A system image is a one to one copy of your operating system drive used to quickly recover your computer if anything happens. If you work or depend on your computer, it’s useful to have one of these images around for if the worst happens. You can rebuild your computer from an image ISO as always, but it is much, much faster to use a system image.

Another advantage of using a system image is that you can create one of your fully functional, fully customized and personalized Windows 10 computer. All your programs, settings, files and everything else can be included within this image. That alone saves a ton of work if anything happens to your main drive.

Create a system image

You will need a backup hard drive or network drive with several gigabytes of free space. The exact size the image will take depends entirely on how you have your computer set up.

1. Type Control Panel into the Windows Search box.
2. Navigate to File History and then System Image Backup in the bottom left corner.
3. Select Create a System Image.
4. A new window will appear as Windows searches for a suitable backup location. Select your backup drive or location.
5. Select Start backup.
6. Wait for the process to complete.

Depending on the size of the image and speed of your computer, this could take from ten minutes to a couple of hours. It will use from a couple of GB of space to perhaps a couple dozen GB. It all depends on how you have Windows set up and how much stuff you have loaded onto it.

Restore Windows from a system image

So that’s the creation phase done with. So now how do you restore a computer using a system image? If you can boot into Windows, you use Steps 1 and 2 above. From there you can use Restore from System Image to recover.

If Windows doesn’t boot, use your installation media and boot from that. Select Troubleshoot instead of Install Windows and the System Image Recovery option after that.

If you create a system image, any data loss from a hard drive failure should be minimal. You can have your computer up and running within the hour and be working or playing as if nothing ever happened!

If you cannot restore your computer or the system image won’t work, bring your computer to Dave’s Computers in New Jersey. We will be happy to help!

A user account is essential for managing multiple users on a computer. It is where your configurations and favorites are stored and where account limits are enforced. The main user must have a Microsoft account but all other users can use either Microsoft or local user accounts. Today we will show you how to create and remove user accounts in Windows 10.

Create a user account in Windows 10

If you have multiple users who all spend time on a single computer, user accounts are essential for controlling each user’s impact on the others. Any changes to color, themes, desktop icons, favorites and more can be saved to each individual account and not affect any others. For that alone they are worth using!

Also, if you have users who like to mess around with computer settings, a limited user accounts protects your computer from the worst of that fiddling.

Local user accounts don’t require a Microsoft login so I’ll show you how to create one of those.

Here’s how to create a local user account.

1. Right click the Windows Start button and select Settings.
2. Select Accounts and Family & Other Users.
3. Select Add someone else to this PC.
4. Select I don't have this person's sign-in information to create a local account.
5. Select Add a user without a Microsoft account.
6. Enter a username and a password twice. Add a password hint.
7. Select Next to complete setup.

Whenever you want to switch users, select the Windows Start button, select the current user and select your new account from the list.

Remove a user account from Windows 10

If you have multiple user accounts and no longer need them, it takes less than a minute to remove them.

1. Right click the Windows Start button and select Settings and then Accounts.
2. Navigate to Family & Other Users. You should see all users in the right pane.
3. Select the user you want to remove and select Remove.
4. Confirm when prompted.

The user and their configuration details will be removed from the computer. You can repeat this as many times as you need as long as the main owner account remains in place.

If you have a Windows that needs more involved help, contact Dave’s Computers in New Jersey. We would be happy to help!

RAID, or a Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a way of sharing data across multiple hard drives to enhance redundancy. It is usually used in business as a resilience measure but can also be used on home computers too. If you have three or more of the same hard drive, running RAID is a viable way of making sure you don’t suffer data loss.

RAID is a system of striping or mirroring to share data between multiple hard drives. Files are split between them and will appear on two drives. We will use RAID 5 which uses striping with a parity bit. This means that data is shared across two drives and then enough mathematical data is created on the third, the parity bit, for the operating system to rebuild the data should it be lost on one of the other drives.

If you don’t want to back up your data to external storage and the cloud, using RAID is a good way to avoid data loss. It is not foolproof though. RAID obviously depends on the health and reliability of your hard drives. Should two fail, you will still lose your data.

You will need to be running Windows 10 Professional and have three or more identical hard drives for this to work.

RAID in Windows 10

Setting up RAID in Windows 10 uses the Storage Spaces application built into the operating system. It takes much of the hard work out of configuring RAID and does most of the work for you.

1. Install all of the hard drives into your computer and let it boot into Windows 10.
2. Back up everything you cannot afford to lose just in case.
3. Type ‘Storage Spaces’ into the Windows Search box.
4. Select Create a new pool and storage space. Windows will check all drives for compatibility and list them in the next window.
5. Select all the drives you want to include in your RAID setup.
6. Select the RAID type under Resiliency by selecting the drop down menu. Select Parity for RAID 5.
7. Set the drive size under Size. It should default to the correct setting so you may not need to do this.
8. Select Create Storage Space.
9. Wait for the process to complete and you should then see a single drive in Windows Explorer.
10. Type ‘Manage Storage Spaces’ into the Windows Search box for details on your array.

Now any data you store on your disk will be striped across three disks. Two data parts and a parity part. If you lose one disk, data can be recreated once you replace it. Lose two disks and things become trickier but not impossible to recreate your data.

If you do lose two RAID disks, you may want to bring them to Dave’s Computers in New Jersey before trying to recover them yourself. We are data recovery experts and will ensure you don’t lose any more data than absolutely necessary!

I personally dislike this trend towards games launchers. I don’t trust them, they include large installations, try to control all your games, even non-brand games and are likely to report back far more data than we want them to. If you use EA Origin for your games, you need to update it right away.

We test all kinds of game launchers here at Dave’s Computers. We have to know what they do as our customers use them. While Origin is more stable than some launchers, it is still a largely unnecessary installation. Nevertheless, as launchers go it is quite secure. Except for this flaw.

Origin update

A major security flaw was detected in the Windows version of the game launcher that allowed other users to trick you into opening and running malware within the Origin system. Once launched, the malware can be downloaded and run on your computer.

The flaw allowed hackers to send links to EA Origin users that includes a link. You don’t have to click the link for it to work. The hacker could include a script that automatically selects the link once it arrives on a target machine, so even if you’re aware of the risks links provide, you still get infected.

EA have released a fix for the vulnerability. If you have Origin set to automatically update, it will do just that when you next start it. If, like so many users, you didn’t want Origin running in the background all the time and set it to manually update, you will need to look for the prompt for the update.

If you don’t see the update prompt, either restart Origin or download a fresh copy from the EA website.

Once you have updated Origin, perform a malware scan and an antivirus scan. Use your malware scanner of choice and perform a full scan. Then fire up your antivirus and perform a full system scan just to make sure. This may take a while but is well worth the effort. If you can leave your PC running while you’re at school or work, or overnight, all the better.

As far as we know, the issue only affected Windows versions of Origin. Once patched, the vulnerability is no longer an issue and you can continue using it as normal.

If you have any issues with your computer, want to make double sure it has no malware or want us to fix, upgrade or replace your computer, bring it to Dave’s Computers in New Jersey. We are here to help!

Despite Windows 10 having been around for a couple of years now and Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 for many more, I still know a few people sticking with their Windows 7 computer. Unfortunately, the time is now here for a new operating system and likely, a new computer too.

The Windows 7 End of Life date has been announced as January 14, 2020 which is when support will officially end. That means no more security updates, no more Windows updates, no more app support and no third party app compatibility guarantees. While the OS will run fine without these updates, the computer will gradually become susceptible to emerging threats.

Preparing for the end

Microsoft is already preparing you for the end of Windows 7. As soon as you install Windows Update KB4493132, you will begin seeing prompts to update to Windows 10 before January 2020. This is an optional update which you can elect to not install if you want but will arrive on its own if you have automatic updates configured.

So how can you prepare?

Your main option is to upgrade to Windows 10. You missed the free upgrade offer but you can acquire cut price licenses if you know where to look. Otherwise, Dave’s Computers can help prepare you with a system refresh and full upgrade to the new operating system.

You will need a computer with these minimum specifications to run Windows 10.

• 1GHz or faster processor.
• 1GB  of RAM for 32-bit or 2GB of RAM for 64-bit.
• 16GB of hard disk space for 32-bit OS or 20GB for 64-bit OS.
• Graphics card with DirectX 9 or later with WDDM 1.0 driver.
• Minimum of 800 x 600 resolution display.

If your current computer meets these specs, you can upgrade to Windows 10. We would suggest those as an absolute minimum as many games and programs designed for Windows 10 will require more hardware capability than that.

If you don’t want to buy a new computer or pay for the upgrade to Windows 10, there’s always Linux. Free, super-stable and friendlier to use than ever, Linux is now a viable home operating system for normal people.

Whichever way you go, we can help you transfer your files over to your new operating system and help you set everything up just how you like it. It’s all part of the Dave’s Computers service!

My post last week on ‘Can you run Windows Server 2016 at home?’ prompted another question from a Dave’s Computer customer. He wanted to know if there is any advantage to running a portable version of Windows 10 instead of installing it the usual way. As he travels a lot and installing everything onto a USB drive instead of trying to take a laptop through airport security was appealing. But is it practical?

Airport security is enough to put anyone off travelling with a computer. Even if you’re a US citizen, you can be interrogated and required to unlock your phone or laptop and allow TSA agents to inspect it. So is there a way around that while staying within the rules?

Windows 10 portable

There is an official portable version of Windows 10 you could use in this instance. You or your employer must have a Windows Enterprise license and use specific USB drives certified for Windows To Go, but if you have those, you can use this method. For most other users, it is a real hassle to get Windows 10 working on a USB drive.

There are programs like Rufus that will let you write the OS to USB but it takes time and configuring. Rufus is also not compatible with the newer versions of Windows 10 and may leave you running an outdated version.

Portable computing

If you want to travel while keeping your private data private, you can. You can either use a Linux installation on a USB or factory reset your laptop.

Portable Linux – Linux distributions come in portable formats ready to go. It takes minutes to install and will run a fully working installation onto any USB drive you have with enough space. The upside is that most Linux distros will work and you don’t need to buy a specific, and expensive, compatible USB drive. The downside is that if you don’t know Linux, the learning curve can be steep.

Factory reset your laptop – Many companies who fly in and out of the US use this method and it works. Whether you’re a home or business user, this can save a lot of time. Save all your personal or company data to cloud storage. Wipe your laptop and install your productivity apps. Don’t add any personal or business data to the laptop. When you get to your destination, use your cloud copies to work and save it all to the cloud and not your laptop.

The upside is that you still get to use your laptop and programs you’re familiar with. The downside is that TSA may still want a look at your laptop and delay your onward travel. They just won’t find anything.

I wouldn’t suggest running a portable version of Windows 10. It doesn’t work so well and can be sluggish to use. If the previous two options are not good for your needs, you can always try!

There are a bunch of PC cleaner apps and tuning programs that offer to help keep your Windows computer running smoothly. Some are free such as CCleaner while others are premium, like PC Health Advisor. There are also ads everywhere online offering PC cleaning software for a modest cost. Do you need things applications running on Windows 10? Do you need to pay to keep your computer running well?

The short answer is no, you certainly do not need to pay to keep Windows 10 running smoothly. I would definitely avoid buying any ‘PC cleaning’ software from an internet ad. Whether you install a free program or not is up to you. The guys here at Dave’s Computers have tried all kinds of cleaning and tuning software in our time. Some of the programs are useful, others not so much.

During the Windows 95 to Windows 8 era, these programs did offer modest value. Windows wasn’t so good at housekeeping and would use up all your disk space, not completely clean the registry when you uninstalled an app and was something of a sulky teenage when it came to keeping things tidy. This is where tuning and cleaning applications were useful.

Now we have Windows 10, you don’t need anything else to keep things running smoothly.

Windows 10 housekeeping

While still far from perfect, Windows 10 has made huge strides in usability, utility and appeal. It now manages its own disk space, offers to clean the recycle bin every month, does a far better job at cleaning the registry when uninstalling and tries to keep everything running smoothly.

Windows 10 can repair it’s own registry. It enables you to empty the junk folder yourself. It has its own disk cleaner. It can defragment its own drives and you don’t need to defrag an SSD. You can clear your own browser cookies and history in a couple of clicks. You can cleanly uninstall your own applications.

These things are what most PC tuning or cleaning applications offer to do.

Never buy PC cleaning software from an ad

When I say ads, I don’t mean sponsored ads by recognized companies, I mean web ads for companies you have never heard of for programs that offer to revolutionize your computing experience by speeding it up, clearing out the junk and cleaning the registry.

At best all these programs do is what Windows can do itself. At worst, it will scare you with hundreds of ‘errors’ and ask you to pay to fix them. Some of these apps try to charge users up to $50 for a license to do what Windows can already do.

Don’t fall for the hype.

Use CCleaner if you want a tune up

If you like being able to perform all housekeeping tasks from a single place, Piriform’s CCleaner is the way to go. There is a free version which is plenty enough or a decent Pro version that automates all of the processes. For most home users, the free version is plenty enough.

It can clean out old files, free up disk space, tidy up the registry, change startup items and offers an easy way to uninstall old programs. All things Windows can do but in a tidy interface. Best of all, it’s free and it works!

If you have a computer you currently run Windows 10 on and build yourself another, can you transfer the Windows 10 license to your new computer? This is a question we were asked in the store the other day. As it wasn’t the first time we had heard it so we thought we would add a blog post to spread the word.

Windows 10 is expensive. It can run you over $100 if you cannot find a discounted version and that’s not an insignificant amount of money. So it makes sense that if you have a version running on one computer to transfer it to another.

You cannot build a computer and plug your old hard drive with your existing version of Windows 10 and expect it to work because it won’t. Therefore you have to install a fresh copy and transfer ownership to the new version.

Transferring a Windows license

Before Windows 10 came along, installing Windows onto a new computer meant either copying the code onto your new machine and everything was fine or copying the code and seeing ‘already registered’ errors and either having to call Microsoft or get help another way.

Windows 10 did away with old-style license codes. They could be easily circumvented and were not very secure. Windows 10 introduced digital licenses linked to your Microsoft account. There is still a code but it doesn’t work in the same way as before.

To transfer a Windows license you will need a copy of the license code if you bought the PC from a store. This will be with the paperwork or on a sticker somewhere on the computer. If you don’t have a key, we can work around that but it is better if you have one.

When you’re ready to go, do this:

1. Type ‘cmd’ into the Windows Search box, right click Command Line window and select Open as Administrator.
2. Type slmgr /upk’ and hit enter.

This command disables the Windows 10 key for that computer and should allow you to transfer it to your new computer. Now it’s time to use it.

You can either log into your new computer with your Microsoft account and the new version is picked up automatically or you may need to ‘encourage’ it along a bit. Try logging in first and only try the following if your copy isn’t authorized within 48 hours. Check Settings, System and About to see its status.

On your new PC:

1. Open a CMD window as above.
2. Type ‘slmgr /ipk xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx’ and hit Enter. Where you see xxxxx-xxxxx, type in your Windows 10 code you found on the package, paperwork or sticker of your old computer.
3. Type ‘slmgr /dlv’ and hit Enter.

You should see a popup window with a load of text. Look for License Status and hopefully you should see Licensed next to it. If you do see Licensed, you’re all done!

If you don’t see Licensed or don’t have a key, you need to do a little more work.

1. Log into your new Windows computer using your existing Microsoft account.
2. Open a CMD window as above.
3. Type ‘slui 4’ and hit Enter.
4. Select your region from the blue window that appears and hit Next.
5. Call the toll-free number on the screen and use your phone keypad to enter the Installation ID on the screen.
6. Type the Confirmation ID the system provides into the boxes on screen and select Enter confirmation ID.
7. Select Activate Windows.

Now your version of Windows 10 should activate.

A guy came into Dave’s Computers in New Jersey the other day having problems with his graphics card. He was experiencing artifacts and tearing on a game and the company who designed the game recommended rolling back his graphics driver. He didn’t know how, so came to us for help. That’s why today’s post is a tutorial on how to roll back Windows drivers.

Drivers are specific instruction sets for particular hardware. Without drivers, an operating system may not know how to fully utilize the hardware or may not recognize it at all. As Windows is installed on tens of millions of computers, it is impossible to be able to tell it how to work with every piece of hardware. Instead, manufacturers provide drivers that know what the hardware is and what it can do. Windows communicates with the driver and the driver controls everything from there.

If a new game, application, Windows update or something else is released is incompatible with some aspect of a driver, you are sometimes recommended to roll it back.

Roll back your driver

You have two options when rolling back Windows drivers. You can use the new ‘roll back’ option in Windows 10 or completely uninstall the driver and manually install an older one. I suggest trying the roll back option first and then manually do it if that doesn’t work.

1. Right click the Windows Start button and select Device Manager.
2. Select the device you’re rolling back.
3. Right click on it and select Properties.
4. Select the Driver tab and then Roll Back driver.
5. Select ‘Previous version of the driver performed better’ and select Yes.

Windows will now uninstall the current driver and automatically install the previous version if it can. This may take a few minutes but should work on most, if not all, devices including graphics card drivers.

If that doesn’t work, let’s do it manually.

1. Right click the Windows Start button and select Device Manager.
2. Select the device you’re rolling back.
3. Right click on it and select Properties.
4. Note the driver version in the window.
5. Download an earlier driver version to that above.
6. Select Uninstall Device and allow the process to complete.
7. Reboot if required.
8. Install the driver you downloaded in Step 5.

You won’t always have to reboot. Much depends on the hardware in question as Windows can dynamically restart some hardware but not others.

That’s how to roll back a Windows driver to a previous version. It is now a simple matter of letting Windows do the work for you and if that doesn’t work, doing it yourself. It’s a straightforward process that anyone can do.

If you’re having issues with drivers or anything to do with computers, the guys at Dave’s Computers in New Jersey can help!

The Windows 10 April 2019 Update is the next big download for Windows and is expected sometime in that month. Given how the October Update went, you would be forgiven for not waiting for this next one with baited breath. However, as computers are our thing, the guys here at Dave’s Computers in New Jersey are always up to date.

The Windows 10 April 2019 Update, version 1903 is the biannual big update that is part of the new vision of a single operating system that evolves over time. Hopefully it will avoid the pitfalls of the last update and all should be well.

Here’s what we expect with the Windows 10 April 2019 Update.

New light theme

A new light theme is counterpoint to the Windows dark theme introduced last time. It has been confirmed for this update and will deliver a light taskbar, start menu, folder border and new icons that work with this new look. You should be able to mix elements of light and dark too to create a personal look.

Window Sets

Window Sets were supposed to be with us in October but were deemed not ready. This is a new way to group apps so they work more like browser tabs. For someone like me who has lots of Word or Excel documents open at once, I will be able to group them together to manage my desktop easier.

New login screen

A new login screen is supposed to be cleaner, easier to understand and use and provide the ability to log in using Hello Face, Hello Fingerprint and Hello PIN.

Improved Start menu

The Windows Start Menu is also supposed to see the love. It has been decluttered and tidied up so it is clearer and offers a much more streamlined way to work with apps. It will still come with the bloatware inherent in Windows now but general use should be better.

Separation of search and Cortana

The separation of search and Cortana is long overdue. I don’t know anyone who uses Cortana on their desktop once the initial experimentation is done. From April, Cortana will be separate from search and will work individually. Searching on your computer will then more closely resemble web search and should work much better.

Pause Windows Update

You will also be able to pause Windows Update, which is great news. If you’re not ready or don’t want to run it at that time, you can pause the system until fixes have been released or a repaired update package is ready for download.

Reserved Space

A more controversial change is the introduction of Reserved Space. Windows 10 will reserve 7GB of disk space for its own use and you have no control over it. That’s a lot of disk space to take even if Windows won’t use it and is not going down well with reviewers.

Windows Sandbox

Windows Sandbox is a neat feature that we at Dave’s Computers are likely to use a lot. It allows you to run a virtualized instance of Windows where you can experiment with settings, new programs and other customizations. It offers a lot of scope for testing before committing to installs or configurations and should be quite useful.

There are other features apparently coming in the Windows 10 April 2019 Update but these are what I think are the notable ones. I am cautiously looking forward to this one!