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Hello everyone! I am taking a slightly different approach this week and not answering a question but talking about an event that happened this week — the introduction of the Microsoft Surface Go. The 10-inch tablet has a surprisingly low entry-level price of $399 – and that is before adding any accessories like a keyboard, pen and mouse. As a 10-inch tablet with full touch and inking support, it could be a very comfortable second screen for consumption, social media and light email, not unlike the capabilities inherent in the Apple iPad. Surface Go (Via Microsoft) This device is going to help grow the Surface brand because it is the first time Windows-oriented consumers can pick up a branded device at this price level. (Apple’s had a low-cost iPad since March 2018.) Even the high-end Surface Go, which based on its specs would be the performance buy, is listed at $549. For what it offers — and the ease with which it moves between light entertainment and serious productivity, thanks to the full Office 365 suite of software — that’s a great bargain. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

Sixteen fixes for browsers should be prioritized. Microsoft released 53 security patches for July, including 18 listed as Critical, 33 as Important, one rated as Moderate, and one considered Low in priority. According to researchers at SANS, three of these vulnerabilities have already been disclosed, but no exploits have been seen yet. The releases impact Internet Explorer (IE), Edge, ChakraCore, Windows, .NET Framework, ASP.NET, PowerShell, Visual Studio, and Microsoft Office and Office Services. Here are highlights from this month’s release with the information you need to prioritize your patching efforts. 16 Browser Vulnerabilities Of the more pressing concerns this month, Qualys director of product management, Jimmy Graham says admins should focus on the 16 common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) covering browsers. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

Previously, I shared a process that allowed you to sync your Internet Explorer favorites using OneDrive. The premise behind the hack was to centrally store all your IE favorites in a single directory on OneDrive. Synching the favorite shortcuts this way tended to be much faster than depending on the built-in synching that IE itself performs. However, after writing that hack, I started to see an error on my bare metal test devices which were using that OneDrive sync method. OneDrive Folder Error Dialog This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

Printing in Excel doesn’t have to be problematic. You’ve created a long or intricate Excel spreadsheet. And you’ve just sent it to your printer. But when you check the pages coming out of the printer, you see that the spreadsheet didn’t print right. Whatever went wrong, you can avoid many printing problems in Excel by following the right steps. You can ensure that your spreadsheet prints in the right orientation, takes up the right number of pages, and doesn’t get cut off at the wrong spots. Let’s check out how. I’m using Excel 2016 for these steps, but the basic features and options for printing should be the same across the previous couple of versions. If you want to try this out on your end, launch Excel and create or open a large spreadsheet. If not, just follow along. Set Paper Size and Orientation. Before you print, you should set up your page options. The first step is to confirm or change your paper size. Click on the Page Layout tab and click on the Paper Size button. You can choose Letter, Legal, and other sizes. Letter or legal are the most common choices in the US. But if you’re … Read More »

Over the last year, Microsoft’s OneDrive cloud storage service has gone through some significant changes. The first was the return of Files On-Demand, reviving end users’ ability to see their entire cloud storage file structure, then select whether files should be stored locally or in the cloud. The return of Files On-Demand also introduced a dynamic file management process that would adjust local storage of your cloud files based on how often you accessed those files on that system. Although OneDrive is deeply integrated into the Windows 10 operating system, the primary tool used to manage the syncing of your cloud storage is the OneDrive sync client. That piece of software is not tied to Microsoft’s semi-annual features updates for the OS, so the team can ship updates at any time to continue improving the service. Note: An additional benefit of the OneDrive sync client is that it is the only program needed to sync both consumer and OneDrive for Business files stored in the cloud service. This week Microsoft announced the initial rollout of a feature for OneDrive for Business users called Known Folder Move. This allows IT departments to redirect common user folders in Windows 10 such as Desktop, Documents, and … Read More »

As we continue our trek through various enhancements and new capabilities in the recently released Windows 10 April 2018 Update (see here and here), we next stop at Focus Assist. Focus Assist is not new for Windows 10 – in previous feature updates for Windows 10, it was known as Quiet Hours. When this name change was announced, the general reception was that it made no sense and the Quiet Hours name was more than adequate for the feature. I have long felt that the April 2018 Update was focused — no pun intended — on productivity and that is how Microsoft explained this name change: Focus Assist helps you get more done by easily blocking notifications, sounds, and alerts to create distraction-free work times. This is helpful if you’re giving a presentation or trying to focus on a paper, you can use Focus Assist to block interruptions or distractions. While Quiet Hours also helped users by providing no interruptions when the feature was turned on, it also lacked in-depth management options of who or what could break through the silence. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

The right type of image or illustration can give your document more oomph. You’re creating a Word document with just plain text. And it looks kind of blah. One way to enhance a document is with the right type of visuals. But instead of just using the same old clip art and standard images, you can truly spice up and illustrate your document with shapes, icons, and models. With shapes, you create lines, squares, arrows, callouts, and other objects to call attention to or highlight text in your document. With icons, you can include drawings of people, faces, and places to better explain or even replace certain text. And with 3D models, you can make your documents pop off the screen or page with three-dimensional images that you can grab online or create yourself. Let’s check out how to spice up your Word documents with the right shapes, icons, and models. For this article I’m using Word 2016 as usual. You should be able to access most of these features in the past couple of versions of Word. However, 3D models work only in Office 2016 and Office 365. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a … Read More »

As file storage options become both less expensive and more varied, individuals and corporations have more power to customize their own storage system — and more chances to become confused and overwhelmed by their choices. “Once upon a time space and storage was costly and limited and required you to be very selective on where to put things and how to maintain a library and catalog of where to put things and how to maintain them,” Todd Pekats, vice president of Cloud and Services at PCM, Inc. Remember these? File management options have come a long way. Pekats once had riles living in multiple different places, on multiple different kinds of formats and devices: tap, floppy disks, SyQuest drives, etc. “Just keeping track of what you have and where it is being stored was a fulltime job.” This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

Q. I heard about Messages for Android on the Web this week – what is that all about? A. You did indeed hear correctly. Google confirmed that they have enabled the ability to send and receive text messages over the web. This new capability supports text (SMS) and image (MMS) based messages. It also provides the mobile-averse with another way to send and receive messages, so let’s review how you’d use this on your computer. Before we get started, there are a couple of caveats in order to use this capability. You must install the Android Messages app from the Play Store. After you have the app installed, you must to make it your default messaging app on your device. (Just open it up and follow the steps to easily make that change.) On your computer open a supported web browser (Microsoft Edge, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari) and browse to https://messages.android.com This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

I’ll try not to make you envious. I have what is probably the fastest home Internet connection in the country – a theoretical gigabit: 1,000Mbps. And it’s synchronous, as fast going up as down. To add icing to the cake, my ISP bill is dropping almost by half while my speed increases exponentially. To make you feel better, let me tell you that my actual speeds aren’t anywhere near that. And yet the speeds I do get are many times faster than before. I’m here to discuss the experience of having a fiber to the home (FTTH) Internet service. I’ll tell you how I got this service, the experience of having it, and why you probably can’t get it where you live. Better Living With Fiber This is not the kind of fiber you want in your breakfast cereal. It’s made of glass. Fiber optic cables are extremely thin – almost a hair width – but they can handle huge amounts of data. Just one of these thin strands can carry a gigabit going down on one frequency, and another gigabit going up on another frequency. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here … Read More »

This past April, Microsoft began the rollout of the fifth feature update for the Windows 10 operating system. As a follow-up to our hands-on and review of the April 2018 Update, we are going to dive a little deeper into many of the updates and enhancements in this feature update. This will help you and those you provide assistance take advantage of these capabilities to keep your system well maintained. Today we are going to take a closer look at Storage Sense so you can put disk maintenance on auto-pilot for your system. Storage Sense provides automatic maintenance of your disk space and based on your choices will clean up temporary files, past Windows Updates, and other system files on an as-needed basis. This feature is a replacement for the desktop program called Disk Cleanup that performs a similar functionality in past versions of Windows. Disk Cleanup is still in Windows 10 however, the expectation is that Storage Sense will completely take over for that software in the future as Microsoft continues to move many legacy features and functionality into the modern Windows Settings app. To get started you access the new options for Storage Settings at Windows Settings > … Read More »

Q. I am trying to install an app from the Microsoft Store on my computer, but I get an error that says I have exceeded my device limit. How do I fix this? A. This is an error that will pop up if you try to use more than 10 devices to download apps from the Microsoft Store on Windows 10 using the same Microsoft Account. There is no specific rhyme or reason to this number: Under Windows 8.1 this device limit was 81 and under Windows 10 it has dropped to just 10. OK – so maybe there is a connection between the operating system but that makes no sense at all to just change these limits from OS to OS. Note: Developers can often get this limit expanded so they can test their apps on multiple devices without any issues. Anyway, with just 10 devices allowed to install apps from the Microsoft Store, you could hit this limit very quickly. Devices are not automatically removed from your master device list so if you go through a couple of upgrade cycles you could hit this limit as well. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid … Read More »

Microsoft released 50 updates during its monthly Patch Tuesday release. Eleven are rated critical remote code execution vulnerabilities and 39 are listed as important. The most critical patches impact Microsoft OS and Internet Explorer and deploying the fixes for these vulnerabilities is recommended immediately. Also of note: one of the vulnerabilities, a remote code execution flaw (CVE-2018-8267) in the scripting engine, is listed as being publicly known, but not under active attack, at this time. Here are highlights from this month’s release with the information you need to prioritize your patching efforts. Most Critical Patches Analysis from researchers on this month’s release advises Windows admins to prioritize CVE-2018-8225, a remote code execution vulnerability that occurs when the Windows Domain Name System (DNS) component DNSAPI.dll fails to handle DNS responses properly. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

When Microsoft launched Windows 10 back in July 2015, they included a fledgling web browser called Microsoft Edge. Work has continued on Edge over the last three years and it has improved tremendously. However, there are still a lot of sites that do not work correctly with it. For some, Chrome and Firefox provide alternative browsers that can be used in these situations but there are also some folks who need to use Internet Explorer in certain circumstances. Over my time using Windows 10, I have occasionally pulled up IE 11, that is the version included in Windows 10, in order to check out certain sites. In fact, Edge has a shortcut in its sidebar menu that lets you directly open a site in IE that is displayed in Edge. While that shortcut is handy, I also use the Favorites Bar on all my browsers to have the same sites pinned across the different devices I use each day. As I have been working with IE over these last three years or so in Windows 10, I have noticed that the Favorites Bar is either not synching at all or is very slow to sync across devices. I tinkered around … Read More »

So, you use more than one Windows 10 computer or device and need an easy way to share files between different devices. Yes, you can use a syncing service like OneDrive. But if you’ve installed the Windows 10 April 2018 Update, another option is a new feature called Nearby Sharing. Through Nearby Sharing, you can do all of the following: Share files wirelessly using Bluetooth and Wi-Fi Share website links Share files only with devices using your Microsoft Account or with any nearby devices running the same Windows 10 update. Set the location where shared files are deposited. Share a single file or a group of files via File Explorer and other apps. Let’s go through the steps for sharing files via Nearby Sharing. First, confirm that you’ve got the Windows 10 April 2018 Update. Open Settings, System, and then About. Scroll to the bottom of the screen. If the Windows version says 1803, you’re set. If not, jump to the Update & security category in Settings. Install the update called “Feature Update to Windows 10, version 1803.” If you don’t see it listed, hop over to Microsoft’s Windows 10 Download page to manually install the April 2018 Update. Next, … Read More »

Numbers make the world go round. Excel’s become indispensable for crunching numbers – so why not make the most of the application? We’ve got a wealth of how-to articles on optimizing the ways you work within Excel, and we’ll be spending this week collecting them in one place. This way, you get a comprehensive how-to that will allow you an easy reference for mastering Microsoft’s flagship spreadsheet program. Email subscribers will have the full text of all these articles: How to Sort and Filter Your Data in Microsoft Excel How to Work With Formulas in Microsoft Excel How to Protect and Secure Your Data in Microsoft Excel Helpful Free Add-ins for Microsoft Excel We’ll have more great Excel content on Thursday. …This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

Since today is Global Accessibility Awareness Day, we’ll review how a few of the big tech companies are helping with accessibility when it comes to their products and services. Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) began back in 2012 with a goal to drive the dialog about making digital access to resources/services accessible to those with disabilities. On the seven-year anniversary of the establishment of GAAD, tech companies are showing how they are making their own technology even more accessible. Microsoft The folks in Redmond have become pretty good at building hardware over the last few years with their Surface line of devices and accessories. Today, they showed how that same approach can make a significant difference for gamers with the unveiling of their upcoming Xbox Adaptive Controller. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

Having difficulty getting Office 365 to behave? These tips and tricks can help. You use or are trying to use Microsoft Office 365 but are running into problems with it. Maybe it’s not activating properly. Perhaps it’s installed and activated, but a specific program such as Outlook isn’t working right. What can you do? One option for activation issues is to run a tool called the Activation Troubleshooter. For those issues and other problems, you can always try to run a repair or reinstall of Office 365. Another move to use a free program from Microsoft named Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant for Office 365. Also known as SaRA, the Support and Recovery Assistant runs a series of tests to look for glitches and maladies in Office 365. If it finds something amiss, the program can try to fix the issue or tell you how to fix it yourself. The one limitation with SaRA is that it works only with accounts that use Office 365 on the backend, such as Office 365 for Business or Education. Office 365 for Home and Outlook.com aren’t supported. If you use Gmail, Yahoo Mail, your ISP’s email, or some other service on the backend, … Read More »

Microsoft first announced their plans to build an ecosystem of devices around your Windows 10 system at BUILD 2017. Since then they have been testing several features to bring this ecosystem to life. The ultimate goal is to make it easier to pick up activities and work you have started on other devices in this ecosystem. Cortana, if you use the digital assistant on your compatible devices, will help you pick up where you left off on other Windows 10 devices. If you are using a Windows 10 based device and move to another Windows 10 device using the same Microsoft Account in about a 10-minute period, you will receive a notification in the Windows 10 Action Center. This notification will have shortcuts to websites that you were actively using on the other device. This is very handy as you move between Windows 10 devices but what about when you are on your mobile device and want to easily get a website to browse on a larger screen. That is where the Continue on PC feature in the Windows 10 April 2018 Update comes in handy. Updated versions of Microsoft Edge on Android and iOS devices now have a button … Read More »

Workflow automation is an increasingly important factor in productivity. A research report from Formstack released this year found that half of managers are spending the equivalent of one full workday each week on administrative tasks, many of which could be automated. And 44 per cent of managers reported that their workplace has invested significantly in workflow automation tools within the past two years. Managers are spending significant amounts of time, up to half of the average workday, on administrative tasks. In many cases, these tasks could be automated. “Few business owners really grasp the concepts of what automation in technology can do,” said Martin Webb, a founder of Tudodesk. “When they start a business or look to grow it, they instantly assume the problem they need to solve is by hiring help.” There are times when automating repetitive or administrative tasks can free up time and mental space, allowing for focus on more important matters. Automate Your Email This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

I recently shared details about the retirement of HomeGroup from the Windows 10 April 2018 Update. This feature update was made available for download last week; as of this month’s Patch Tuesday, the update is now beginning its rollout through Windows Update. Microsoft had given users a heads up about the removal of HomeGroup from this fifth feature update for Windows 10 which is why we knew that was coming. When they began the availability of the update to the public last week that triggered the publication of the complete list of features that were either removed or planned for removal/replacement in this update. On the page listing these changes for the feature update there is a caveat from Microsoft which states: This list is subject to change and might not include every affected feature or functionality This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

Two zero-day exploits need attention now, say analysts. Microsoft patched 68 vulnerabilities in its monthly Patch Tuesday release, including two zero-day exploits. Of the patches 21 are listed as critical, 45 rated important and two listed low in severity. Updates this month affect several products including Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer, Edge, Office and Exchange Server. Obviously, the priority for deploying is for those are those under active attack. That includes are CVE-2018-8174, a Windows VBScript Engine Remote Code Execution Vulnerability. The flaw was discovered and reported by Kaspersky Lab researchers and impacts IE and other projects that embed the IE web rendering engine. “This technique, until fixed, allowed criminals to force Internet Explorer to load, no matter which browser one normally used — further increasing an already huge attack surface,” according to Anton Ivanov, security researcher at Kaspersky, in an email to Ars Technica. “We urge organizations and private users to install recent patches immediately, as it won’t be long before exploits to this vulnerability make it to popular exploit kits and will be used not only by sophisticated threat actors but also by standard cybercriminals.” The other bug to prioritize is CVE-2018-8120, a vulnerability in older Windows OS versions … Read More »

In last weeks’ newsletters (Tuesday and Thursday), we took a closer look at some of the new features of what we called the Productivity Update, i.e. the Windows 10 April 2018 Update aka Windows 10 Version 1803 (OS Build 17134.1). Note: If you are interested in seeing more about some of the enterprise/business related features in this update you can check out the review we posted at ITPro Today last week. This week, we are going to review the various methods for upgrading or clean installing your current Windows 10 installation to this fifth feature update for the operating system. Windows Update (Automatic) When Microsoft begins an automatic roll out of an update like this, they usually begin with known hardware configurations. That means targeting hardware such as first-party Surface devices, some of their OEM partners’ machines, or newer machines that are more likely to be compatible with the update to Windows 10. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

You can narrow, expand, and otherwise fine-tune your searches in Outlook. If you use Microsoft Outlook, you’ve probably tapped into the regular search feature in which you type a keyword or phrase in the search field and then wait for matching emails to appear. But there’s much more to searching in Outlook than meets the eye. In this article, you’ll master the following skills: Search just your current mailbox or all mailboxes as well as your current folder or all folders. Limit the search to just recent items or include older items as well. Look for messages based on sender, recipient, date, attachment, status, body text, and more. You can easily access recent searches. You can search your calendar and contacts separately or along with email messages. Modify the default settings for searching. I’m using Outlook 2016 via my Office 365 subscription. But most of the features and options I discuss here should work in the prior couple of versions of Outlook. To start, open Outlook. If you’re like me, you may have thousands of messages scattered throughout a host of folders. You may even maintain more than one account or mailbox in Outlook. To run a basic search, type … Read More »

Welcome back to our examination of the Windows 10 April 2018 Update (also be known under its official name of Windows 10 Version 1803 (OS Build 17134.1). In part one of the review, I suggested it be called the Productivity Update. I’ll keep calling it that in this examination of some other highly useful features: Cortana, Startup Apps Control, Accessibility, Microsoft Edge and Security. Cortana Cortana has received a slight makeover with new information cards for both her Notebook and Skills areas when you click on the Cortana icon on the Windows 10 Taskbar. This makes these settings faster to access because they are just one level away when you open Cortana. There is also an edit icon next to your name so that you can adjust the Places which Cortana knows about such as Home and Work. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

You likely depend on your Microsoft account so you want to make sure it’s safe and secure. You probably use your Microsoft Account for a variety of tasks. You may use it to sign into your Windows 10 PCs and other devices. You might use it to access Microsoft Office, Skype, and other Microsoft products and subscriptions. You can use it to sign into various Microsoft services such as Xbox Live. And you may use it to establish your payment options with Microsoft. For all those reasons and more, you want to make sure your Microsoft Account credentials don’t fall into the wrong hands. How can you secure and protect your account? We will walk you through these security fundamentals: First, you need to ensure that you’re using a strong and complex password. (Make sure it’s not one of these.) Then you can secure your account and verify your identity by using backup email addresses or a phone number and a code sent via text message. You can set up two-factor authentication to further protect your account. And you can verify your identity on your mobile phone via the Microsoft Authenticator app. I’ll assume you already have a Microsoft Account to … Read More »

Now that it’s been released to the public, it’s time to take a closer look at the fifth major feature update to Microsoft’s latest operating system. This feature update has been in development since July 2017 and there have been 27 public development builds released to testers over that nearly nine-month period. Microsoft never formally named this feature update like they have done in the past with monikers like Anniversary, Creators, and Fall Creators Update. Instead, they have chosen to simply call it the Windows 10 April 2018 Update. It will also be known under its official name of Windows 10 Version 1803 (OS Build 17134.1). If I were providing suggestions for naming this feature update, then I would recommend calling it the Productivity Update. The key additional features in this package of updates really can help you be more productive. This release makes significant changes in how you access the data across your ecosystem of Windows 10 based devices. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

Here’s how to take advantage of the best and brightest features in Firefox. Though Firefox may have lost ground against rival web browsers, it remains an effective web browser, especially with the release of Firefox Quantum in November, which boosted speed and performance. Firefox is my favorite browser and the one I use as my default. I like the Firefox interface for its simplicity and power. And I find it easy to customize. To squeeze the most out of Firefox, you’ll want to tweak its different features and options. You can modify the toolbars, select your search engines, and tighten your privacy and security. You can sync your bookmarks, passwords, and history list across different devices. And you can enhance Firefox by installing any of thousands of different add-ons. Let’s see how you can best use and tweak Firefox. First, make sure you’ve updated Firefox to the latest version to grab the performance boost from Quantum. To do this, open Firefox, click on the Help menu. (Don’t see the menu bar at the top of the browser? Right-click on any empty area at the top and then select the option for Menu bar.) From the Help menu, select About Firefox. … Read More »

Q. Is HomeGroup Really Leaving Windows 10? I can confirm that this is, in fact, happening. It’s been happening for a while: Microsoft notified testers during the Redstone 4 feature update development cycle when they released Build 17063 in December of last year. You must scroll almost all the way to the bottom of those very lengthy release notes to find the details about HomeGroup’s retirement under the Other notable changes section. I know many of you are still on Windows 7, which means you may also be using the HomeGroup features on your home network. (In fact, HomeGroup was introduced as part of Windows 7 when it was released to general availability in October 2009.) In those ensuing eight and a half years, technology has come along that really eliminates the need for HomeGroup as it was originally devised. When parallel services can adequately replace the feature in Windows 10, then it makes sense for the Redmond company to stop supporting that part of the code base. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

Columns can be challenging, but you can master them with the right techniques. You’re creating a Microsoft Word document that you think may work better if formatted into columns. Fine, but columns can be tricky. You have to decide how many columns to use and how and where to apply them. And columns can often run amuck by breaking at the wrong places, not continuing correctly to the next page, or not stopping where you want them to stop. You often have to play around with the columns to coax them to come out right. Believe it or not. columns can be easier. If you know how to create and customize your columns, you should be able to get them to work and look the way you want. Why even fuss with columns? You may be creating a newsletter or brochure in Word and need to format your document in columns for printing. You may be writing a report that has to adhere to a column format. But even a regular document formatted in columns can be more inviting and easier to read than one in which the text stretches across the entire width of the page. The steps I … Read More »

Last year during Microsoft Ignite in Orlando, I sat in on a presentation about a new collaborative tool for the Windows 10 desktop called Microsoft Whiteboard. Microsoft already had a collaboration tool for its Surface Hub line of devices; the idea behind this new app was to bring that level of group creativity from the conference room to the desktops, laptops, and tablets running Windows 10. In December of last year, the Microsoft Whiteboard App preview was released in the Microsoft Store. Since then it has been updated multiple times and continues to become more robust through bug fixes, performance enhancements, and feature additions. The app is reliable enough after five months of availability for daily use. So why not try it? Get started by downloading it from the Microsoft Store and then opening the app for the first time so it can be associated with your Microsoft Account. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

These tips and tricks can help you more easily handle a huuuuuge spreadsheet. You’ve created an Excel spreadsheet that stretches beyond what you can see on the screen, maybe one that encompasses hundreds of rows or columns. And now working with and navigating that spreadsheet has become slow and clumsy. Do you need to pare down your spreadsheet? Nope, don’t change it. Instead, you can tap into various tools and features in Excel to use and move around your big spreadsheet. Here’s what you can do: Certain keyboard shortcuts can hop around your spreadsheet in the blink of an eye. You can also name cells or ranges of cells to move to them by name. You can filter the data in a row to see only certain content. You can freeze specific rows and columns, such as header rows, so they’re always visible. And you can split your spreadsheet to see more than one area. Let’s check out the different ways to work with large Excel spreadsheets. I’m using Excel 2016 for the examples here, but you should be able to apply the same tricks in the past couple of versions of the program. To start, load Excel and create … Read More »

With the right tools, you don’t need to open a file or its application to view it. You may work with a lot of different files in Windows — Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, OneNote notebooks, PDF files, graphic files, video files, audio files, and more. Sometimes you need to check out one file after another. That can be time-consuming since it means you need to launch each file’s native application to view it. Well, not necessarily. There are ways you can view a file without having to launch its application. Here are the five options we’ll be looking at: Windows itself offers a preview pane in File Explorer through which you can view a variety of file types. A free program called File Viewer Lite can display more than 150 different file types. If you need even more options and don’t mind spending some money, File Viewer Plus can display more than 300 different file types at a cost of $39.95. Free File Viewer is a simple and free program that can display more than 200 file types. Quick View Plus is a robust file viewer, one that can display more than 300 file types. The only downside … Read More »

In this second in a series of articles I continue my in-depth examination of some of the features in Windows 10. Part one of this series appears in the March 27 issue. In a complex operating system like Windows 10, there are obviously features Microsoft got right and then some that still need tweaking. Now that we have lived with the various versions and updates of Microsoft’s OS, isn’t it time we conduct a sort of postmortem of all that Windows comprises? In this second installment of my feeature-by-feature overview, I examine what’s good and bad (or just plain ugly) about the Microsoft Store, the Command Prompt, and that mandatory, take-it-or-leave-it, Microsoft account for Windows 10. As in the previous installment, these assessments will be based on both my experience with the OS since its first release, plus composite of opinions from other users. The Microsoft Store When Microsoft first started their app store media pundits and consumers weighing in online were not too kind, rightfully calling it a “too little, too late” copycat of Apple’s tremendously successful App Store.  In its first years the Microsoft Store displayed a puny selection of familiar games and productivity apps and seemed to be just begging to … Read More »

My first version of Microsoft’s fledgling operating system was Windows 3.0. I had spent the previous years learning BASIC banging on the keyboard of my Commodore 64. This past week I got to go back in time: The original File Explorer program that was part of Windows in the 90’s was open sourced by Microsoft under the MIT Open Source Software license. Note: The MIT OSS license retains all original copyright and license notices but allows the code for commercial and private use, modification, and distribution. The WinFile source code is being hosted on GitHub and anyone can contribute and make pull requests. You can download the latest stable release, which runs as an x86/x64 desktop app. When I heard about this being available, I went to GitHub and downloaded the latest stable release, marked as version 10.0, and extracted it into a directory on a Windows 10 desktop PC. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

Close to 70 vulnerabilities addressed in this month’s Patch Tuesday update from Microsoft Microsoft patched 67 different vulnerabilities in its monthly Patch Tuesday release. Of the common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs), 24 are considered Critical, 42 are rated Important, and one is characterized as Moderate in severity. There are no zero-day patches this month. Affected products include: Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, ChakraCore, Microsoft Office and Microsoft Office Services and Web Apps, Adobe Flash Player, Microsoft Malware Protection Engine, Microsoft Visual Studio, and the Microsoft Azure IoT SDK. Adobe also patched 6 vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash. The details on the releases can be found on the Microsoft site. While there were no zero-day releases, Microsoft had already released urgent fixes in weeks leading up to Tuesday, including one that addresses an exploit that was created in an attempt to correct earlier patch issues related the Meltdown chip vulnerability. Across industry blogs on this month’s patches, researchers noted several of the updates deserved attention. Also notable is Microsoft’s disclosure of a publicly known SharePoint elevation of privilege bug (CVE-2018-1034). “There is one public disclosure this month in SharePoint Server. The challenging aspect of this month is that there are enough … Read More »

Microsoft will be wrapping up development of the fifth feature update for Windows 10 in the next couple of weeks. Even as it does, it’s already working on the fall update, known as Redstone 5. There are a couple of items that are already being tested in these early builds, so we can extrapolate some ideas about what new features we might see in Redstone 5 when it arrives this Fall. Let’s look at what those features might be. Sets The idea behind this feature is that you would open one window within an app — say a Word document — and then open other apps/browsers in tabs within the same UI for other research and content related to your current work project. Windows 10 would remember these various open tabs the next time you open that app to continue working on your project. We saw this feature previewed in the pending spring update a couple of months ago, but it was not tested across all Windows Insider devices, so Microsoft ultimately decided that this functionality would not be part of the spring update, aka the Redstone 4 feature update. It has now been re-introduced in the Redstone 5 builds and is being tested … Read More »

You can beef up Outlook with the right programs. You may rely on Microsoft Outlook for your email, calendar, and contacts. And Outlook certainly offers a lot of features and flexibility. But you want more. Maybe you want a better way to search for emails and other information. Perhaps you’d like an easier method for accessing and modifying key Outlook settings. Maybe you need a good tool to find lost or unreadable emails. Perhaps you want to sync your Outlook calendar with your Google calendar. Never fear. Some top tools are here. We’re going to review: Email Insights, which tries to find more relevant emails based on your search parameters. OutlookTools, which provides a single place where you can view and change key settings and folder options in Outlook. Stellar PST Viewer, which can scan a corrupted PST file and help you access emails you may have thought lost. And Sync2, which syncs your Outlook calendar events with those in Google Calendar so you can easily view and update either calendar. I ran each of the tools in Outlook 2016 via my Office 365 subscription. But they should work as well in the past couple of versions of Outlook. Now, … Read More »

One of the great strengths of Windows Secrets is the depth of expertise the writers bring to the Windows platform and the applications on it. One of our regular writers, Lance Whitney, has repeatedly plumbed the depths of Microsoft Office, and repeatedly emerged with how-to stories that help us do more with less effort. Today’s newsletter collects some of his best pieces on Microsoft Word in one place — this way, you get a comprehensive how-to that will allow you an easy reference for mastering Microsoft’s flagship word-processing program. Email subscribers will have the full text of all these articles: Format Your Microsoft Word Documents with Templates How to Boost Your Productivity in Microsoft Word Eight Tips For Tweaking Your Word 2016 Experience Try These Top Add-Ins for Microsoft Word How to Recover a Lost Word Document And one last programming note: This newsletter is taking a spring break. Regular publication will resume on Tuesday, April 10, 2018. …This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

For such a large and complex operating system like Windows 10, there are obviously features Microsoft got completely right and then some that … not so much. Now that we have lived with the various versions and updates of Microsoft’s latest OS, isn’t it time we conduct a postmortem of all that Windows 10 comprises? What do we like and what are our pet peeves? With a selective feature by feature check, I plan to look periodically under a virtual magnifying glass to examine what’s good and bad (or just plain ugly) about each feature. This will be based on both my experience with the OS since its first release and with a composite of opinions from other users (media and end users). To get underway with this continuing series, Feature-By-Feature, here’s are the first three guinea pigs under the glass: Automatic Updates, the Start menu and Contana. In later installments Windows Secrets will examine the good and bad of  the Command prompt, Edge browser, One Drive, and the Microsoft Store. Automatic Updates This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

You probably have tens of thousands of photos on your PC. Finding the one you want is a daunting challenge — unless you have a system for organizing them. Windows 10 comes with two programs that can help you organize and touch up your photos. One is plain old File Explorer — let’s assume you’re familiar with that one. The other is simply called Photos, although it’s often referred to as the Photos app. Each has advantages and disadvantages. This article contains a lot of my personal photos. For privacy reasons, I’ve avoided pictures of actual people (other than myself). When faces couldn’t be avoided, I blurred them. Why Use Windows Apps? Why Not Use Google Photos? Once upon a time, both Microsoft and Google offered very good, free programs for organizing and editing your photos: Windows Photo Gallery and Picasa. Both have since been discontinued. Google replaced Picasa with a cloud-based tool called Google Photos, which seems like an excellent choice for the job. It’s simple. It can create albums. It has face recognition. But it has a serious drawback: It’s a closed system, meaning you’re locked into organizing photos like Google wants you to — and it holds on … Read More »

Microsoft did a very controversial thing when they released Windows 10. In several spots in the operating system, by default, they are providing tips and suggestions to users as they navigate around Windows 10. When these items first appeared many labelled them as advertisements on Windows and felt that their OS should not be a vehicle for ads. Others viewed them as tools of discovery for apps and system capabilities in the flagship OS. Whether you agree with Microsoft’s use of the OS in this matter or not, like many other areas of the operating system, you can customize these settings and opt-out of this information being presented on your system. Caevat: Many of us who have been using Windows 10 since it was released are very familiar with the OS, its capabilities, and many of the apps that are available in the Microsoft Store. However, if you provide family tech support for someone who is likely not as familiar with the OS as you are, I recommend you consider leaving these discovery tools active. This will allow these users to possibly discover something they didn’t know previously and benefit from that method of discovery. This article is part of … Read More »

Q. What is Dynamic Lock used for on Windows 10? A. When Microsoft introduced Windows 10 almost three years ago, one of the unique features that would be part of the new operating system was Windows Hello, a feature that would use biometrics to allow end users to log into their Windows 10 devices (so long as the device could support the technology). In last year’s Windows 10 Creators Update, Microsoft added a counterpart to Windows Hello with Dynamic Lock – jokingly referred to as Windows Goodbye – a feature to help to secure your Windows 10 device when you walk away from it. Dynamic Update uses the proximity of a Bluetooth device such as a smartphone, headset, or any other paired device that you have around your computer to automatically lock your device once the paired item is out of range. For most people, their smartphone is the most likely device that will be used for this purpose, as we all usually pick up our phones as we leave our desks. The amount of time your paired device needs to be out of range is about one minute according to Microsoft. That will vary depending on the strength of Bluetooth on … Read More »

Last week, I had one of those situations occur that sent me searching for a utility to back up the various data I copy to my Windows 10 clipboard as I work. As you know, Windows only holds the last item you copied to the clipboard in memory, so once a new item is copied to the clipboard then the previous data is flushed out and no longer available. This is standard behavior and works for most of us, and it isn’t an issue until the moment you find that you really need a bit of data that was in the clipboard prior to copying your latest image or text into the temporary storage memory on Windows. Like I said earlier, the way the clipboard normally works is by overwriting each successive excerpt as you copy it. At BUILD 2017, Microsoft shared details about a feature they were planning to ship as part of the Fall Creators Update, Cloud-powered Clipboard. The concept behind it was that the data you copied into your local devices clipboard temporary storage would be made available across all your Windows 10 devices. Unfortunately, that feature did not ship in Windows 10 Version 1709 and based … Read More »

You can edit PDF files without having to shell out big bucks for the full Adobe Acrobat program. Someone has sent you a PDF file for your review or responses. Now you need to fill out text fields, add a signature, or insert comments to the file. Perhaps you’ve discovered a typo or other error that needs to be corrected or changed on your end. Or maybe you need to delete or rearrange pages in the file. Yes, you can edit the file with the full version of Adobe Acrobat. But that’s an expensive program, especially if you don’t need it on an ongoing basis. Instead, you can turn to some free tools to edit the file. The free Adobe Acrobat Reader is designed mainly for displaying PDF files, but you can perform basic maneuvers, such as adding text, highlighting specific areas, and inserting your signature. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

Kicking off your mail merge in Outlook offers some advantages. You may have run mail merges directly in Microsoft Word. But did you know you can also start them from Microsoft Outlook? Sure. Microsoft Word still runs the actual mail merge, but you can trigger the mail merge in Outlook, then go to to Word to complete it. Okay, so why start a mail merge in Outlook instead of Word? In Outlook, you can directly view and access your contact list. And if you need to send a form email, Outlook can handle that task. Maybe you have a form email that you want to send to friends and family. Perhaps you need to distribute a certain email to a larger number of colleagues. Or possibly you’ve created a promotional email that you want to send to potential customers or clients. Whatever the reason, Outlook can help. I’m using Outlook 2016 and Word 2016 as usual. But you should be able to replicate the process in the prior version or two of both programs. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

You can format your documents in one shot using the right theme. Do you often struggle to format your Word documents with the right look and layout? Rather than trying to build your document piece by piece and paragraph by paragraph, you can instead format it in one fell swoop by tapping into a theme. A theme arranges text and other elements with a certain font, color, and other attributes. Themes can spruce up your documents by automatically applying a particular look and layout to your titles, subtitles, body text and more. You can use a theme on a plain document with no special formatting. But to get the full benefit of themes, you’ll first want to touch up the key elements of your document with styles. From there, you can choose a specific theme to enhance your entire document. Word comes with several built-in themes, and you can create and save your own themes. Let’s check out how to use themes in Word. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

Here are several maneuvers that can help you juggle a lengthy Word document. Your latest Microsoft Word document has ballooned to dozens or perhaps hundreds of pages. And working with such a lengthy document can be slow and awkward. Thankfully, Word offers several options and features that can ease the pain of navigating, organizing, and viewing a long document: You can add page numbers to keep track of the pages. You can set up a Table of Contents to display different sections. You can zoom out to view multiple concurrent pages and turn on Split View to view different parts of the document at the same time. You can enable the Navigation Pane to more easily see and jump to a specific page. As usual, I’m using Word 2016 via my Office 365 subscription. But all or most of the features I cover here should work the same in the past couple of versions of Word. Open Word. Ideally, you’ll want to have a long document in front of you as I go through the different options. If not, just follow along. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

One of the great things about Windows 10 is how it allows you to tweak the system so it best fits your usage habits. One of the biggest areas of customization is the primary interface to the OS – the Start Menu. It’s come a long way since its debut in Windows, and even over the last two and a half years, it has continued to mature. The customizations are all up to you. Let’s go over the key options for making the Windows 10 Start Menu all yours. Start Menu Settings The options for configuring your Start Menu are located at Windows Settings > Personalization > Start. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

There are a few items sprinkled throughout the OS that tend to not get the headlines or perform any functions that are earth shattering but they deliver capabilities that can be very useful to many Windows 10 users. I have seven items that I want to share with you today. Now, it is likely you know about some of these if you have been using Windows 10 for some time now but I am also sure that there is at least one of these you have never heard about. So, in the spirit of discovery let’s take a look at these hidden gems in Windows 10. Windows 7 Style Start Menu If you are not a fan of the Start Menu with all the Live Tiles spread across your screen there is a way to return to Start Menu that is similar to the one we had in Windows 7. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

You’ll find a host of features that can help more easily see, hear, and use Windows. Do you have trouble seeing small fonts or using a mouse or keyboard? Maybe you have issues with your vision or perhaps you’re suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome or another problem that makes it difficult to type or control your mouse? Or perhaps you’d just like to make Windows easier to see and use. Whatever the reason, you can take advantage of the Ease of Access options in any version of Windows from 7 to 10. Through Ease of Access, you can do any or all of the following: Trigger a narrator to read your screen if you have trouble reading it yourself. Enable a magnifier to zoom into parts of the screen so you can better read text and see other elements. Change the contrast to more easily detect specific parts of the screen. Customize your keyboard and mouse so they’re easier to use. And you’ll find other options to turn Windows into a friendlier and more accommodating environment. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

This newsletter is called Windows Secrets, but if listening to Microsoft for the last couple of years has shown us anything, it’s that we are all moving into a multiplatform world. So I’ve started looking at the types of user experiences we’re all likely to have as our family members bring home non-Windows machines and expecte everything to work together seamlessly. One of the first non-Windows operating systems I have begun learning is ChromeOS. However, short of having a Chromebook, there is no downloads available of the ChromeOS itself so that it can be installed in a virtual machine on your Windows PC. However, I did find a way to install the ChromiumOS – the open source base for ChromeOS – on a bootable USB flash drive. If you’d like to start playing around with ChromiumOS, follow these steps. First, start at Neverware’s website. In 2015, they developed CloudReady, a lightweight OS that is built from ChromiumOS and provides users the ability to run it on nearly any hardware. According to Neverware, CloudReady is in use on hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide in education, enterprise, and individuals. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid … Read More »

Working with multiple worksheets in the same workbook offers distinct advantages. Do most of your Excel workbooks contain only a single worksheet? If so, you’re missing out on the power and flexibility of using multiple sheets within a single workbook. By storing multiple sheets in the same book, you can tie them all together to save time and effort. You can perform the same data and formatting changes on all your worksheets in one fell swoop. You can create formulas in one worksheet that reference data in another sheet. And if any data changes in one sheet, it also changes in any linked sheets. For this article, I’m using Excel 2016, but the process for working with multiple worksheets is the same for the prior few versions of Excel. To illustrate the benefits of using multiple worksheets, I’ll be using a workbook that tracks product sales in four regions of the country – North, South, East, and West. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

Templates can give your spreadsheets a healthy head start. Do you often struggle to create and customize certain Excel spreadsheets a specific way? Maybe you’re attempting to set up a budget or record expenses or put together a schedule. And you’re trying to format your spreadsheet piece by piece but it’s not quite working. Well, struggle no more. Instead let Excel do the hard work for you. How? Through templates. A template can give your spreadsheet the right look and layout right from the start so you’re not spending hours trying to format it manually. Excel comes with a variety of templates, and you can download more from Microsoft. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

You can master the intricate and sometimes slippery art of copying and pasting in Excel. Here’s how. Copying and pasting in Microsoft Excel can be tricky. You may want to simply copy the contents of one cell to another. Or you may want to be selective about what you copy, choosing to copy the entire cell, just the data, just the formula, just the formatting, or a combination of items. But for whatever reason, the copy and paste isn’t working the way you want, and you keep having to redo it until you get it right. The good news is that you can avoid many copy and paste problems in Excel. What’s the secret? Let’s check it out. For our purposes, I’m using Excel 2016 through my Office 365 subscription. But copy and paste works the same no matter which version of Excel you use. Let’s walk through how to copy blocks of information as needed. Launch Excel and create a spreadsheet called Household Expenses. In the first row, type the following headers, one in each cell: Groceries, Electricity, Phone, Cable, Credit Card. In the second, third, and fourth rows, place numbers with decimal points in each cell to represent … Read More »

Q. I Upgraded to Windows 10 and Want to Give Microsoft Some Feedback. What Is the Best Way to Do That? A. Good news! Microsoft welcomes feedback and has even built the Feedback Hub, a Wimdows 10 app that allows you to explore feedback that has already been submitted by others and to submit your own feedback when you have a suggestion or run into a problem. The Feedback Hub can be used to provide feedback on different elements of the OS, and you can also submit feedback on Windows 10 apps, both from Microsoft and third party developers. Your feedback for apps is routed to the appropriate team or third party developer for evaluation and action. While many people also send feedback via social media sites like Twitter to the Microsoft employees they follow there, you will consistently be asked to add that information to the Feedback Hub because that is the central depository for all the feedback around Windows 10. In addition to creating your own feedback, you can also go into the app and upvote feedback submitted by other users. You can browse the submitted feedback and add your upvote to any item listed. This helps validate the issue/problem and … Read More »

Out of the legion of free, shareware, and commercial utility software I have installed over the years on various versions of Windows, there are a mere handful of ultimately indispensable programs that I use almost daily. I’m going to share the five free utilities which I would pay for if I had to. These perform what Windows built-in apps cannot do: handle screenshots perfectly; play any format of video and audio; completely uninstall apps with no orphan code; create boilerplate phrases and macros for one button execution; and guard against ransomware infections. All are free and some come with optional, more robust paid versions. Here’s why they’re so great. PhraseExpress Eliminates Repetitive Typing I have been using Bartel Media’s PhraseExpress since version 3. As of 2016 it is up to version 12. And just like anything Microsoft, with each iteration more and more features – too many to count and maybe use – get added in. The main purpose of PhraseExpess is to create boilerplate templates, text snippets and canned responses, all activated with simple one-to-three key combos. One of the problems I had with the simpler early versions was the need to have to memorize all the key combos … Read More »

Building an electronic form isn’t difficult, if you follow the right steps. You need to create an electronic form that’s easy for people to fill out but that can’t be modified by anyone but yourself. No problem. Microsoft Word can handle that challenge. You can create a form in Word complete with the necessary fields, graphics, and other content. You can create a form from scratch but you’ll find it easier to start with a built-in template for a form. From there, you customize the form if necessary. You can control or limit the type of content people can add to a specific field. And you can protect your form so people can’t alter it beyond filling in the fields. Let’s look at how to create a form in Word. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

Word’s Find and Replace has a lot of tricks up its sleeve. Here’s how to take advantage of them. You’ve probably used Find and Replace in Microsoft Word to look for misspelled words and other mistakes and replace them with their corrected versions. But there’s more to Find and Replace than just replacing text. You can enable certain options, such as matching the case and looking for whole words. You can find and replace special characters, such as paragraph marks, dashes, and page breaks. You can replace special formatting, including fonts and paragraphs. And you can combine many of these options in one single search. For this article, I’m using Word 2016 as always, but Find and Replace works the same over the past few versions of Word. To start, launch Word and open or create a long document with multiple paragraphs and pages of text. Ideally, the document should contain graphics and special formatting. But if you don’t have such a document, you can still follow along with me. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

Q. I’ve read a lot about two-factor authentication. What is it, do I need it, and what apps will help me get it? Two-factor authentication (2FA) just means that we have a second element of proving who we are when accessing one of our online accounts that supports this feature. That second factor for many people is primarily their smartphone. The most widely used 2FA process involves sending a code via text message to your mobile phone, which you then enter into the website you are trying to access. Some systems also use email to deliver codes for the same purpose. The concept behind this process is that you have already confirmed that you own that smartphone when you provided the phone number to the site via your profile or other 2FA settings. (At that time, you were likely sent a code or link to validate that you have that phone in your possession.) So here’s what happens when you try to access that website after setting up 2FA: You provide your username and password You are sent a code, via text or email depending on the option you selected when setting up 2FA. You enter that into the website … Read More »

You can protect your Word documents from prying eyes and itchy fingers. You’ve created a critical Word document, one that you wish to keep private or that you want to share with only certain people. But perhaps you don’t want others to be able to edit the document, and you certainly don’t want it to fall into the wrong hands. How can you protect your document? Word offers a few options: You can finalize the document to alert people not to edit it. You can encrypt the document with a password so only people who know the password can access it. You can restrict the type of editing others can perform on the document. You can add a digital signature to the document to ensure that no one can tamper with it. And you can employ more than one of these tactics to truly secure your document. Let’s look at the many ways you can protect your Word documents. As always, I’m using Word 2016 here, but the options for protecting a document are the same for the prior couple of versions of Word. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to … Read More »

Q. I don’t like the default settings on my Start Menu. How do I change them so my Start Menu better reflects my computing preferences? A. Windows 10 is one of the most customizable versions of Microsoft’s operating system, and it allows you to tweak things so the whole operating system best fits your usage habits. One of the biggest areas of customization is the primary interface to the OS – the Start Menu. Let’s go over the menu settings, which will show how you can make the Windows 10 Start Menu all yours. Start Menu Settings The options for configuring your Start Menu are located at Windows Settings > Personalization > Start. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

Voice assistants like Amazon Echo and Google Home are suddenly everywhere — but can they really up your productivity? We have advice on choosing one, and tips on using it to make life easier. It looks like 2018 is set to be the year that voice assistant devices become truly mainstream. The Amazon Echo Dot was the best selling item on Amazon.com, across all categories, during the 2017 holiday season. And in early 2018, Google announced that a Google Home device had been sold every second since October 19. Both devices and their respective software — Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant — were everywhere during CES earlier in January, indicating that current sales figures are just the start of the sector’s potential. But what can a voice assistant do for you in the home or office, other than play playlists or podcasts? And can it really make you more productive, in a world where we’ve already got smart phones, smart watches, and tablets at our disposal? Here’s a look at what the devices can do, with tips from users, and how to decide which system is best for you. Choosing the Right Assistant for You First of all, how do … Read More »

You can safeguard any data in Excel from a single cell to an entire workbook. Here’s how. You’ve created a spreadsheet in Excel that you plan to share with other people. But you may not want everyone to be able to view, edit, or reformat all the data. No problem. Here’s a list of what you can do: You can protect anything from a lone cell to a full workbook. You can hide a cell, a row, or a column so no one can see it. You can lock a cell so no one can edit it. You can protect the entire worksheet to put your security into effect. You can hide a specific worksheet. And you can protect an entire workbook by marking it as final, encrypting it with a password, or adding a digital signature. As usual, I’m using Excel 2016 via my Office 365 subscription. But the options for protecting your data should apply equally to the prior couple of versions of Excel. To start, open or create a spreadsheet with enough data to stretch several columns and rows. Make a copy of that worksheet so you have more than one sheet. Change some of the data … Read More »

Mail merge can save you plenty of time when you need to address multiple envelopes or labels. You have envelopes or labels that you want to address to many people. You can do that individually, or you can do it much quicker through a mail merge in Word. The mail merge feature lets you create an envelope or a series of labels and then merge that file with dozens, hundreds, or thousands of names and addresses. Using a list or table of names, you populate your envelope or labels with fields to insert each name and address. But Word’s mail merge can be tricky. How can you use it simply and effectively? Let’s check it out. I’m using Word 2016 here, but mail merge is available in any version of Word and works the same over the past few versions of the program. You can merge different types of files, including email messages, documents, and directories. But envelopes and labels are the most common formats for a mail merge, so we’ll focus on those. If you want to try out a mail merge on your end, you’ll need a list of names and addresses stored in a Word table, an … Read More »

Q. How can I connect my Android phone with Windows 10? A. Sharing between all your devices is becoming a very necessary part of both work and recreational use these days. The cloud and your Microsoft Account help make the connections easy so that setup is not a hindrance to being flexible with how you need to work with your files and documents. While there is the possibility to connect both your iOS and Android devices into this ecosystem, the capabilities are different for each platform. I use the Samsung Galaxy S8 as my smartphone so that is the basis of my experience and what I will share here today because that is my frame of reference. It is possible to connect a compatible Android smart phone to Windows 10. Let’s walk through how. Begin the process from Windows Settings > Phone on Windows 10 Fall Creators Update or beyond. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

Your Word Tables can look better if you know how to properly format them. You probably already know how to create tables in Microsoft Word. But formatting them is another matter. Formatting a table not only gives it the right look but can also make it easier to use. Maybe you’ve struggled with table formatting in the past, or perhaps you’d just like to learn all the different ways you can format a table. Your options abound in Word. You can create a table with a certain layout. You can apply border styles either to the whole table or to individual rows or columns. And you can give your table a snazzy new look by selecting an entire table style. Let’s go over the process for formatting tables in Microsoft Word. As always, I’m using Word 2016 through my Office 365 subscription. But the process for formatting tables is similar across the past few versions of Word. Let’s start by launching Word with a blank new document. Click on the Insert ribbon and then click on the Table button. Word offers three ways to create a table. You can insert a table by moving your mouse cursor over a specific … Read More »

Since the Windows 10 feature update development cycle stretches out over approximately six months it can be challenging to keep up with the new features introduced for testing in any one of the last fifteen builds that have been released since the big feature update this past autumn. So I thought it would be handy to recap the major feature updates that have made their way into Redstone 4 up until this point as a reference moving forward. Timeline The Fall Creators Update added capabilities that allowed you to create an ecosystem of devices across mobile, desktop, laptop, and tablets that enabled you to pick up on various activities that had been started on other devices. Timeline takes that one step further and provides you with a shared list of activities across any Windows 10 device that you use each day. This activity listing is displayed in a beefed up Task View option and lists browsing and app activities for all of your connected Windows 10 devices. This data is tied to your browsing and activity history and can be turned on or off plus you can control what content is used in this feature through the Microsoft Privacy Dashboard … Read More »

Q. I don’t want to be one of those people who learns too late that they should have backed up their home computer. I need a crash course in how to get my Windows 10 machine backed up regularly — preferably without requiring buying a backup service. Thanks! A. “You don’t want to realize you need a backup when you actually need a backup.” It happened to me once and I swore to never again be caught without a backup plan. It happened to my wife’s computer and that added even more stress to the situation because she lost some very important personal work when that solid-state drive failed on her PC. Since those incidents, I started using features in Microsoft’s OneDrive cloud storage service. That allowed me to sync our data directories including Documents, Pictures, Music, Videos, etc., across all our devices. While not a true backup, the service syncs changes between devices and the cloud, OneDrive does offer access to a recycle bin through the web portal along with file version history that would allow you to retrieve an inadvertently deleted or changed file. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click … Read More »

You can automate a host of time-consuming tasks via macros. Do you find yourself running the same laborious and repetitive commands and tasks in Microsoft Word or Excel? There must be a better way, you say to yourself. And there is, with macros. Through a macro, you can record or create a series of commands and tasks in a Microsoft Office application. Then, whenever you want to run those commands, you just trigger the macro. You can create macros to automate just about anything in a program like Word or Excel — apply special formatting, change the layout, insert objects. Macros can sound intimidating if you’ve never ventured into their territory. They’re stored as mini programs using the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) language. But you don’t need to be a programmer to use macros. You can record the macro by performing the various commands step by step. You can then edit the macro to make any changes. Let’s check out how to use macros to save time in Microsoft Office. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

AMD Chips Now Cleared for Updating Microsoft has now prepared a fixed update that won’t BSOD computers running the AMD chip set and thus have begun to rerelease the update. If you were impacted by the AMD BSOD, hopefully you have a second computer handy as you need to download KB4073290 from the Microsoft catalog site and then … well I’m honestly not sure what you can do if the machine in question has a BSOD and won’t boot. The only way I’m aware to install a patch on an un-bootable machine is to use the DISM commands at a boot prompt to install the update. You would type in Dism /Add-Package /PackagePath: [/IgnoreCheck] [/PreventPending] and insert the location where you downloaded the windows10.0-kb4073290-x64_5119daced3c80d539e79cf52a5fb5bc9cea61eb8.msu. I honestly think it’s easier and safer to perform a system refresh whereby the Windows 10 reinstalls the operating system but does not damage any data files. I’d honestly recommend that you download and create a windows 10 bootable image flash drive so that should something happen — for any reason — you have the tools at hand to take care of your machine. I would suggest going to this link, and create a Windows installation … Read More »

Your emails can look more appealing with the right themes and stationery. Do your messages from Microsoft Outlook look dull? Maybe you’re trying to promote a product or service in your emails or you just want to wow recipients with a certain style to your emails. And your regular messages just seem blah, at least visually. Can you spruce them up? Sure, you can format each email individually with specific fonts, colors, and other attributes. You can tap into styles to touch up your emails. Or you can rely on themes and stationery. Through themes, you can paint your emails with a specific visual style. You can choose from the built-in themes and create your own themes. Using themes and stationery, you can set up your messages with specific fonts, colors, backgrounds, and other elements. You can choose to apply your stationery to selected individual messages or to all new HTML emails you compose. Let’s see how you can spruce up your Outlook messages with themes and stationery. For this article, I’m using Outlook 2016 via Office 365, but the process for using themes and stationery is similar in the prior few versions of Outlook. This article is part of … Read More »

This year at CES, voice-activated personal assistants were everywhere. Here, I’ll run down the ones I saw and where they’re likely to pop up in your house. Google Assistant Most ubiquitous was Google’s Assistant, because it was showing up all along the Las Vegas Strip — on billboards, on the sides of buildings, various kiosks, and plastered on every car of the Las Vegas Monorail. You would even find overall-clad members of the Google Assistant army throughout the CES show floor, most commonly in booths offering products that integrated Google’s Assistant. For many, this visibility won the show for Google — but we also know that Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa is well out in front both for sales of units and in its  skills library. Amazon Alexa The aforementioned Alexa didn’t have an aggressive marketing blitz backing it but it had a significant presence on the show floor. The number of products that are incorporating Alexa into their capabilities is nearly untrackable. It ranged from automobiles, smart mirrors, desktop wireless charging stands, Internet of Things, Smart Homes, televisions, refrigerators, air conditioners, pet feeders, and even smaller gadgets like headphones and smart watches. This article is part of our premium content. … Read More »

You can enhance your PowerPoint presentations through the power of add-ins. Looking for a way to jazz up your PowerPoint presentations? Microsoft can lead the way, through add-ins. An add-in enhances your Office documents and presentations by giving you more power and flexibility over them. The right add-ins for PowerPoint can ease the process of creating your presentations and lead to more effective demonstrations and slide shows: Free Picture Finder can track down royalty-free photographs that you can use in your presentations. Pickit Free Images finds free and legally-cleared stock photos, icons, and illustrations to perk up your presentations. Handy Calculator conveniently displays a calculator next to your presentation. OfficeMaps can insert maps of specific countries, cities, and other locales. Khan Content from Microsoft lets you add free videos and exercises from training site Khan Academy. And PowerPoint Training and Tips provides tips and tricks for using PowerPoint. Let’s check out these useful and free add-ins for PowerPoint. Note: Most add-ins work with PowerPoint 2016 and 2013 but not with older versions such as PowerPoint 2010 or 2007. Some add-ins also support the free online version of PowerPoint and PowerPoint for the iPad. You can browse and search for an … Read More »

You can do a lot more in Excel than just add up numbers. Excel is designed to help you create formulas to perform a variety of different calculations and tasks. But formulas can be intimidating. You probably already know how to auto sum numbers and handle basic calculations. But there’s more to formulas than just the basics. Here’s what you can do with them. You can multiply, subtract, divide, and average numbers. You can see the minimum and maximum numbers in a column or row. You can include different types of calculations in a single formula. You can also use absolute cell references in your formulas to keep certain numbers constant. Let’s look at how to work with formulas in Excel. I’m using Excel 2016 as my test subject, but the steps I describe here apply equally to the previous few versions of the program. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already a paid subscriber? Click here to login.

You can more easily organize and view data in Excel by sorting and filtering it. You may use Excel to keep track of lists and other information, maybe people, products, expenses, bills, taxes, and more. But sometimes you need a way to sort and filter all the data in each spreadsheet so you can better arrange what you view or just peek at specific records. And that’s exactly what Excel offers: You can sort the data in each column alphabetically or numerically, from smallest to largest or largest to smallest. You can even add multiple levels to sort the data in more than one way. If sorting doesn’t quite do the trick, you can filter the data. Filtering adds a dropdown menu to each column so that you can choose which data you want to see: You can choose to see data equal to, greater than, or less than a certain value. You can opt to see only records with blank fields. And you can adopt custom filters. But figuring out how to use sorting and filtering properly can be a challenge unless you know your way around both features. Let’s look at the many ways to sort and filter … Read More »

Beware, AMD chip owners. For you Windows Secrets readers who have computers with AMD inside, these Spectre/Meltdown patches are causing more issues than they are preventing. So much so that Microsoft has halted release of the updates on machines that have AMD chipsets. Some of the relevant security posts include the following: Microsoft’s KB4073707 on the issues with AMD chip sets and how Microsoft is blocking the patches until the issue is resolved. Microsoft’s KB4073757 recapping the overall guidance Let’s recap the big picture: Intel CPU chips have a bug in their very architecture. Researchers found a way for attackers to possibly steal passwords and other confidential information from our machines. As of publication, the attack has not been used in the wild. However, the potential is there and it’sreally concerning up in cloud servers as it could mean that fellow virtual servers could read information from a tenant next door. It won’t be enough to patch for the Windows operating system, you’ll need to patch the firmware on your computer as well. It’s not a Microsoft bug, but because everything uses CPUs, pretty much everything needs to be patched ranging from phones to firewalls. So after you get your … Read More »

Is that missing Word document gone for good or is there a way to recover it? Let’s find out. Uh, oh. That Word document you spent the past few hours writing has mysteriously vanished. Do you have to start it from scratch? Not necessarily. Your Word documents can sometimes go kerflooey, either disappearing completely or losing the latest changes. Those scenarios can occur if a document crashes or freezes or just doesn’t save properly. That recently happened to me even though I had been saving a now-lost document regularly. So how can you find the document? You have a few options. You can scour the Recycle Bin. Depending on your settings in Word, you may be able to dig up a backup or an AutoRecovered version of your document. If those searches come up empty, you can look for temp files and files with the tilde (~) character. Let’s check out the different ways to recover a lost Word document. As always, I’m using Word 2016 via my Office 365 subscription, but the steps I cover here work with the prior few versions of Word as well. Let’s start by assuming that you’d been working on a document and now … Read More »

Hackers know your tricks (or lack of them) when you merely tweak an easily guessable password. Changing a character or two in your password doesn’t make it any more secure. As the annual list of the worst passwords, as compiled by security and password management company, SplashData, reveals, most of us are either too lazy or collectively uncreative when it comes to making truly secure passwords. Computer users have only themselves to blame when they get hacked. “Our hope is that our Worst Passwords of the Year list will cause people to take steps to protect themselves online,” said SplashData CEO Morgan Slain. “These past two years have been particularly devastating for data security, with a number of well publicized hacks, attacks, ransoms, and even extortion attempts. Millions of records have been stolen. Even with the risks well known, many millions of people continue to use weak, easily-guessable passwords to protect their online information,” Slain notes. Here are the top 25 most-hacked passwords, by rank, password and whether or not their position on the chart has changed from 2016. You’ll note that numbers one and two are still reigning champs. This article is part of our premium content. Join Now.Already … Read More »

How often do you receive an email in your Outlook inbox only to decide that you’ll deal with it another time? And how often do you forget to return to that email? Yep, that’s not unusual. Many of us get so much email that we often leave our inboxes filled to the brim with messages that go unattended and unanswered. There must be a way to categorize and flag certain emails so they remain on your radar. And there is, if you’re using Outlook. Microsoft’s desktop email program offers different ways to handle an email that you don’t want to face right away but still need to keep alive. You can tag a message with a name and color category so you can easily spot it and know how to respond to it. You can flag a follow-up to an email to nudge you to look at it on a specific day. And you can set a reminder on a message so you’re alerted about it at a specific date and time. The goal of these actions is to highlight important emails in some way so your attention is drawn or redrawn to them. Let’s check out how to set … Read More »

We’re starting off 2018 with a bang — a big patching bang. All supported versions of Windows are getting an emergency patch to fix flaws in Intel CPU chips that could lead to attackers gaining more information about your systems including passwords and other confidential information. You’ll have read about this — the press have already labeled the flaws as the Meltdown and Spectre bugs. As Microsoft said in “ADV180002 | Guidance to mitigate speculative execution side-channel vulnerabilities:” Microsoft is aware of a new publicly disclosed class of vulnerabilities referred to as “speculative execution side-channel attacks” that affect many modern processors and operating systems including Intel, AMD, and ARM. Note: this issue will affect other systems such as Android, Chrome, iOS, MacOS, so we advise customers to seek out guidance from those vendors. Microsoft has released several updates to help mitigate these vulnerabilities. We have also taken action to secure our cloud services. Microsoft has not received any information to indicate that these vulnerabilities have been used to attack customers at this time. Microsoft continues working closely with industry partners including chip makers, hardware OEMs and app vendors to protect customers. To get all available protections, hardware/firmware and software updates are … Read More »