You can click on that area to view the titles of news articles deemed of interest to you. When you click on it, you will see something similar to what is displayed in the image below.

If you click outside of the area, the area that pops up with the news articles will normally go away, but sometimes it will remain and won't go away if you click elswhere, hit Escape, click on the refresh icon in the area, etc. There is an option to disable the News and Interests display, which you can get to by right-clicking on the area where the temperature is displayed. But if you do that when the popup display for News and Interests is stuck on the screen then you can't see the options area to disable it because it is behind the area where the News and Interests appear and is thus inaccessible. In such cases, I've found that changing the display settings and then reverting the settings to what they were resolves the problem. You can get rid of the News and Windows popup display by the following steps:

1. You can hit the Windows key (the one with the Windows symbol on it, which may be on the left side of your keyboard between the Ctrl and Alt keys, to display the desktop. Or, alternatively, you could manually minimize all open windows.
2. Right-click on an open area somewhere on the desktop and select Display Settings. If the Display Settings window isn't fully visible when you do so, drag that window into a position where you can see the settings.
3. Change the display resolution.
4. When asked whether you wish to keep the new resolution or revert to the prior resolution, choose Revert.

The News and Interests display should then disappear. You should be able to click on it again, though, if you want to see the latest news headlines, but have it go away when you click elsewhere.

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[/os/windows/win10] permanent link

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[/os/windows/win10] permanent link

When I checked on the status of the weekly backup process on a Microsoft Windows 10 system by issuing a wbadmin get versions command at a command prompt, I saw that no backups had been created since July of 2018.

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.17134.285]
(c) 2018 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>wbadmin get versions
wbadmin 1.0 - Backup command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2013 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Backup time: 7/17/2016 7:00 PM
Backup target: 1394/USB Disk labeled My Passport(K:)
Version identifier: 07/17/2016-23:00
Can recover: Volume(s), File(s), Application(s), Bare Metal Recovery, System State
Snapshot ID: {76dc6b17-ef40-418f-b13a-a332f3f18c66}

Backup time: 7/24/2016 7:00 PM
Backup target: 1394/USB Disk labeled My Passport(K:)
Version identifier: 07/24/2016-23:00
Can recover: Volume(s), File(s), Application(s), Bare Metal Recovery, System State
Snapshot ID: {f394de8f-b3e2-4cc0-a2ee-ffb12448f1c6}

Backup time: 7/31/2016 7:00 PM
Backup target: 1394/USB Disk labeled My Passport(K:)
Version identifier: 07/31/2016-23:00
Can recover: Volume(s), File(s), Application(s), Bare Metal Recovery, System State
Snapshot ID: {275475f1-22d9-455d-893b-f327b8069f99}

Backup time: 8/7/2016 7:00 PM
Backup target: 1394/USB Disk labeled My Passport(K:)
Version identifier: 08/07/2016-23:00
Can recover: Volume(s), File(s), Application(s), Bare Metal Recovery, System State
Snapshot ID: {58902ac7-c0aa-4384-9abf-b96e89fe1954}

Backup time: 8/14/2016 7:00 PM
Backup target: 1394/USB Disk labeled My Passport(K:)
Version identifier: 08/14/2016-23:00
Can recover: Volume(s), File(s), Application(s), Bare Metal Recovery, System State
Snapshot ID: {7600fdeb-9722-4f0d-9647-6a5a22613a40}

Backup time: 8/21/2016 7:00 PM
Backup target: 1394/USB Disk labeled My Passport(K:)
Version identifier: 08/21/2016-23:00
Can recover: Volume(s), File(s), Application(s), Bare Metal Recovery, System State
Snapshot ID: {05e8eefe-486f-4286-bf7a-57ca7ba192e6}

Backup time: 8/28/2016 7:00 PM
Backup target: 1394/USB Disk labeled My Passport(K:)
Version identifier: 08/28/2016-23:00
Can recover: Volume(s), File(s), Application(s), Bare Metal Recovery, System State
Snapshot ID: {cc0c16df-4eb2-43ca-bb40-4d02928e7617}

Backup time: 9/4/2016 7:00 PM
Backup target: 1394/USB Disk labeled My Passport(K:)
Version identifier: 09/04/2016-23:00
Can recover: Volume(s), File(s), Application(s), Bare Metal Recovery, System State
Snapshot ID: {98c0f7a3-ca59-4c78-b4c3-5ff716a60bf2}

Backup time: 9/11/2016 7:00 PM
Backup target: 1394/USB Disk labeled My Passport(K:)
Version identifier: 09/11/2016-23:00
Can recover: Volume(s), File(s), Application(s), Bare Metal Recovery, System State
Snapshot ID: {b066d090-fd1f-44e2-9899-b5defe860e65}

Backup time: 9/18/2016 7:00 PM
Backup target: 1394/USB Disk labeled My Passport(K:)
Version identifier: 09/18/2016-23:00
Can recover: Volume(s), File(s), Application(s), Bare Metal Recovery, System State
Snapshot ID: {88b6a6aa-dce0-439b-96b8-98e1038411cd}

Backup time: 5/27/2018 7:00 PM
Backup target: 1394/USB Disk labeled Seagate Backup Plus Drive(K:)
Version identifier: 05/27/2018-23:00
Can recover: Volume(s), File(s), Application(s), Bare Metal Recovery, System State
Snapshot ID: {e7999e64-18ef-4ffe-826f-63460ae10a95}

Backup time: 6/3/2018 7:00 PM
Backup target: 1394/USB Disk labeled Seagate Backup Plus Drive(K:)
Version identifier: 06/03/2018-23:00
Can recover: Volume(s), File(s), Application(s), Bare Metal Recovery, System State
Snapshot ID: {ed35b3bb-5409-4351-82b3-42829908d5b2}

Backup time: 6/10/2018 7:00 PM
Backup target: 1394/USB Disk labeled Seagate Backup Plus Drive(K:)
Version identifier: 06/10/2018-23:00
Can recover: Volume(s), File(s), Application(s), Bare Metal Recovery, System State
Snapshot ID: {8dd10f96-c62e-42e9-9d68-0947f529db52}

Backup time: 6/17/2018 7:00 PM
Backup target: 1394/USB Disk labeled Seagate Backup Plus Drive(K:)
Version identifier: 06/17/2018-23:00
Can recover: Volume(s), File(s), Application(s), Bare Metal Recovery, System State
Snapshot ID: {0ebd7188-35b3-4317-bb20-b718dfd35789}

Backup time: 6/24/2018 7:00 PM
Backup target: 1394/USB Disk labeled Seagate Backup Plus Drive(K:)
Version identifier: 06/24/2018-23:00
Can recover: Volume(s), File(s), Application(s), Bare Metal Recovery, System State
Snapshot ID: {93803f25-207b-410d-891f-d1e8244236aa}

Backup time: 7/1/2018 7:00 PM
Backup target: 1394/USB Disk labeled Seagate Backup Plus Drive(K:)
Version identifier: 07/01/2018-23:00
Can recover: Volume(s), File(s), Application(s), Bare Metal Recovery, System State
Snapshot ID: {76022746-9b00-4380-a08b-d9a9b5bdd2d8}

Backup time: 7/8/2018 7:00 PM
Backup target: 1394/USB Disk labeled Seagate Backup Plus Drive(K:)
Version identifier: 07/08/2018-23:00
Can recover: Volume(s), File(s), Application(s), Bare Metal Recovery, System State
Snapshot ID: {030fb852-6e15-4ad3-8acb-e0b0d0057e87}


C:\WINDOWS\system32>

When I checked the free space left on the drive on which the backups were stored from the Windows File Explorer, I saw there was only a few megabytes of free disk space left, so I attempted to delete some of the prior backups with the wbadmin command, but I was unable to delete them with the message "failed with error: The specified media type is invalid" message appearing.

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[/os/windows/win10] permanent link

If you wish, you can add undo and redo icons to the Quick Access Toolbar at the top of the Explorer window by clicking on the icon of a downward pointing arrowhead with a horizontal line above it that appears at the top of the Explorer window. You can then select "Undo" and "Redo" from the menu that appears. Select both, so that you see checkmarks next to each of those options. You should then see curved Undo and Redo arrows next to the button you clicked on for the Customize Quick Access Toolbar. You can now use those arrows, in addition to the shortcut keys, if you prefer to undo and redo actions in the File Explorer.

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[/os/windows/win10] permanent link

When we awoke this morning, my wife found a blue screen displayed on her PC running Windows 10 Professional with the message "Your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart. We'll restart for you." and "Stop Code: PAGE FAULT in NONPAGED AREA". She tried rebooting the system several times and powering the system off and on, but the message kept reappearing. I rebooted the system and hit the F8 key before Windows started - you may have to reboot several times to hit the key right before Windows starts to have it take effect. That took me to a Recovery window where I saw the message It looks like Windows didn't load correctly. If you'd like to restart and try again, choose "Restart my PC" below. Otherwise, choose "See advanced repair options" for troubleshooting tools and advanced options.

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[/os/windows/win10] permanent link

If you set up the Windows Subsystem for Linux on Windows 10, you may find that when you subsequently select Bash on Ubuntu on Windows to obtain a Bash shell prompt, that you see a message indicating that packages need to be updated. E.g.:

106 packages can be updated.
71 updates are security updates.
root@ANAHEIM:~#

You can get the updates with apt-get update. You can then install the updates with apt-get upgrade. You may need to respond to a "Do you want to continue?" prompt. If there are a lot of updated packages to install, be prepared to wait awhile for the upgrade process to complete.

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[/os/windows/win10/Linux-Subsystem] permanent link

A few days ago I upgraded a Windows 7 Professional system to Windows 10. After the upgrade was installed, I saw a blue screen with "Finalizing your setings" with a spinning circle of dots above it. I didn't need to use the system for a few days, so I left it in that state for about 3 days. But with the same message displayed today, I was able to resolve the problem today by holding the power button down for about 15 seconds until the system powered off. When I powered the system back on afterwards I saw "Welcome to Windows 10!" with the account I had been logged into before the upgrade showing and a Next button near the bottom, right-hand corner of the screen. When I clicked on Next, I saw the "Choose privacy settings for your device" screen, though I had made those selections during the upgrade process previously. I altered the selections again as I had before and then saw a "Meet Cortana" screen where I clicked on Not now. I then saw "Finalizing your settings" again briefly and then the screen went black. I saw the disk activity LED for the laptop blinking rapidly for a minute and then I saw a circle of spinning dots on a blue background above "Please wait", but then I got to the "Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to unlock" screen and was able to log into the laptop where within a few moments I saw "Thank you for updating to the latest version of Windows 10. I typed winver in the Cortana "Ask me anything" field and hit Enter which resulted in winver being shown as the best match. When I selected it, I saw the current version of Windows being displayed as Windows 10 Version 1709 (OS Build 16299.125).

[/os/windows/win10] permanent link

A user reported that when she printed Microsoft Excel spreadsheets or QuickBooks invoices, no text would appear on the printouts. She had reported the same problem about a month ago. When I rebooted the system then, the problem went away, but this time rebooting didn't help. After I requested that she reboot the system, I was told the problem remained, so when I was able to get to the system to troubleshoot, I first checked to make sure the system had been rebooted rather than QuickBooks simply being restarted. It was then that I noticed a lot of other functionality was no longer available. E.g., when I tried to use the systeminfo command to find the last reboot time, I saw an error message instead of the time the system was last rebooted.

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.15063]
(c) 2017 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\Pam>systeminfo | find /i "Boot"
Loading Operating System Information ...ERROR: Invalid class

C:\Users\Pam>systeminfo
Loading Operating System Information ...ERROR: Invalid class

C:\Users\Pam>wmic os get lastbootuptime
os - Alias not found.

C:\Users\Pam>

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[/os/windows/win10] permanent link

To check on a potential file system corruption issue on a Microsoft Windows 10 system, I opened a command prompt window with administrator privileges and used the chkdsk command to check and repair the file system on drive C with chkdsk /r c:. The chkdsk operation got to "Scanning and repairing drive (C:): 10% complete", but then stayed there for hours. I finally powered the system off and on again which prompted it to restart the drive scan again. It quickly got to the 10% point again and then, again, stayed there, so I powered the system off and on again. When I powered the system off and on again, I saw "Preparing automatic repair" and then "Diagnosing your PC." I then saw the following:

I clicked on Advanced options which led to a "Choose an option" display where I could choose from the following options:

I clicked on Continue. I then saw a message advising I could skip the disk check by pressing the space key within a number of seconds that counted downwards; I hit the space bar before it got to zero and the system rebooted normally.

[/os/windows/win10] permanent link

When you click on a file in Microsoft Windows, the operating system opens the file with whatever application, if any, that has been set as the default application to open files with the filename extension on the file. The file extension is a dot at the end of the file name followed by a sequence of other characters, often 3 characters, e.g. for myfile.doc, the extension is .doc. If some program has changed the default setting on a file type so that it now opens files with the relevant extension, but you want to revert to the application that previously opened those types of files, you can do so on a Microsoft Windows 10 system by taking the following steps:

1. Right-click on the Windows Start button, usually in the lower, left-h and corner of the screen, then click on Settings.
2. From the Settings window, click on Apps.
3. Click on Default apps.
4. In the Default apps window, scroll down until you see Choose default apps by file type and click on that text.
5. Scroll down the list of file types until you see the one for which you wish to change the default application, e.g., .doc.
6. Click on the the icon for the current default application shown to the right of the file type. You will then be able to choose another application to become the default application for opening files of that type, e.g., Microsoft Word for .doc files.
7. You can then close the Settings window by clicking on the "X" at the upper, right-hand corner of the window.

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[/os/windows/win10] permanent link