a new key and name it as “OSUpgrade”
• Next, right-click in an empty space in the left pane and create a new DWORD and name it “AllowOSUpgrade” and enter “1” as its value.

Option 3 – Try running the Windows Update in a Clean Boot State.

Putting your PC in a Clean Boot state can also help you install Windows Updates or Upgrades without any trouble because, during this state, you can start the system with a minimum number of drivers and startup programs that will surely help you in isolating the root cause of the issue.

• Log onto your PC as an administrator.
• Type in MSConfig in the Start Search to open the System Configuration utility.
• From there, go to the General tab and click “Selective startup”.
• Clear the “Load Startup items” checkbox and make sure that the “Load System Services” and “Use Original boot configuration” options are checked.
• Next, click the Services tab and select the “Hide All Microsoft Services” checkbox.
• Click Disable all.
• Click on Apply/OK and restart your PC. (This will put your PC into a Clean Boot State. And configure Windows to use the usual startup, just simply undo the changes.)
• After that, try to install the Windows Updates or upgrade again.

If you suddenly encountered an error when you try to run the Windows Sandbox that says, “Windows Sandbox failed to start, Error 0xc030106, The virtual machine or container exited unexpectedly”, read on as this post will guide you on what you can do to resolve the problem. According to security experts, this kind of error in Windows Sandbox is due to some issues with the supporting virtualization component. It could also be caused by other factors and to fix it, there are several potential fixes you need to check out. You can try running the Windows Sandbox as an administrator. You should also make sure that all the supporting processes are running properly, as well as try to install any pending Windows Updates.

Option 1– Try to run Windows Sandbox as an admin

• In the Start Menu, scroll down until you see the entry for the Windows Sandbox.
• Then right-click on it and select More and then select the “Run as administrator” option to open it with admin privileges.
• Next, if a User Account Control or UAC prompt pops up, just click on Yes to proceed.
• You should now be able to open the Windows Sandbox without the error. However, if the error persists, proceed to the next given options below.

Option 2 – Ensure that all the supporting processes and services are running properly

If running Windows Sandbox as an administrator didn’t fix the error, you have to ensure that all related processes for Windows Sandbox are running properly. To do that, follow these steps:

• Tap the Win + R keys to launch the Run utility and type “services.msc” in the field and hit Enter to open the Windows Services Manager.
• Next, from the list of services, look for the following services in the given order:
  • Network Virtualization Service
  • Virtual Disk
  • Hyper – V Virtual Machine
  • Hyper – V Host Compute Service
  • Container Manager Services
• After you find the aforementioned services, restart each one of them.
• Once done, try to open the Windows Sandbox again and see if the error is fixed or not.

Option 3 – Try to install any pending Windows Updates

If the second option still didn’t work, then you might want to check Windows Updates on your computer and see if there are any pending Windows Updates you have to install. All you have to do is go to the Windows 10 Settings app and then go to the Windows Updates section and click on the “Check for updates” button to check if there are any pending updates that are needed to be installed. This could fix the Windows Sandbox error.

If you are trying to update your Windows 10 computer but are not able to do so since your computer is running low on storage then this obviously indicates that there is not enough disk space available on your drive where Windows 10 has been installed. As you know, when Windows 10 downloads the update packages, it extracts them in a separate folder which means that there should be enough space on that particular folder for the update to begin with. Windows do not really check systems for any adequate space requirements before it even initializes the update or upgrades and you only get to know about it right when the update process starts. On Windows 10 thin clients or the ones with embedded systems that have limited storage space, when Windows Update runs, the update initialization may fail because as pointed out, Windows does not check systems for adequate space requirements so you may have to do the work for them by making sure that your disk has enough space available. Here are some suggestions you can follow to resolve Windows 10 update issues on computers with low storage space.

Option 1 – Delete the files from the Download folder

Since you are going to delete everything manually, you need to create a backup for all your important files which you may have placed in the Download folder. After you create backup copies of important files, delete the files from this folder or you could simply tap the Shift + Del keys to remove the files permanently after you selected them all.

Option 2 – Change the Windows Update Folder location

You might have to change the Windows Update folder location where Windows download all the files need to update the operating system if you cannot really create some space on your primary driver. So all you have to do is set the drive with enough space available for the update to be completed.

Option 3 – Uninstall apps and programs you no longer use

In some cases, apps and programs take up a lot of space on your drive. So if there are programs or apps that you no longer use, you can uninstall them to save storage space. To do so, follow these steps:

• In the search box, type in “control” and then click on Control Panel (desktop app) among the search results.
• After that, select Programs and Features from the list which will give you a list of all the programs installed on your computer.
• From there, look for the apps and programs that you no longer use and right-click on each one of them and click on Uninstall.

Option 4 – Move files to another drive

This is another thing you can try. You can move files, especially the ones with large sizes, to another drive to make up space on your drive. After that, install the updates once again.

Option 5 – Reduce on-drive files from Cloud services

If you are using tons of cloud backup services such as OneDrive and Dropbox, you might want to consider reducing the number of files you have on those cloud backup services. You can do what you’ve done on option number three and have those files moved to another drive to free up storage space.

Option 6 – Empty the contents in Recycle Bin

As you know, the files that are deleted from your computer goes to the Recycle Bin first. So if you have not emptied Recycle Bin for a long time now, the files you delete are still actually taking up space on your drive. Thus, you need to empty the contents in the Recycle Bin to save storage space.

Option 7 – Clean up temporary files

You can use the Windows 10 Storage Sense feature which can clean all the temporary files from your computer. To use Storage Sense, follow the steps below.

• Open Setting > System > Storage from the WinX Menu.
• From there, you will see a list of all the local and connected storage devices along with the details on the free space.
• Now make sure that the Storage Sense feature is turned On then go find a link that says “Free Up Space” and click it to open.
• After that, a screen which is the built-in program in Windows 10 will appear and will scan your computer for the following junk files so you can free up disk space:
• Windows Upgrade Log Files
• System created Windows Error Reporting Files
• Thumbnails
• Temporary Internet Files
• Previous Windows Installation Files
• Delivery Optimisation Files
• DirectX Shader Cache

Choose the files you want to get rid of and then click on the remove files option. Note that you’ll have an idea of the total size as you select any of the junk files listed above.

There are several kinds of errors you could encounter when you are running Windows 10 on a virtual machine. The Windows OS knows the difference between booting up in a standalone computer or in a virtual machine. This is why some specific drivers and system capabilities are used while emulating the Windows OS on software and during this phase, there are times when the System Preparation may throw up an error that says, “A fatal error occurred while trying to sysprep the machine”. This kind of error arises due to a race condition wherein the Sysprep command tries to stop the Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator or MSDTC service and the VMware tool tries to start the MSDTC service. You may also see the following messages logged in the Setuperr.log file:

• [0x0f0082] SYSPRP LaunchDll:Failure occurred while executing ‘C:Windowssystem32msdtcprx.dll,SysPrepDtcCleanup’, returned error code -2146434815[gle=0x000000b7]
• [0x0f0070] SYSPRP RunExternalDlls:An error occurred while running registry sysprep DLLs, halting sysprep execution. dwRet = -2146434815[gle=0x000000b7]
• [0x0f00a8] SYSPRP WinMain:Hit failure while processing sysprep cleanup providers; hr = 0x80100101[gle=0x000000b7]

To fix the 0x0f0082, 0x0f0070, 0x0f00a8 Sysprep errors, you can check out two potential fixes. First, you have to check the status of the MSDTC service and the second one is to check the settings in the Windows Registry. Note that these fixes are proven to be effective on many users and apply to several versions of Windows, including Windows 10.

Option 1 – Check the status of the MSDTC service via Command Prompt

As mentioned, the error could be caused by the malfunctioning of the MSDTC service or it. Thus, you have to uninstall and reinstall the MSDTC service to resolve the problem and you can do that using Command Prompt. Follow the steps below.

• In the Start Search, type “command prompt” and from the results, right-click on Command Prompt and then select the “Run as administrator” option to open it with admin privileges.
• If a User Account Control or UAC prompt appears, just click on Yes to proceed.
• Once you’ve opened Command Prompt, execute this command: msdtc –uninstall
• The command you just entered will uninstall the MSDTC service. After that, you need to execute this second command to reinstall the service: msdtc –install
• Now exit Command Prompt and check if the error is now fixed.

Option 2 – Check the Registry settings

• Tap the Win + R keys to open the Run dialog box and type “Regedit” in the field and click OK or hit Enter to open the Registry Editor.
• After opening the Registry Editor, navigate to this registry path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionSoftwareProtectionPlatform
• From there, look for a DWORD value that’s named “SkipRearm” and double click on it.
• Then change its value data to “1”.
• Restart your computer to apply successfully apply the changes made and check if it was able to fix the error.

USB storage devices are used to store small and even big files, depending on their sizes. Usually, the sizes of the USB vary from 2GB up to 16GB. And as time passes, they have advanced quite a bit and now it’s common to find USB sticks with a capacity of 32GB, 64GB, or even 128GB. And since they now have large capacities, USB storage devices are often used for storing backups of system data as well as creating an image. However, there are times when you might encounter an error message while trying to create a backup or image on your USB device. The error message states:

“The drive is not a valid backup location.”

One of the causes of this problem is that Windows was not able to recognize the USB drives as a valid backup location since USB storage devices weren’t previously large enough to store system images. To fix this error, here are some possible solutions that might help.

Option 1 – Try creating a sub-folder in the USB drive and backup all the images there

The first thing you can try to do is to create a sub-folder on your USB device. This is one good way you can bypass the USB drive limitation. How? Refer to the steps below.

• First, right-click on the USB storage device and select Format.
• Next, select NTFS as the File System and check the box next to Quick Format.
• After that, click on Start to initiate the formatting process.
• Once the formatting process is completed, open the USB drive and right-click anywhere inside its main drive window, and then select New > Folder.
• Then name the folder to be created as “Image (or anything you please)”.
• Afterward, right-click on the folder and select Properties.
• From there, go to the Sharing tab and click on Share.
• Now check if the Permission level on the System owner which should be your username is labeled as “Owner”.
• Then try to back up your files again using your USB drive while keeping the sub-folder as the backup location.

Option 2 – Update the USB Controller Drivers

• 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 – Run CHKDSK utility to check the drive for errors

When it comes to some issues concerning the hard drive or removable devices, there is a utility in Windows that might help which is called “chkdsk”. To use it, follow the steps below.

• Tap the Win + S keys to open the Search box.
• Then type “command prompt” in the field and from the search results that appear, right-click on Command Prompt and select “Run as administrator”.
• After opening an elevated command prompt, copy and paste the following command and hit Enter:

CHKDSK [volume [[path] filename]] [/F] [/V] [/R] [/X] [/C] [: size]]

Note: In the command given above, “[/F]” will try to fix the system errors while “[/R]” will be the one to fix the bad sectors.

• Now if you are prompted to run CHKDSK after your reboot your PC, just tap Y and reboot your PC.
• If CHKDSK is not able to find any errors, tap the Win + E keys and navigate the access window. From there, right-click on the concerned drive and click on Properties.
• After opening Properties, click on the tab Tools and then click on the “Check” button under the Error-checking section.
• Wait until the process is completed and then restart your computer.