You may have been getting the nag screen to upgrade to Windows 10 for a while now. If you have been waiting to decide on doing it now is the time. In 4 more days it will no longer be free. You do need to go to your computer manufacturer's website and confirm that your particular model it W10 compatible. If it is, MOST upgrades are pretty simple. When I say most I would say about 90% of Windows 10 upgrades go without any problem. That being said you still need to make sure you have all of your data backed up just in case you are one of the lucky 10%. Of course if you want help doing any of this please contact us.
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A number of our clients had come to their computer to only to find that the Windows 10 upgrade has started without them having done anything. This can, easily, be stopped. I will start by saying there is nothing wrong with Windows 10 and whether you like it or not, it is the future. That being said there may be a number of reasons you don't want to upgrade. You will want to check to make sure your programs are compatible. You will also want to check on your manufacturer's web site to make sure your particular model computer will work properly. If both of these check out we recommend upgrading.
If one of the above reasons keeps you from being able to upgrade to W10 or if you prefer not to upgrade, the fix is pretty simple. Sometime during the upgrade process there is a license agreement that you have to accept. If you choose decline the upgrade won't happen. Bigger is better, right? Not always. Sometimes bigger is just the same and that can be the case with RAM. RAM (Random Access Memory) is the part in your computer that helps you computer think faster.
Just like everything else in computers the memory is always getting bigger. Just a few years ago machines would come with 1G of ram or less. Now you won't find a computer with less than 2 Gigs and probably more. In the past, one of the most common upgrades for computers was RAM. Increasing the memory from 1 gig to 2 gigs would make a huge difference. We still get a lot of people wanting to upgrade their memory. Now upgrading your memory may not help you. If you are a typical user that runs the internet, email, Word and Excel spreadsheets it really doesn't take that much memory. Once you have enough memory to run your programs more won't really help. For example: A high usage program like Adobe Premier does run 28% faster with 8 gigs of ram instead of 4 but if you upgrade to 16 gigs you only get an additional 3% increase. If you are a big online gamer then it is time to consider more RAM, other than that contact me and we can discuss if more RAM will help or if something else would be a better investment to make that machine faster. Here is the latest threat to take your money: You are going along on the internet and suddenly a black screen pops up to say your are infected and gives you an 800 number to call. Sometimes it says it is from Microsoft or an antivirus program. It doesn't matter. All of these are fake. Even if companies wanted to watch your computer that closely it would be illegal.
If you call this 800 number you will get someone who's job is to get you to let them on your computer so they can scare you into paying them to clean it up. EVERYTHING they say is a lie and the only thing they want is your money. The page that pops up on your computer is, usually, very hard to close. Just restart your computer and 90% of the time everything will be fine. If you are one of the 10% that still have problems don't call the number on your screen. They will try to charge you 2-300 dollars to clean what they put on your computer in the first place. Call a reputable computer company. Of course my choice would be for you to call Computer Solutions but if not just make sure whomever you contact has positive reviews or a solid reputation. There are a lot of free security programs for your computer but every one of them also offer paid versions. Are the free ones worth it? It depends on how much time you want to spend working with your security software. Here are a few problems with the free software:
1) It isn't a complete solution: Most of the time the antivirus portion is there but none of the other components like firewall, browser guard, phishing protection or spam protection is there. If you search hard enough you can find a free program for each of these but you would then be running 4 programs instead of one. 2) Many free programs have to be manually updated. If you don't remember to do this your protection will be outdated in a day or two. You may only remember after it is too late. 3) Most of them don't scan on their own so that, once again,.there is something you have to remember to do. That being said, the free software is better than none. If you need help getting something on your computer let me know. There is a new virus going around the email circuit called the Lockkey virus. This is usually distributed through email as, either a word document, or something that looks like an invoice. When the attachment is opened it triggers the virus and encrypts all of your pictures and documents on the computer. Then it will tell you that you can get your documents back by paying them money. Usually around $300.
The encryption they use is unbreakable other than by them. We can remove the virus so that the computer is usable again but you will either have to recreate the documents, recover them from a backup or pay the ransom. One way to avoid this virus is to NEVER open an email attachment unless you know the sender meant to send it to you. One way to keep this kind of thing from being much of a problem is to have a good backup system so you have something to recover. If you do get an infection like this, turn off the computer as soon as you notice. If not it could affect other machines in the same house or office. According to Forbes Magazine:
64% of employees do non-work related surfing every day 21% spend 5 or more hours per week According to Huffington post: 25% of workers have watched porn while at work 70% of all pornography watched is during the hours of 8 - 5 According to a survey by International Data Corp: 30 - 40% of work internet access is for non-work purposes 60% of all online purchases are made during work hours. I don't know the exact pattern but we are having more clients that have had their machine automatically upgrade to Window 10. One even happened at their office over the weekend. Windows 10 is the future so I think it is probably time to consider it. Two things you will need to do to prepare: 1) Go to your manufacturer's website to make sure all of your hardware is compatible. 2) Research any important software you have to make sure it will still work.
If you absolutely want to make sure your computer doesn't upgrade to 10 we can put a program on to stop it. If you have upgraded but are having problems we can help. We can revert your computer to the previous operating system or install additional options to make 10 more familiar to you. Fortunately, thanks to some great programmers, you don't have to live with it. With a free program, Class shell you can go back to the start button and menus just like you had in Windows 7. Just go to http://www.classicshell.net/ and install this tool. If you like it please consider donating something to them. You will notice a "donate now" button on their site.
Antivirus programs are good and no-one should be without them but now there is a program that can help you avoid going to sites that can cause you problems. WOT (Web Of Trust) does just that. By using croudsourcing it gathers opinions from thousands of people on the safety of sites and informs you in a couple of ways. When you search a topic many of the results will have a green dot indicating that it is a known good site. If you try to go to a site that WOT doesn't trust you will get a large warning popup that will still allow you to go to the site if you choose.
You will definitely want to look at the warnings, and think twice about going to that site. Warning that SOME of the messages may be for legitimate sites but it is worth being careful. To read more about this and download the product. you can go to https://www.mywot.com/ |
AuthorLarry Goodman is the owner and founder of Computer Solutions. In his spare time he likes to play on and shop for computers. Categories |
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