Enable or Disable Status Bar in File Explorer

Windows 11 has brought some new features and changed some of the existing ones. One of these changes includes quick switching of audio devices which will play audio. Audio switching can still be done under the taskbar, it is just a little different and one could say even hidden. Follow this quick guide and you will be switching from your headphones to speakers as an example in a matter of seconds.

1. Click on the speaker icon located in the far-right part of the taskbar.
2. After the quick settings menu appears click on the right arrow located right of the volume slider. If the arrow is not present, instead of click on the pencil icon, then on add, and finally select Volume from the list.
3. After clicking on the arrow icon, a list of all enabled audio devices on the system will replace the volume slider. Click on the desired audio device in order to make it active.
4. Click anywhere outside the quick setting menu to save changes and close it.

Note: in the Quick settings menu if you choose More Volume Settings it will bring you to System > Sound where you can access more sound input and output options.

There are instances when you might encounter an error that says, “Something went wrong, We couldn’t start your program” when you open any Office program. This could be due to an issue with the Office file and any Office app you open throws the same error message. This applies to Office 2019/2016, Office 365 Home, Office for Business as well as Business editions. In this post, you will be guided in what you can do to resolve this error. There are several potential fixes for this error, you might only have to restart your computer or you may have to repair Office from Apps and Features or you could also uninstall and install it back again. For more details, follow each one of the provided options below.

Option 1 – Restart your computer

You might be unable to launch any Office app due to some background process that got stuck or there might be some glitch in the system. Thus, the first thing you can do to resolve the error is simply restarting your computer. Once you’ve restarted your computer, open the Office app again or you could also try to sign in back with your Microsoft account that’s connected to Office. If you’re not quite sure which account you were using, you can follow these steps:

• Open any Office app.
• Then click on File and look for your name located in the top-right portion.
• Now click on it. This will display the email or Microsoft account that’s related to Office.

Option 2 – Try repairing Office from Apps and Features

Since Windows 10 offers some repair features that could replace some of the core files with the original files, you can take advantage of such a feature to fix the “Something went wrong, We couldn’t start your program” error when opening any Office app.

• Open Windows settings and click the Apps and Features option.
• Next, scroll down until you see the Microsoft Office installation option. Select it and click on Modify.
• This will open a window and from there, select Quick Repair or Online Repair and click on the Repair button.

Note: When you choose to repair, you might be given two options which depend on how Microsoft Office was installed. For instance, it was installed via Web Installer or Offline Installer (MSI-based). In Web Installer, select Online Repair > Repair when you’re prompted on how you would like to repair Office. While in MSI-based, you have to select Repair under “Change your installation” and then click on Continue. The repair process makes sure that the app data remains untouched.

Option 3 – Try to uninstall and reinstall Office

If neither of the two given options above worked, then you might want to uninstall Office and reinstall it. All you have to do is download the Microsoft Office Uninstall tool from the official site of Microsoft and run it. This will remove any incomplete Office installation as well as unwanted files. It will also get rid of all the Office apps and settings on your computer.

If you are using File Explorer but suddenly encountered an error saying, “No such interface supported”, read on as this post will guide you on how to fix the problem. This kind of error occurs due to the corruption in the system files which supports several tasks in the system that works with the Windows File Explorer process or File Explorer. This kind of error can give you a hard time in browsing the files on your computer, or when you open important utilities like the Control Panel, or when you copy files and other inconveniences. Needless to say, it won’t bring you any productivity at all and can only leave you frustrated. To fix this problem, there are several options you can try. You can try to run the System File Checker scan or the DISM tool. You could also try to re-register the potentially corrupted DLL files or fix the User Profile. For more details, refer to each one of the given options below.

Option 1 – Try to run System File Checker

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 to 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:

1. Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.
2. Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them.
3. 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 2 – Try to fix the User Profile

The next thing you can do to fix the problem is to fix the User Profile. All you have to do is migrate to a new User Profile in Windows 10 by creating a new User Account and migrating all your personal files from the current user profile folder in the C:/Users location to the new user profile folder which is also located in the same folder.

Option 3 – Run the DISM tool

You can try running the Deployment Imaging and Servicing Management or DISM tool to fix the “No such interface supported” error. 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. Once it’s done, restart your computer.

Option 4 – Try to re-register the problematic DLL file

You may have to re-register the ntdll.dll file using the regsvr32.exe before you can successfully install the program and fix the error. The Regsvr32 tool is a command-line utility that can be used to register and unregister OLE controls like DLL and ActiveX (OCX) controls in the Windows operating system. Follow the steps below to use it.

• Open Command Prompt as admin from the WinX menu.
• Next, type the following command in the elevated Command Prompt and hit Enter to execute it. This will re-register the affected DLL file using the Windows operating system tool, regsvr32.exe.

regsvr32 c:windowssystem32actxprxy.dll

• After you execute the given command, you should see a message saying, “DllRegisterServer in vbscript.dll succeeded” if the Regsvr32 tool was able to run successfully. If it didn’t work, you can try to execute this command instead: FOR /R C: %G IN (*.dll) DO "%systemroot%system32regsvr32.exe" /s "%G"
• Once it’s done, restart your computer.

In any Windows operating system, Safe Mode is definitely a special environment used for troubleshooting issues as well as system diagnostics. Safe Mode allows you to remove any malware in your computer and troubleshoot issues that can’t be fixed when you’re in desktop mode. This is why Microsoft made sure that the Safe Mode option is not available directly and can only be accessed by pressing function keys such as F2, F8 (depends on what PC you are using) or via MSConfig. To make it easier for you to access Safe Mode, this post will guide you on how you can add Safe Mode to the Boot Menu options in Windows 10. As you know, Windows 10 now has Advanced Startup options that allow you to boot directly into Safe Mode without having to restart your PC and then tapping the special key a couple of times. However, if you really have to always use Safe Mode, it’s best to add it in the Boot Menu options. To do that, simply follow the steps below.

• Select Command Prompt (Admin) option from the WinX menu to open Command Prompt with administrator privileges.
• After opening Command Prompt, type the bcdedit /copy {current} /d "Safe Mode" command and hit Enter.
• Once the command is executed, you will see a message saying, “The entry was successfully copied to {74a93982-9486-11e8-99df-00270e0f0e59}”. This message indicates that Safe Mode was successfully added in the Boot menu option which means that you can now directly access it and boot your Windows 10 PC in that mode.

To check if Safe Mode was really added in the Boot menu options, you have to open Msconfig. From there, you will also have to use it to configure the boot settings for the Safe Mode entry. To do so, follow the given steps below.

• Tap the Win + R keys to open the Run dialog box.
• Then type “MSConfig” in the field and click OK.
• Next, go to the Boot tab and find the Safe Mode option which should be located under the default Windows 10 mode.
• Afterward, you need to select the Sage boot option and Minimal. You also have to select the Make all boot settings permanent option.
• Make sure to increase the timeout to at least 10 seconds which will ensure that the menu does not disappear right away.

Note: In similar steps as above, you can add the Safe Mode with Networking and Safe Mode with Command Prompt entries as well. Just simply select “Network” for Safe Mode with Networking and “Alternate Shell” for Safe Mode with Command Prompt. Once you’re done adding any of them, click on Apply and restart your PC. In addition, if you wish to remove the entry, you just have to open MSConfig again and select the entry you want to remove, and then click Delete.

Recently, some users reported not being able to boot up their Windows 10 computers. And during the startup phase, at some time, the bootup sequence is halted with a Recovery error along with an error message saying, “Your PC/Device needs to be repaired” with an error code of 0x0000605. This kind of error message indicates that Windows was not able to verify the digital signature for the file as the signing certificate or it could be that it has expired. To resolve this error, you can follow the potential fixes given below and see if you stumble upon a fix that might work out for you.

Option 1 – Change the Date & Time settings in the BIOS

Some users reported that they were able to fix the error by changing the Date & Time settings in the BIOS. Upon checking, they saw that in their BIOS settings, the date was off several years. As a result, the incorrect date and time settings end up ticking the system into believing that the Windows build has expired long before the actual expiration date. You can check if the error pops up due to the same reasons by accessing the BIOS settings. To do so, you have to tap the Boot key that’s associated with your motherboard manufacturer during the initial startup phase. After that, you can search for a particular boot key online or you can also tap keys like F2, F4, F8, F10, F12, and the Delete key. Once you’re able to access the BIOS settings, locate the Date & time or anything similar, and then check if the date is correct or not. If not, you need to change the date to the actual date and then save the changes made and restart your computer and then check if the issue is now fixed or not. Just remember that if the actual date is past the expiration date of the build you have, you need to change it to an older date. If your Windows 10 PC is able to boot back up, you have to update it to a stable Windows build and then go back to the BIOS settings and change the date to the current one else you will definitely encounter Windows update errors in the future as well as security alerts.

Option 2 – Perform a clean install of a stable Windows 10 build

If every system boot fails accompanied by a BSOD error with error code 0x0000605 “A component of the operating system has expired” and you’ve already followed every instruction on option 1, then it’s most likely that your current Windows build has already expired. Remember that almost all the Windows 10 Insider Preview builds (98xx) are created along with an expiration date and when your computer reaches the expiration date, you won’t be able to boot your computer up. Note that the exact expiration date varies based on the build number. And prior to the expiration date, the operating system will start to display some error warnings telling you that the build will expire and urge you to update the most recent build available. And so once the computer reaches its expiration date, it will begin to reboot every three hours until it no longer boots up which is about 2 weeks approximately after the license has expired. Once the expiration date is up and your computer no longer boots up, you need to perform a clean install and then install the latest Windows 10 build to resolve the issue once and for all.

Could not connect to the System Event explanation: Although logging into a Windows 10 computer may seem like a simple process, it’s actually not since the Windows operating system has built a mechanism in a way that any third party or malware intervention would not compromise access to the system. This mechanism is supported by numerous services, functions, and DLL files. And Microsoft has been taking this security to a whole new level with the introduction of Windows Hello. Recently, a number of users reported getting the “Windows could not connect to the System Event Notification Service service. Please consult your system administrator” error when logging into their computers. While some users also reported that although they can log in, they encounter the same error message from the Notification area. There are several options you can check out to resolve the error. You have to check the status of several Windows Services and make sure that they are running. You also have to reset Winsock as well as run the System File Checker scan.

Option 1 – Check for certain Windows Services

• First, you need to tap the Win + R keys on your keyboard to open the Run dialog box.
• Next, type “services.msc” in the field and click OK or tap Enter to open the Windows Services Manager.
• After that, you will see a list of services and from there, look for the following Windows Services:
  • DHCP Client
  • System Event Notification Service
  • Windows Font Cache Service
• Now make sure that the Startup Type of each service is started and running.

Option 2 – Try resetting the Winsock drivers

• In the Start Search, type “command prompt” and right-click on Command Prompt from the search results, and then select the “Run as administrator” option.
• After opening Command Prompt, execute this command: netsh winsock reset

Note: If you are using IPv4, execute the “netsh int ipv4 reset” instead. On the other hand, if you are using IPv6, execute the “netsh int ipv6 reset”

• Now exit Command Prompt and see if the error is now fixed.

Option 3 – Try running System File Checker or SFC scan

You could also run System File Checker or SFC scan to fix the BSOD error. It 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. To run the SFC command, follow the steps given below.

• Tap Win + R to launch Run.
• Type in cmd in the field and tap Enter.
• 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:

1. Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.
2. Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them.
3. Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them.

• Reboot your PC.

Speech Recognition is a technology used to control computers using voice commands. Through this feature, you can say commands that your computer will respond to, and aside from that, you can also dictate text to your computer which eliminates the need to type words in any word processing program or text editor. All in all, the Speech Recognition feature allows you to communicate with your computer and improves your computer’s ability to understand your own voice better as well as improve its diction accuracy. However, before you can improve its accuracy, you need to “train the feature” first. And if so far you are not satisfied with its performance, you actually have the option to disable it. So in this post, you will be guided on how you can disable the Speech Recognition feature in Windows 10 v1809.

To disable Speech Recognition on your computer, follow the steps below.

Step 1: Go to Settings > Ease of Access. Step 2: From there, go to Speech. Step 3: Now switch off the toggle button for Speech Recognition to disable this feature. On the other hand, you can also disable the Online Speech Recognition feature if you really don’t want to have anything to do with it. You have two options to do that – you can either do it using Settings or using the Registry Editor.

Disable Online Speech Recognition feature via Settings:

• Click on the Start button and select Settings.
• Next, go to the Privacy section and click on the Speech option located at the right pane.
• Then switch the toggle button off to turn off the Online Speech Recognition feature.

Note: Speech services exist on your computer and even in the cloud since Microsoft collects essential information from these services in order to enhance user experience and if you want to stop this, you have to turn off the “Getting to know you” option under the “Inking and typing Personalization” section.

Disable Online Speech Recognition feature via Registry Editor:

Before you proceed, you need to create a System Restore Point first.

• 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.
• Next, navigate to the following registry path:

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftSpeech_OneCoreSettingsOnlineSpeechPrivacy

• After that, check the default value of the “HasAccepted” key located in the right pane. As you can see its value is set to “1” which means that the Speech Recognition feature is enabled. And so to change it, you have to set “0” as its new value to permanently disable the feature.
• Just double click on the key and change the value from “1” to “0”. Keep in mind that even if you are using a 64-bit Windows 10 computer, you still have to create a 32-bit DWORD value.
• After that, restart your computer to apply the changes made.

The new thing from Mozilla is not a browser, it is a VPN!

Besides Firefox, Mozilla offers now Firefox Relay, an app helping you to mask your email and phone number, and a new Mozilla VPN.

Mozilla has recently announced a new subscription model that will let you use all products together for $6.99 per month. Although this is a little more expensive than the competition that goes around for $5 per month note that with this subscription you are having access to all services, not just VPN.

VPN will not only hide your IP address but will also make sure websites cannot access your real location and it encrypts all of your network activity. Relay will give you protection against spam, serving as a shield for your email and limiting spammers from access to your real email address and phone number. With Mozilla subscription will let you use both services.

Error Code 0x8007000b - What is it?

Error Code 0x8007000b has appeared on Windows operating systems from Windows 10 all the way back to Windows XP. In most cases, it occurs when there is a problem within the transaction log for the filing system within Windows.

Common symptoms include:

• Inability to install one or more updates
• Message regarding Windows Update having an unknown error

There are several different ways that you can attempt to resolve the problems that cause Error Code 0x800700b to appear on your operating system. Several of these methods are pretty easy for basic users, but others require some comfort and knowledge in working with advanced tools on your operating system.

If the methods below do not completely resolve the appearance of Error Code 0x800700b on your Windows operating system or if you are not confident in your ability to undertake these steps on your own, you may need to get in touch with a qualified computer repair professional to assist you with the error resolution process. If this error message is not resolved, you could expose your computer to other error codes such as error code 80070103.

Solution

Error Causes

The primary cause for Error Code 0x800700b is that there is an issue or corrupt entry in the transaction log for the file system within Windows. This makes it impossible for Windows to complete the Windows Update process. Although the error message states that an unknown error has been encountered, it is usually fairly simple to resolve the appearance of faulty or corrupt entries in the transaction log if you follow the steps below to complete.

Further Information and Manual Repair

There are several ways that you can attempt to resolve Error Code 0x800700b manually on your Windows operating system. At least one of these methods requires some advanced knowledge or skill in using the command prompt, so if you aren’t confident in your ability to follow these steps through to completion, be sure to get in touch with a qualified computer repair technician who can help you to resolve the error.

Here are the top three methods that can be used to resolve Error Code 0x800700b on your machine:

Method One:  Reset Your Transaction Log for the File System in Windows

To clear and reset the entries in your transaction log, there are a few simple steps that you should follow:

• Step One: Open up the Start menu and go into the search bar. When it opens up, type in “cmd”.
• Step Two: Right-click on the icon for the Command Prompt that opens up and selects the option to run it as an administrator.
• Step Three: In the menu that appears, enter in this command:  “fsutil resource setautoreset true C:/”
• Step Four: Reboot your computer before re-attempting the download and install of the necessary update.

Method Two:  Run the System Update Readiness Tool

An alternative method to resolving Error Code 0x800700b is to open and run the System Update Readiness Tool on your machine. This program runs a scan on your Windows operating system to determine whether it is ready for updates, attempting to resolve any errors it encounters along the way.

After you have scanned and run this tool, you should always take the time to restart your computer before attempting to perform the update process, so that any changes made can be successfully applied to your computer.

Method Three:  Run the System File Checker Tool on Your Computer

The System File Checker is a tool for Windows that runs a basic scan for problem files and attempts to resolve them. To run this tool, follow these steps:

• Step One: From the Start menu, open up the search box, and type in “cmd,” selecting the option to run the command prompt as an administrator.
• Step Two: Type in this command and run it:  “sfc /scannow”

This tool should tell you what the specific issues are so that you can resolve them. It may give you a message that the action couldn’t be performed, that corrupt files were fixed, or that corrupt files were encountered, but could not be fixed automatically.

Method Four: Use An Automated Tool

If you wish to always have at your disposal a utility tool to fix these Windows 10 and other related issues when they do arise, download and install a powerful automated tool.

If you receive an error that says, “An unspecified error occurred during System Restore (0x800700b7)” when you tried to restore your Windows 10 PC, worry not, for this post will help you resolve the problem. This kind of error typically occurs when System Restore was not completed successfully and fails instead with this error. Before you start, you must not abruptly shut down your computer and wait for the error to occur. You may receive this error due to many possible reasons. It could be caused by your antivirus program that’s not letting the process complete or corrupted system files which causes the failure or it could also be caused by an unsuccessful installation of a Windows Update. Here are some fixes you can check out if you can still boot into your computer:

Option 1 – Try to disable your antivirus program

Disabling the antivirus program or any security software installed in your computer is always a good idea you can try when the System Restore process does not go smoothly. So before you try updating your computer again, make sure to disable the antivirus or security program and then run System Restore again, don’t forget to enable the antivirus program back again.

Option 2 – Run the DISM tool

The next thing you can do is run the DISM tool. This tool is known to repair potentially corrupted files in your system as having them could also system issues like the blank dialog boxes. To repair these corrupted system files, you can run the DISM commands:

• Tap the Win + X keys and click on the “Command Prompt (Admin)” option.
• After that, input each one of the commands listed below sequentially to execute them:
  • Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth
  • Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth
  • Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

• Once you’ve executed the commands given above, restart your computer and check if the problem is now fixed.

Option 3 – Run the System File Checker

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 to 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:

1. Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.
2. Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them.
3. 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 – Try to run the System Restore in a Clean Boot State

If the first three given options didn’t work and the service still keeps on failing even though the service is running, you can try putting your computer in a Clean Boot State and then try to run System Restore again.

• 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” check box 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” check box.
• 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.)
• Now try to run System Restore again and see if the process goes smoothly.

Option 5 – Run the Windows Update Troubleshooter

You might also want to run the Windows Update Troubleshooter as it could also help in fixing the problem with System Restore. To run it, go to Settings and then select Troubleshoot from the options. From there, click on Windows Update and then click the “Run the troubleshooter” button. After that, follow the next on-screen instructions and you should be good to go. On the other hand, if you can’t boot into your Windows 10 computer, here are some fixes you can try instead:

Option 6 – Try running System Restore in Advanced Startup Options

If you cannot boot into your Windows 10 computer, you can try to run System Restore again in the Advanced Startup Options.

• Boot your computer into the Advanced Startup Options screen.
• From there, you will see some options to troubleshoot when you can’t log in to Windows in the usual way.
• Now select Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Command Prompt.
• After that, type “rstrui” and hit Enter to execute the command which will start the System Restore process.

Option 7 – Run the SFC scan and DISM via Advanced Startup Options

Like what you did in the first given option, you can use the Advanced Startup Options to run both System File Checker and DISM. All you have to do is boot into the Advanced Startup Options and from there select Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Command Prompt. After accessing Command Prompt, you can run the System File Checker scan first by entering the “sfc /scannow”. As for DISM, you can run the “Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth” command.

Option 8 – 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 in 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.