Computers Made Easy - From Dummy To Geek

by James Bernstein
Copyright © 2018 by James Bernstein. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Printed in the United States of America
Bernstein, James
Computers Made Easy
Book 1 in the Computers Made Easy series
For more information on reproducing sections of this book or sales of this

book, go to www.onlinecomputertips.com
ISBN-13: 978-1983154836
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1 – What is a Computer?
Chapter 2 – Computer Peripherals

Monitors
Mouse and Keyboard
Speakers
Printers
External Drives
USB Ports
Digital Cameras
Smartphones
Gaming Controllers
Microphone
Chapter 3 – Microsoft Windows

Windows History
What Version of Windows Should you be Running?
Using Windows
Windows Desktop
Windows Start Menu and Taskbar
Changing the Date and Time
Changing Window Sizes
Keyboard Shortcuts
User Accounts and Passwords
Windows File Management
Changing File and Folder Views
File Extensions
File and Folder Permissions
Moving, Copying, Renaming, and Deleting Files
Shortcuts vs. Actual Files
Searching for Files and Folders
Creating a New Folder or File
Default Windows Folders
Compressing\Zipping Files
Windows Control Panel
Windows 10 Settings App
Chapter 4 – Software
Compatibility
Installing and Uninstalling Software
Software Licensing
Setting Windows Default Programs
Chapter 5 – Printers
Types of Printers
Printer Connections
Installing a Printer
Configuring Printer Options
Setting Your Default Printer
Printer Troubleshooting
Chapter 6 – The Internet

Web Browsers
Saving Pictures From Websites
Printing Web Pages
Web Browser History
Auto Filling Web Forms
Cached Browser Files and Cookies
Security
Internet Speeds
How to use Social Media Sites
Chapter 7 – Email
Accessing Your Email
POP3 vs. IMAP Email Accounts
Using Your Email Account
Email Folders
Attachments
Sharing Website Links
Email Troubleshooting
Chapter 8 – Office Productivity Software
Types of Office Productivity Software
Microsoft Office Basics
Chapter 9 – Antivirus and Antispyware Software

Viruses vs. Spyware
How You Get Viruses and Spyware Infections
Available Software
Manual Scans vs. Scheduled Scans vs. Real Time Protection
Acting on Scan Results
Chapter 10 – Avoiding Scams

Email Scams
Phone Scams
Website Popups
Fake Antivirus Software
File Encryption Scams
Chapter 11 – Error Messages, Crashes, & Troubleshooting

Error Types
Windows Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)
Mouse or Keyboard Doesn’t Respond
Computer Won’t Start
Using Task Manger and Ctrl-Alt-Del
System Configuration Utility (MSconfig)
Safe Mode
Checking Services
Device Manager
System Restore
Windows System File Checker
Researching Errors
Hard Reboots and Their Potential Problems
Getting Outside Help
Chapter 12 – Wi-Fi and Internet Troubleshooting

Components
Wireless vs. Wired Connections
Troubleshooting Internet Connectivity
Chapter 13 – Backup and Protection
Backing Up Data
What to Backup
How Often to Backup
Backup Types
Backup Hardware
Backup Software
Backup vs. Synchronization
Offsite\Cloud Backup
Windows Previous Versions
Protecting Your Computer
Surge Protectors
UPS
Cooling
Theft
Cleaning Your Computer
Chapter 14 - Security
Firewalls
Router Security
Windows Update
Passwords
Windows Folder and File Security
Email Security
Password Protecting Documents
Public Wi-Fi Connections
Chapter 15 – Cloud Storage

Advantages and Disadvantages
Types of Cloud Storage
Chapter 16 – Basic Networking

Networking Components
Speeds
LAN vs. WAN
IP Addresses
MAC Addresses
TCP\IP Protocol Suite
Networking Ports
What’s Next?
About the Author

Introduction
These days everyone has a desktop computer, laptop, or at least a device such
as a smartphone or tablet that they use to go online, send emails, and so on.
Technology is a great thing when it works right, but when it doesn’t, then we
tend to find ourselves cursing at our computers and complaining about how
things are too complicated. So, when it comes to technology, the goal is to
find a happy medium between the convenience our computers offer and the
stress they can cause when they don’t do what we want them to do.
This goal of this book is to help you find that happy place where you can get
the most out of your computer yet deal with the annoyances that can come
with owning one. I will cover the basics (in detail) for many topics to better
help you understand how to troubleshoot things when they go wrong rather
than just telling you to click here or press this key and so on, because
knowing how something works makes it much easier to fix when something
goes wrong. I will then give you troubleshooting tips so you can try and
diagnose the issue before having to resort to paying someone to do it for you.
From time to time I will also add in a little advanced information in case you
are curious and want to take things a step further.
So, on that note, let’s get things started and turn you into a computer expert—
or at least get you out of the dummy category!
Chapter 1 – What is a Computer?
Many people who own a computer just see it as a tan or black box that sits on
or under their desk with a few flashing lights and buttons on it, but it’s what’s
inside that really counts. The components that make up a computer have
pretty much been the same for years, but have since received some
enhancements in performance (thanks to new technology) that enables
computer manufactures to make computers smaller, faster, more energy
efficient, and, depending on who you ask, cheaper.
First, let’s have a brief lesson on the history of the computer. I won’t go into
details about how microchips were invented or what programming language
came first. As you may or may not know, the PC (personal computer) is not
the only game in town, and there were computers around long before
Microsoft came out with Windows. And, of course, there is still Apple with
their Macintosh (or Mac) models going strong in the computer world.
Let’s start back in 1975, when Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft.
This is also when Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak incorporated the Apple
Computer Company. Then, in 1981, IBM came out with their IBM PC. At the
same time, Microsoft released the MS-DOS operating system. When 1983
rolled around, Apple introduced the first computer with a GUI (graphical user
interface) called the Apple Lisa, and in 1984 Apple released the first
Macintosh computer. Shortly after, in 1985, Microsoft released its first
Windows operating system, and the rest is history.
Now let’s talk about the pieces (or components) that make a computer work.
This is one of those advanced areas I mentioned before that you really don’t
need to be too concerned about when it comes to using your computer, but if
you are interested in knowing how all the components work together then
you will find this interesting.
The main component of a computer is called a motherboard, and this is pretty

much a circuit board with attachments or slots that allow you to connect other
components to it. Every part of the computer connects to the motherboard
itself or to a slot or socket on the motherboard. Think of the motherboard as
the brain of the computer, and that the other components tie into that brain so
they can all work together and do what they need to do. As you can see from
figure 1.1, there are several places to connect other components to the
motherboard. I will discuss some of the more important ones next.
Figure 1.1
The processor, or CPU (central processing unit), connects into a socket on the
motherboard and is responsible for carrying out instructions from you, the
user, and other parts of the computer to make everything work. You might
have noticed that you have a computer with a 3.4 MHz (megahertz)
processor. What this means is that your processor can perform 3.4 million
instruction cycles per second. Doing anything 3.4 million times per second is
quite an amazing feat in itself! There are other factors that determine the
performance level of a CPU, but I won’t get too technical for now. If you
don’t have a CPU in your computer, or if it goes bad, then you won’t see
anything on your screen at all when you turn on your computer, and if you
have to replace the CPU, you will need to make sure your motherboard
supports it. It’s very rare that a CPU goes bad unless it’s from overheating.
Next, we have RAM (random access memory), which you most likely have
heard of. It’s also commonly referred to as “memory”. This is where
programs run when you start them on your computer, and also where files
“live” while they are open and you are manipulating them. These days RAM
is measured in GB (gigabytes) and typical examples are 4GB, 6GB, 8GB, and
much higher. When it comes to RAM the more you have the better up to a
certain point, then it’s really not doing you any good unless you’re doing
some crazy video editing or playing super graphics intensive video games.
For a typical home user 16GB is more than you will ever need, and 8GB is
usually a good number to shoot for to get adequate performance. If you plan
on doing a RAM upgrade, then you need to make sure you get the right type
so it’s compatible with your motherboard and existing memory. Having the
wrong type of RAM will give you errors at bootup and can cause other
random issues such as the computer crashing.
When you close files or programs this memory is given back to the system to
be used for other things, but many times you don’t get back what you have
used, and you will notice that your computer gets slower the longer it has
been running without a reboot. A simple fix is to reboot your computer once
in a while (such as every week) to clear out the RAM contents and freshen
things up, so to speak. There are those who like to shut down their computers
every day and those who like to keep in on all the time. Today’s computers
are pretty energy efficient, and if you are getting on and off it throughout the
day, it’s fine to leave it on all the time and just give it a reboot once a week.
Keep in mind that if you are gone at work and live in a hot area (especially if
your house gets really hot during the day) you might want to shut your
computer down to avoid overheating it. Most computers will automatically
turn themselves off when they get too hot, but it’s still not good for them, and
you will lose any unsaved work when it shuts itself off and risk corrupting
operating system files (to be discussed next) from not shutting down
properly. Overheating your computer can destroy your CPU and render your
computer useless. Even if you overheat it and it doesn’t actually fail, it can
start giving you problems such as erratic performance and freezing up. If you
think your computer is running hot, you can download software that can
report on the internal temperature and fan speed so you can monitor the
situation.
The last component I will be going into detail about is the hard drive. This is
where all your files are stored, as well as where programs and the operating
system are installed. The hard drive connects to the computer with a cable,
and the type of cable depends on what type of drive it is. The most commonly
used hard drives today are SATA (Serial AT Attachment) with solid state or
flash drives gaining more popularity because of their greatly improved
performance and no moving parts. However, with greater performance comes
an increased cost.
People often call the space on their hard drive “memory”, so it’s important to
know the difference between RAM memory and hard drive memory. I just
discussed RAM, so let’s talk about hard drive memory. A more appropriate
term to use for hard drive memory is “capacity” or even “free space” and
“total space”. As you save more files to your hard drive and install more
programs, this capacity, or space, gets taken up until there comes a point
where you don’t have any free space left. It is similar to when you take too
many pictures on your smartphone and it tells you that you are running out of
room on your SD card. Once you fill up your hard drive, then you’re out of
luck when it comes to adding more files to it, and if it’s the drive that the
operating system is installed on, which is referred to as the “system drive”,
then you will start having performance problems even before it gets full.
Hard Drive Troubleshooting

Hard drives can fail as well, and when they do you can kiss your files
goodbye… or pay someone a lot of money to try and recover them for you,
which may or may not work. Since SATA hard drives have moving parts, it’s
possible for them to fail, causing data loss. If you are lucky, you will hear a
clunking or metallic sound coming out of your computer when the drive is
starting to go bad, and you can act proactively and have it replaced before it’s
too late. Many times Windows will give you errors about corrupt files or not
being able to read the drive, which is another sign that it’s time to take action.
The bottom line is that you need to do regular backups of your computer if
you care about the files that are on it. (Backups will be covered in Chapter
13.)
Other common components include sound cards to allow music and other
sounds to come out of your speakers, network cards to connect you to the
internet or network, video cards to display video output to your monitor, as
well as USB ports for your mouse, keyboard, and other devices. Many of
these other components can be connected to the motherboard in an available
slot, or they can be built into the motherboard to save money and avoid
complexity. Built-in components tend to be on the lower end of the
performance scale, but at the same time are sufficient for most home users.
You can always add standalone components to motherboards with built-in
components to upgrade your system.
Now that we know about the hardware that makes your computer work, let’s
discuss the software that ties it all together and actually allows you to make
use of this hardware. This software is called the operating system, and
without it, your computer is pretty much just a paperweight. Now don’t get
the operating system software confused with the other software you install on
your computer such as Microsoft Word and so on. The operating system gets
installed on the hard drive just like other software, but it then talks to the
hardware to allow everything to work together to give you a functioning
computer. Then you install your programs within the operating system so it
can function and allow you to work with it using your mouse and keyboard.
All operating systems are configurable when it comes to how your hardware
components work, and you can also customize it to better suit your needs to
make your computer easier to use.
To most computer users, when I use the term “operating system” I am

referring to Microsoft Windows, and this might make you go ahhh, that
makes a little more sense. Keep in mind that Windows is not the only
operating system there is, even though it’s the most popular by far. Apple has
its Mac OS (operating system), and there are also others like Linux, UNIX,
and so on. Even your smartphone has an operating system, and it might be
Apple’s iOS for an iPhone, or Google’s Android OS for an Android-based
phone. Like I mentioned, Windows is the most popular operating system for
home users and most businesses, and I will have an entire chapter dedicated
to Windows coming up. Since Windows is most likely the operating system
you are using on your computer, that’s what I will base all OS related
information on for this book.
Chapter 2 – Computer Peripherals
Now that I have discussed the hardware that makes a computer run, let’s talk
about additional hardware you can attach to your computer which gives it
more functionality and expand its capabilities. These hardware devices are
known as peripherals, and there are a lot of them to choose from, so let’s get
this discussion started!
First, I will talk about the peripherals that are must-haves in order to even use
your computer. And yes, this will sound obvious for most people, so I will
make it quick. The main peripherals that are must-haves for your computer
are the monitor, keyboard, mouse, and speakers.
Monitors
Your monitor displays the output of the computer to the screen so you can
see what you are doing. There are different types of monitors, but the most
commonly used types are LCD and LED, with LED being the newer type of
the two. Monitors come in different sizes and have different specifications for
things such as resolution, refresh rate, response time, and aspect ratios. For
most of us, these are not super important unless you’re doing things with
graphics or photos.
The best way to shop for a monitor is to go into the store and see one in
person rather than take your chances by buying something online. Just keep
in mind that the displays will be using some pretty fancy demo videos to
make them look as good as they possibly can. And when it comes to size, it’s
not necessarily the case where a bigger monitor will make things bigger on
the screen. Bigger monitors allow for higher resolution, which will mean
things like icons and text will be the same size as on smaller monitors, but
you will simply be able to fit more on the screen. Of course, you can lower
the resolution to make things bigger, but that takes away from image quality,
so make sure to weigh all your options.
One important thing to check on when buying a monitor is the connection

types that it supports. A few years back VGA was the standard, and then DVI
came into play and offered a digital connection compared to analog with
VGA. Now many computer manufacturers are using HDMI connections like
you use on your TV at home to connect to monitors, as well as DisplayPort
connections. Many computers and monitors will have more than one type of
connection you can use, giving you some options (figure 2.1).
Figure 2.1
Monitor Troubleshooting
Monitors do and will go bad at some point, so it’s important to make sure that
when your screen starts showing psychedelic colors or simply nothing at all,
you make sure it’s the monitor itself rather than the computer or even the
cable. You can start by checking the connections on the monitor and on the
computer to make sure they are secure and not loose. Next, you can try to
replace the cable with another one, or even try flexing the cable down the
entire length of it to check for shorts. If the image on the monitor changes as
you bend the cable, then you are most likely looking at a bad cable. If your
monitor has more than one connection type, such as VGA and HDMI, you
can try that type of connection (assuming your computer has the matching
connection type). Finally, if everything looks good, you can connect your
monitor to a different computer or laptop and see if it works or not. If it does
the same thing there, then you can assume it’s bad. If it works on a different
computer, then you are looking at a video card or motherboard issue on your
computer, and that might involve taking it in to be looked at by a
professional.
Mouse and Keyboard

Now obviously you need a mouse and keyboard to use your computer, but
you have some options to consider even for these items. All new computers
will come with a new mouse and keyboard, but they’re usually just good
enough to get by with. If you want to upgrade, you can consider going
wireless to avoid having extra cords strung across your desk. One thing you
need to consider with going wireless is that you will need to periodically
change the batteries in both the mouse and keyboard, and the wireless
receiver that is used to talk to the computer will take up one or two of your
USB ports. (I will get into USB ports in more detail in a bit.)
As for the keyboard, some people like the bigger style keys that were more
popular a few years ago compared to the smaller, flatter keys that many
people use today which resemble more of a laptop keyboard. Another thing to
consider is if you need a dedicated number pad on the right side of the
keyboard, or if using the numbers on the top is good enough for your needs.
Some of the fancier keyboards have buttons that will do things such as
execute certain commands, adjust the volume, and pause and play your music
files, but usually require you to install some additional software to enable that
functionality.
For the mouse, the most important thing to look for is comfort, otherwise
your hand and wrist will be punishing you in no time. Most stores have their
mice on display, and this way you can get a feel for which one offers you the
most comfort. All mice these days have scroll wheels in between the two
mouse buttons that allows you to quickly scroll up and down on pages such
as documents and websites. Other mice will have additional buttons that are
programmable to allow you to assign certain functions to them, but, once
again, they will most likely require you to install additional software. That
doesn’t mean that you can’t configure mouse options on a standard mouse
without software installed. Windows gives you many options to configure
your mouse when it comes to mouse buttons, pointers, and so on (figure 2.2).
One important thing to remember when it comes to using a mouse in
Windows is that the right click button is used for many different things, so be
sure to play around by right clicking on items within your software.
Figure 2.2
Mouse and Keyboard Troubleshooting

It’s rare that mice and keyboards fail, but you may run across a situation
when a key stops working on the keyboard or when you use the scroll wheel
its moves things all over the place, so yes, they do need replacing at some
point. If you are using a wireless keyboard or mouse you might come across
an issue where they lose connectivity and stop responding. Many of them
have connection buttons on the bottom that you can try and press to get them
to reconnect to the receiver that is plugged into your computer. Low batteries
will cause them to act sporadic or stop responding altogether, so you can try
replacing them. If that doesn’t work, try moving the receiver to a different
USB port and make sure that it’s not being blocked off too much so the signal
doesn’t get through. If it’s a wired keyboard or mouse, you can try a different
USB port as well. Rebooting might also help, assuming you can do so
without a mouse or keyboard, so hopefully one of them is working. You can
press the Windows key on the keyboard to bring up the Start menu and use
the arrow keys to navigate to the restart button.
Speakers
The last “must have” peripheral I will talk about are speakers. If you plan on
listening to music, playing games, or visiting video sites like YouTube, then
you will want a set of speakers to enhance your listening experience. There
are a variety of choices when it comes to speakers, ranging from your budget
$10 pair all the way to the state of the art 7.1 surround sound multi speaker
system that will make you feel like you’re at a high-end movie theatre. For
most people a decent pair of speakers with a small subwoofer is sufficient so
it doesn’t sound like you’re at a drive-in movie with the speaker hanging off
your window. The speakers will connect to the sound port on the back of
your computer, and then to the wall for power, and are pretty much plug and
play.
Printers
Another important device you will probably want to get for your computer is
a printer. I will have an entire chapter devoted to printers and printing as well
as troubleshooting your printer, so I will just mention them for now. There
are different types of printers such as inkjet and laser that can perform
functions such as faxing, copying, and scanning. Or, if you just need a printer
just for the sake of printing, then you can save a few bucks and get a standard
printer. If you are the type that likes to print photos rather than just posting
them on Facebook, then there are specialty photo printers as well.
External Drives
Next, I will talk about flash drives and external hard drives. These peripherals
allow you to copy files such as pictures, videos, documents, and music from
your computer to a portable storage device that you can then connect to
another computer and access. Flash drives (also known as thumb drives) are
small USB devices that can hold a fair amount of data on a fast storage
medium with no moving parts. The capacity of these flash drives vary, but
nowadays they can hold upwards of 512GB, with some even as high as 2TB
(terabytes), but at that size they are very pricey. Since these drives are so
small, they can easily fit in your pocket or on a keychain. In most cases they
are plug and play, which means you simply connect them to your computer
and the operating system will recognize it and make it available for use.
External hard drives are exactly what they sound like, a hard drive that is
external to your computer. These devices consist of a standard 2.5” or 3.5”
computer hard drive enclosed in a case with a USB connection that allows
you to plug them into different computers to transfer data to and from the
drive. They are larger than flash drives (as shown in figure 2.3), but they can
hold much more data, and are often used for backups. Typical external hard
drive capacity is 1TB (terabyte) and can be upwards of 6TB. 1TB is equal to
1024GB, so you can see how much more data these drives can hold over
flash drives.
Figure 2.3
USB Ports
Since I have been mentioning USB ports, let’s shift our attention to learning
about what a USB port is. USB stands for Universal Serial Bus and has been
around since 1996. It has had several versions, including 1.1, 2.0, 3.0, and
3.1, with each version becoming considerably faster than the previous
version. Computers will typically have around 2-6 USB ports in the rear, and
usually a couple in the front of the computer for easy access. As you can see
in figure 2.4 these ports are rectangular, and the USB cable can only plug in
one way. Many times the ports will be color coded to tell you which are USB
2.0 and which are USB 3.x until eventually new computers will only come
with USB 3.x ports. USB is also backward compatible, meaning you can plug
a USB 2.0 device into a USB 3.0 port and it will work, but will only run at
the speed the device was designed for. There are many devices that use USB
connections, and it should remain the standard for years to come.
Figure 2.4
USB Troubleshooting
USB ports can fail, so if a device is not working, then you should try a
different port. Sometimes all the USB ports will fail because the USB
controller that they are connected to on the motherboard has gone bad. The
rear USB ports are usually connected to one or two USB controllers on the
motherboard, so you may get lucky and have some of them stay working. If
you can’t get a device working with the rear ports, try one of the front ports,
since they are most likely on a different controller. If you find that you do
have bad ports and need more to handle all of your devices, you can get an
internal USB card that will plug into the motherboard and give you more
ports at the back of the computer, or you can get a USB hub that you can
connect to one USB port and it will give you multiple ports branched off of
that one port (figure 2.5). A computer can have 127 USB devices connected
to it.
Figure 2.5
Digital Cameras
Another common device that is losing popularity thanks to smartphones is
digital cameras. These types of cameras don’t use film but rather use memory
cards to store the pictures, which allows you to transfer them to your
computer or send them off to be printed like you used to do with camera film.
Professional photographers still use real cameras and not their phones to take
pictures, of course, but some old school people still like their digital cameras
and use them to capture special moments rather than relying on their phones.
With smartphones getting better and better cameras, you can expect digital
camera sales to drop even more.
Smartphones
Speaking of smartphones, that is next on our list of computer peripherals,
even though they are more of a standalone device or can even be considered a
computer themselves. Even so, people connect their smartphones to their
computers via a USB cable to transfer pictures and movies off of their phones
and on to their computers. You can also charge your phone while it's
connected to your computer through the USB cable, but it typically won't
charge as fast as if you used your wall charger.
There are different makes and models of smartphones, but as of now it’s
basically a choice of using an Apple iPhone or a Google Android based
smartphone. There are many manufacturers who make Android based
phones, and they often customize the interface the way they like so one
manufacturer’s phone most likely will look and behave a little differently
than another’s. iPhones typically stay the same, but Apple adds more features
as the newer models come out.
Depending on what model of phone you have, when you connect your
smartphone to your computer a few different things might happen. If it’s the
first time you have connected it to your computer, it may take Windows a
while to recognize your phone for the first time. Then you may or may not
get a window that pops up showing the folders contained in your phone’s
internal storage. Some Android phones, for example, make you pull down
from the notification area a menu that has connection options such as
“transfer files” or “charge the phone only”. iPhones will typically pop up a
message asking if you want to trust this computer, and you have to confirm
before it will let you access the phone’s storage from your computer. Once
you get into the phone's storage, you will typically want to look for a folder
that is called “DCIM”, which will have your pictures and video files stored in
it. Once you open this folder, you can drag and drop the files onto the desktop
of your computer or into another folder of your liking. From there you can
print them out, email them, upload them for professional printing, or copy
them to a flash drive or external drive to access from a different computer.
Gaming Controllers
If you are a video game junkie and have an Xbox or PlayStation, then you
know how important it is to have the right type of controller for your games.
Typically for computer games, you can use the keyboard and mouse for
controls, but that can get tedious, and may not be as fun for games such as
flight simulators or car racing games. You can get yourself a full-on steering
wheel with pedals or joystick with all the bells and whistles to take your
gaming experience to the next level. These devices are usually easy to
connect and configure as well.
Microphone
A microphone comes in handy if you are doing things like video calls using
software such as Skype or doing video meetings using software such as
GoToMeeting or WebEx. It can also come in handy for online video gaming
where you talk to other players during a battle or race. Or, if you are one that
likes to do dictation and uses voice to text software, then a microphone is a
must. They can also be used for making videos for YouTube or training
videos on your computer. These microphones connect to your computer using
the microphone input jack next to where your speakers connect, or they can
also be connected via a USB port. Once you connect the microphone and
Windows recognizes it, then you can adjust some of the input levels such as
volume from within your recording software and also within the Windows
sound settings in the Control Panel.
As you can see, there are many peripherals you can use with your computer
that allow you to expand its capabilities, so it’s just a matter of figuring out
what you need, finding the device that is best for you, and, most importantly,
is in your price range!
Chapter 3 – Microsoft Windows
Now that I have covered the physical components that make a computer
work, I will shift to the software side of things, which is equally important.
The software that you or someone else installs onto your computer that
makes it all come together is called the “operating system”. Like I mentioned
earlier, there is more than one type of operating system out there, but I will be
focusing on the most popular one by far, and that is Microsoft Windows. This
chapter will be the longest by far, so you might want to get some more coffee
before starting!
Windows History
Windows has been around for a long time, so let’s start with a history of the
different versions and features that have taken us to where we are today.
Windows 3.1
Windows 3.1 was released in April 1992 and became the best-selling GUI in
the history of computing. It added multimedia functionality, which included
support for connecting to external musical instruments and MIDI devices.
TrueType font support was added to provide Windows with a WYSIWYG or
What You See Is What You Get interface. Windows 3.1 added the ability to
close applications by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del and terminating hung
applications from the list of running programs. Drag and drop functionality
provided a new way to use the GUI, and support for Object Linking and
Embedding (OLE) was added. OLE allowed embedding elements from
different applications into one document.
Windows 3.11
Windows 3.11 was released in November 1993. It did not add any feature
improvements over Windows 3.1, but corrected problems (most of which
were network problems). Microsoft replaced all new retail versions of
Windows 3.1 with Windows 3.11 and provided a free upgrade via their Web
site to anyone who currently owned Windows 3.1.
Windows for Workgroups 3.1

Windows for Workgroups (WFW) 3.1 was released in April 1992. It was the
first Microsoft OS to provide native support for peer to peer networks. It
supported file and printer sharing and made it easy to specify which files
should be shared with other computers running DOS or Windows. WFW also
included Microsoft Mail (an e-mail client) and Schedule+ (a workgroup
scheduler).
Windows for Workgroups 3.11

Windows for Workgroups (WFW) 3.11 was released in February 1994 and
was geared toward local area networking. This made it a hit for corporations
wanting to increase productivity by sharing information. The default
networking protocol was NetBEUI, and TCP/IP or IPX/SPX could be added.
WFW 3.11 clients could connect to both workgroups and domains, and it
provided built-in support for Novell NetWare Networks. WFW 3.11 also
improved support for remote access services.
Windows 95
Windows 95 was released in August 1995, and it changed the face of
Windows forever. Windows 95 had features such as Plug-and-Play to make
hardware installations easier, and dial-up networking for connecting to the
Internet or another network via a modem. Windows 95 was the first
Microsoft operating system that supported long filenames. Windows 95 also
supported preemptive multitasking. Perhaps the most drastic change was that
Windows 95 was a “real” OS. Unlike its predecessors, it did not require DOS
to be installed first. Windows 95b (OSR2) was an improved version that was
never offered for sale to the public, and was only available to Original
Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to install on new computers that they
were offering for sale. Windows 95b added support for universal serial bus
(USB) devices and the FAT32 file system that allowed for larger partitions,
better disk space usage, and better performance.
Windows 98
Windows 98 was released on June 25, 1998. It was the retail upgrade to
Windows 95 that provided support for reading DVDs and using USB devices.
Applications in Windows 98 opened and closed more quickly. Like 95b,
Windows 98 included a FAT32 converter, which allowed you to use hard
drives over the 2GB limit imposed by DOS. The backup program was
revamped to support more backup devices (including SCSI), and Microsoft
added the Disk Cleanup utility to help find and delete old unused files.
Windows 98 also included Internet Explorer 4.0 and the Active Desktop.
Windows 98 Second Edition

Windows 98 Second Edition (SE) was released in June 1998 as an
incremental update to Windows 98. Windows 98 SE improved the home
multimedia experience, home networking, and Internet browsing. Windows
98 SE introduced Internet Connection Sharing (ICS), which allowed a
Windows 98 SE machine to function as a Network Address Translation
(NAT) server for other machines on the home network. In other words, you
could have multiple machines connected to the Internet at the same time
using only a single ISP account and a single public IP address, and all
Internet traffic would go through the Windows 98 SE machine running ICS.
Windows 98 SE also included NetMeeting and Internet Explorer 5.0.
Windows 98 SE was the first consumer operating system capable of using the
same drivers as Windows NT 4.0.
Windows ME
Windows Millennium Edition (ME) was the last OS built on the MS-DOS
kernel. It was released in September 2000 and added improved support for
digital media through applications such as Image Acquisition, Movie Maker,
and Windows Media Player. Image Acquisition was added to simplify
downloading images from digital cameras. Movie Maker was included to
ease editing and recording digital video media files. Media Player was used
to organize and play music and video files. To enhance reliability, Windows
ME added the “system restore” feature, which could be used to restore any
deleted system files to fix problems. Another important feature was system
file protection, which prevented important OS files from being changed by
applications. Windows ME also included a new home networking wizard to
make adding peripherals and computers to a home network easier.
Windows 2000
Windows 2000 was released in February 2000 and put an end to the NT
name. Even though it was built on the same NT kernel, it no longer used the
name. Windows 2000 shipped with four versions: Professional, Server,
Advanced Server, and Datacenter Server. Professional was the replacement
for NT 4.0 Workstation, and was used as a desktop/client OS. Windows 2000
added many of the features that NT 4.0 didn’t have, such as a disk
defragmenter, device manager, and Plug and Play support.
Windows XP Home Edition

Windows XP Home Edition was released in 2001. It was the first consumer
OS based on the NT code, which makes it the most stable and secure
Microsoft consumer OS to date. Home Edition supports the Internet
Connection Firewall (ICF), which protects your computer while you are
connected to the Internet. It also features Fast User Switching, which allows
you to switch between users’ desktops without having to log off first. Home
networking and multimedia capabilities have also been enhanced. Remote
Assistance is a new feature that lets you ask someone for help. The helper can
then remotely control your desktop and chat with you online. Also included
are features such as Task Manager and System Monitor, and brand new
features such as the Desktop Cleanup Wizard and taskbar grouping were
introduced.
Windows XP Professional
Windows XP Professional includes all the features of Home Edition, and
many new features geared toward business uses. Some of the new features
include:
Remote desktop, which allows XP Pro to act as a mini Terminal
Server, hosting one remote session.
Encrypting File System (EFS), which allows you to encrypt files
stored on disk. EFS was included with Windows 2000 Professional,
but XP Professional adds the ability to share encrypted files with other
users.
Internet Protocol Security (IPSec), which allows you to encrypt data
that travels across the network.
Integrated smart card support, which allows you to use smart card
authentication to log on to the network, including Windows Server
2003 terminal sessions.
Recovery console, which provides a command-line interface that
administrators can use to perform repair tasks if the computer won’t
boot.
The ability to join a Windows domain. While users who have a
domain account can log onto the domain from an XP Home computer,
the Home computer cannot have a computer account in the domain.
XP Professional computers have computer accounts, allowing the
administrator to manage them centrally.
Windows XP Media Center Edition
Windows XP Media Center Edition is built on Windows XP technology and
comes preinstalled on Media Center PCs. Media Center Edition combines
home entertainment and personal computing. It puts all of your media in one
place and allows you to control it via remote control. Some of the features of
Windows XP Media Center Edition include:
Watching live TV
Personal Video Recording (PVR)
Electronic Program Guide (Guide)
Playing DVDs
Listening to music
Watching videos
The Media Center Remote Control
Windows Vista
Microsoft Windows Vista was released in January 2007. It included many
changes and added new features such as the updated graphical user
interface\visual style called Windows Aero. It also featured redesigned print,
audio, networking, and display subsystems. It offers improved security, easier
networking, better organization, and new multimedia capabilities. Criticism
of Windows Vista was based on its high system requirements, lack of driver
and hardware support, as well as other problems, such as crashing and
locking up.
Windows Vista comes in a variety of editions, including Home Basic, Home

Premium, Ultimate, Business, and Enterprise, each with its own set of
features which allows you to choose the edition you need based on pricing
and what you plan to do with the operating system.
Windows 7
Microsoft Windows Vista was released in October 2009, and is the successor
to Windows Vista. It features the same look and interface as Vista but offers
better performance and reliability. Windows 7 has more efficient ways to
manage files and improved taskbar previews. It also has faster startup time
and runs programs faster than Vista, although it still requires a higher end
hardware to run up to its potential.
Windows 7 comes in many editions, including Starter, Home Premium,

Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise, each with its own set of features
which allows you to choose the edition you need based on pricing and what
you plan to do with the operating system.
Windows 8
Windows 8 was released in October of 2012 and is Microsoft’s first attempt
to combine the desktop PC and smartphone\tablet operating system into one
OS. With this new OS came new devices, such as tablets, that could easily be
converted into laptops and desktops with tablet-like interfaces and features.
Windows 8 is a big change from Windows 7 and the standard interface that
everyone was used to. Many people were turned off by this new interface
while others embraced it. Windows 8.1 fixed some of the things people didn’t
like, but the OS never gained the popularity Microsoft wanted.
Windows 10
Microsoft claims Windows 10 will the last desktop version of Windows, and
it will be continually updated and improved upon so there won’t be a need for
a replacement. Windows 10 brings back some of the look and feel we all
loved about Windows 7, but also retains that tablet type feel that Windows 8
had. The Start menu is back, but this time it has Live Tiles that change
information for things like current events and weather. It also comes with a
built-in personal assistant named Cortana, which is similar to Apple’s Siri.
The main editions consist of Home, Professional, and Enterprise, with most
people getting the Home version preinstalled on their new PCs. Professional
and Enterprise are more for the office and joining Active Directory domains
etc.
Now that Windows 10 has been around for some time and has made its way
to desktop computers around the world, Microsoft has decided that it will be
the last version of their desktop OS (for now, at least), and that they will
simply come out with new feature releases that build on the functionality of
Windows rather than keep coming out with new versions. Windows 7 was a
big success, and the changes they tried to push on us with Windows 8 kind of
flopped, so it appears they got things right with Windows 10 and we have a
compromise of both of the previous versions within it.
Finding your Version of Windows

If you are unsure about what version of Windows you are running, there are a
couple of easy ways to find out. The easiest way is to look for the Windows
product ID sticker on your computer, which will tell you what version your
computer is running assuming it hasn’t been upgraded (or downgraded) since
it was purchased. Or, if you click on Start and have an icon that says This PC,
Computer, My Computer, etc., then you simply have to right click on it and
choose Properties (figure 3.1) and it will tell you the version right there. You
can also get other useful information from this system information section,
such as the computer name, workgroup name, installed RAM, and the type of
processor in use.
Figure 3.1
Since the start menu is different between Windows 7, 8, and 10, you may not
have this option when you click on Start. This is one of the issues you will
run into when it comes to troubleshooting Windows problems because there
are different ways to get the same information and it varies between
Windows versions. Another method that is a little more advanced, yet still
very easy, is to check the version using a command prompt. A command
prompt goes back to the old days of DOS (disk operating system) when there
was no GUI (graphical user interface) and everything you did on the
computer was accomplished by typing in commands and reading the output
that was spit out after pressing enter. To find your version of Windows from
a command prompt, simply click on Start and type in cmd from the run box
or Cortana search box in Windows 10 and press enter. Then, from the black
box with the flashing cursor, you will type in ver, press enter, it will tell you
the version of Windows you are running (figure 3.2).
Figure 3.2
You will notice with this method you get a little more detail after where it
says Version 10 with the numbers that come after it. These additional
numbers indicate major or minor updates to the operating system.
One note I would like to make when I use the term “Start button” is that this
button will look different depending on your version of Windows. In the old
days it was a button on the bottom left of the screen that actually said Start on
it. Over the years it got changed to various versions of the Windows logo, but
it’s still referred to as the Start button, and is still at the bottom left corner of
the screen.
What Version of Windows Should you be Running?

Now that I have discussed the different versions of Windows and how to find
what version you are running, I can talk about what version you should be
running. Everyone has their opinion on what the best version of Windows
might be, but there is more to that when it comes to deciding which version
you want to use. If you buy a new computer, then you really don’t have much
of a choice because it will come with the latest version of Windows unless
it’s an older model, or the manufacturer has decided to sell new computers
with older versions of Windows because of a demand for that particular
version. If you are building your own computer or starting from scratch with
a blank hard drive on your existing computer, then you have a choice of what
version to install (assuming you can still buy that version).
You might have tried out different versions of Windows from using various
computers and have a favorite, but you should base your decision on which
one is right for you on things such as the following:
Ease of use
Customization options
Cost
Compatibility with your software
Compatibility with your computer’s hardware
Meeting system requirements for your computer’s hardware
Driver availability for your printer and other devices
One big factor in your decision should be how long that version of Windows
you want to run will be supported. Microsoft will only support their software
for a limited amount of time. By support I mean that they will release security
patches and other fixes for a particular version for so long. As of this writing,
the end of mainstream and extended support for current desktop versions of
Windows are as follows:
Windows 7
Mainstream support 1/13/2015
Extended support 1/14/2020
Windows
Mainstream support 1/9/2018
Extended support 1/10/2023
Windows 10
Version 1507 Mainstream support 10/13/2020
Version 1507 Extended support 10/14/2025
If you decide you want to upgrade your current version of Windows on your
existing computer, then you need to make sure that the upgrade path you
want to take is valid. By upgrade path I mean is version X upgradable to
version Y and so on. In our experience upgrades never seem to perform as
well as clean installations from scratch, so if you have the knowledge to start
over and install your new version of Windows on a clean slate (or hard
drive), then that’s the way to go.
Using Windows
Okay, so you have your new computer in front of you powered up and ready
to go. So what’s first? Learning the basics of how Windows operates is
essential if you want to be an efficient computer user and not be looking for
assistance for things that should be easy to do. In this section I will discuss
the major components of Windows in detail, and hopefully by the end of the
section things will make more sense. Feel free to play along and try things
out on your computer itself as I go over them.
Windows Desktop
Let’s begin our discussion with what we call the “desktop”. The word
desktop is kind of a vague term that people use in different ways, but
essentially the desktop when it comes to Windows is the main screen where
you will have icons for programs and other items like folders and files that
you regularly use. Think of it as the top of your desk that your monitor sits on
top of. Its where you have an overview of everything and the place where you
find the things you need to do your work. Here is what a typical Windows
desktop looks like (figure 3.3). Notice the icons for programs and the other
files and folders as well as the desktop background image?
Figure 3.3
The desktop is customizable, and you can add whatever shortcuts to

programs that you like, as well as create files and folders of any type on it.
There are several ways to do this as well. If you right click on a blank part of
the desktop and then click on “New”, you will have several options for the
types of items you can add to the desktop (figure 3.4). The important thing to
keep in mind here is that the choices you will have after clicking New will
vary on what programs you have installed on your computer, so your choices
will most likely look different than the image below.
Figure 3.4
As you can see, I can create things like a new folder, shortcut, contact,
Microsoft Word Document, and so on. It is also possible to customize what
items are available from the New menu, but that’s a much more advanced
topic. So let’s say I chose to make a new Microsoft Word Document. After I
clicked on Microsoft Word Document, it would create the file on the desktop
and allow you to name it whatever you like. Then when you open the Word
document it will be blank because it’s a new file. You can get the same result
by clicking on Microsoft Word from your Start menu programs, creating a
new document, and saving it on the desktop. As you will notice, there are
several ways to do the same thing within Windows, and this really comes in
handy when it comes to being efficient.
If you want to copy a file or folder from a different location to the desktop,
it’s as simple as finding the file or folder, right clicking it, choosing copy, and
then right clicking on the desktop and choosing paste. I will discuss copying
vs. cutting later on in this chapter, as well as deleting and renaming files and
folders. You can also drag and drop files and folders from one location, such
as a different folder on your hard drive, or even from a CD\DVD or external
flash or hard drive to copy them to your desktop.
On a more advanced note, there are other ways to get to the files on your
desktop. If you open File Explorer or Windows Explorer (depending on what
version of Windows you are running) you will see a shortcut icon for
Desktop on the upper left-hand side of the folder tree. You will notice how
the items in the Desktop folder match the items that are actually on the
desktop (figure 3.5).
Figure 3.5
Another useful way to get to the Desktop folder is to find it under the Users
folder on the system drive (usually the C drive) of your computer. Simply
navigate to C:\Users\username\Desktop, where “username” is the user’s
account name that they log into the computer with. If you have other user
accounts on your computer, you can get to their desktops as well, assuming
you have permission to do so. (And by permission I mean permissions
configured on the computer, not from the person themselves!)
Windows Start Menu and Taskbar

At the bottom of the desktop you might have noticed a bar with some
additional icons on it. This is called the Windows Taskbar, and its purpose is
to house the Start button which displays the Start menu, any programs you
might have open, as well as things like the system tray icons and the clock. I
have already discussed the Start button a little, but overall its main purpose is
to bring up all the programs and other utilities installed on your computer.
These can be programs that have come with Windows, or software you have
installed on your own. Depending on your version of Windows, the Start
menu can look drastically different. For example, here is a Windows 7 Start
menu (figure 3.6).
Figure 3.6
And here is an example of a Windows 10 Start menu (figure 3.7).

Figure 3.7
As you can see, there is quite a difference in how they look, and also how
they function. Many people prefer the older Windows 7 style because they
are used to it, and I personally think it’s easier to use and that newer is not
always better! Of course, you can do a lot of customization to the Windows
10 Start menu to make it more user friendly, and there is also free software
out there that will enable you to use an older style Start menu with Windows
10. I have had a lot of success with a program called Open Shell.
There are many ways to customize the Windows Start menu and Taskbar, and
these methods will vary depending on your version of Windows. So, on that
note, I will now discuss how to go about customizing the Start Menu and
Taskbar, but will focus on Windows 10, since that is most likely what you
will be using. You can do most of the same things in older versions, but the
methods will vary a little. As you can see in figure 3.7, you have an
alphabetical listing of programs on the left, and then groups of program tiles
on the right that are considered “pinned” to the Start menu. These items are
placed into groups that can be renamed and customized as well. If you right
click an item on the left, you will have an option to have it pinned to the Start
menu on the right, as well as other options such as running the program as the
local administrator or uninstalling the program itself. If you were to right
click an item on the right, you can do things such as unpin it from the Start
menu, resize it, pin it to the Taskbar, uninstall it, and maybe other options
depending on what program it is.
If you want to make your own custom group for the Start menu, all you need
to do is drag an existing tile to the top or bottom of the Start menu and it will
make a new group with that tile in it. Then you can name the group and add
or remove other tiles from it as needed. You can also drag and drop icons
from other groups or the program list on the left into the group, and rearrange
other items from other groups to organize them to your liking by dragging
and dropping the icons.
If you go to the Windows 10 settings and click on Personalization and then

Start, you will have many more Start menu options, such as making the Start
menu full screen, having it show recently opened items, show suggestions,
and so on. There is also a section where you can choose which folders appear
on the Start menu, such as Documents, Music, Pictures, Network, and so on.
One important thing to remember with Windows 10 is that Microsoft is

always changing things, so if you read about a way to change a setting, that
option might not be there after a future upgrade release. It’s very frustrating,
and hopefully Microsoft stops doing this at some point! One final note on the
Windows 10 Start menu is that if you right click on Start, you will get a
whole other listing of things you can do or open, so give it a try.
The Windows Taskbar is also very customizable, and one of the most
noticeable changes you can make is switching from the default view, which is
to combine taskbar buttons, as they call them, to never combining them. This
is a perfect example of a user preference that can be decided on and makes no
difference in how Windows works, but can enhance your user experience
greatly. When you open programs they take up space on the Taskbar, which
allows you to switch back and forth between your open programs. When you
open another program, it will add itself to the taskbar, and when you close a
program it will remove itself from the Taskbar.
The combining taskbar setting makes the icons smaller and combines icons.
When you have more than one copy of the same program open, it will group
them together and show you a preview of the windows side by side (figure
3.8), and you can click on whichever one you want to bring to the front.
Figure 3.8
If you use the never combine option (figure 3.9), then each program window
will be shown on the taskbar with its title, making it much easier to see what
you have open, but at the same time taking up a lot more real estate on your
Taskbar. If you have a larger monitor and use a higher resolution this usually
isn’t much of an issue. If you like this view and want to save a little space,
you can enable the “Use small taskbar buttons” option in the Taskbar
settings.
Figure 3.9
The Taskbar options can be found in the same Personalization area of the
Windows 10 settings under Taskbar. Other options you can set include
locking the taskbar so it can’t be moved or hidden, automatically hiding the
taskbar to give you more desktop space, as well as a setting that allows you to
have the Taskbar be on the side of the screen or on the top of the screen. You
should go into these settings and play around to see what works best for you.
Changing the Date and Time

One more thing I will mention in regards to the Taskbar, since it’s on the
Taskbar, is how to adjust the date and time settings if needed. Sometimes
when you get a new computer or have a new installation of Windows, your
date and time settings may be incorrect. This may be because of the incorrect
time zone being set, or if your computer’s internal clock is off in the BIOS on
the motherboard and needs to be adjusted. If it’s a case of an adjustment
needed in the BIOS, then you may have to go into there and fix it, because
every time you reboot your computer it might revert back to that incorrect
time. The BIOS (basic input output system) is beyond the scope of this book,
but it’s not too difficult to get in there to check. The method to do so varies
depending on the motherboard manufacturer, but if you ever see a prompt at
startup before Windows loads to press F2 or Del etc. to enter setup, then
that’s what you are looking for. You will usually have a menu driven system
where you use the arrow keys and enter key to navigate around.
If it’s just a case of setting the correct time zone or Windows itself is off, then
all you need to do to fix it is to right click on the clock on the lower right-
hand corner of the taskbar and choose “Adjust date/time”. Depending on your
version of Windows the configuration will vary, but once you get there it’s
pretty easy to see what you need to do. In figure 3.10, which is what you will
see with Windows 10, you can see that there is a drop-down menu for the
time zone as well as some other options. If the “change date and time” button
is greyed out, that is because the “set time automatically” option is turned on,
so if you want to manually assign the date and time simply turn off this
option and then you will be able to click on the “Change” button. As you can
see, there is also a setting for automatic daylight settings adjustments that you
can turn on or off as needed.
Figure 3.10
Changing Window Sizes

Now that you have played around with the Start menu and Taskbar, you most
likely have some programs open and showing on your Taskbar. Windows
offers you three positions to have programs positioned on the screen. The
first one is to be minimized down to the Taskbar. This is where you can’t see
the open window on your screen, but the program remains open and you can
see its representation on the taskbar (such as in figure 3.9). The program can
also be maximized, and this is when it takes up the entire screen. The third
option is to have it partially maximized, and that is when it takes up however
much of the screen you desire to have it occupy. When it’s in this mode, you
can drag the window to wherever you like on the screen by clicking and
holding the title bar at the top of the window. You can also resize the window
by putting your mouse cursor near the top, side, or bottom edge until it
becomes a double arrow, then click, hold, and drag it to the desired size. If
you look at the top right corner of the window, you will see a dash, a box,
and then an X. The dash is used to minimize the program to the Taskbar, the
box is used to toggle between maximized and partially maximized, and the X
is used to close the program.
You may run into a case where your programs don’t open up full screen
(maximized) and you always end up having to manually maximize them each
time you open them. This is a handy fix for that problem, and is fairly easy to
configure. Find the icon for your program and right click it, then choose
Properties. Go to the “Shortcut” tab, and where it says “Run” make sure it’s
set to maximized rather than minimized or normal window (figure 3.11).
Figure 3.11
Keyboard Shortcuts
Although I talked about the keyboard in Chapter 2, I figure now is a good
time to discuss keyboard shortcuts. If you work with a computer on a regular
basis, then you might even know some of them without even realizing it, such
as Ctrl-C for copy and Ctrl-V for paste, which are probably the most
commonly used keyboard shortcuts. The good thing about Windows
keyboard shortcuts is that they are universal for all Windows programs, for
the most part, so you don’t need to learn specific shortcuts for each program
unless that program has its own custom shortcuts built-in. Here is a listing of
some of the more commonly used keyboard shortcuts within Windows:
CTRL+C - Copy a file or text.

CTRL+X - Cut a file or text (for moving).
CTRL+V- Paste a file or text.
CTRL+Z - Undo the last operation.
SHIFT+DELETE - Delete selected item permanently without placing
the item in the Recycle Bin.
CTRL+A - Select All.
ALT+F4 - Close the active item or quit the active program.
ALT+ENTER - Displays the properties of the selected object.
ALT+TAB - Switch between open items.
ALT+ESC - Cycle through items in the order they were opened.
CTRL+ESC - Display the Start menu.
User Accounts and Passwords

Now that you are getting a hang of how your computer works, let’s talk about
you and other people accessing your computer with user accounts and
passwords. Whether you are a home user or a corporate user, you can’t get
into Windows without a user account, and, for the most part, a password.
There is a way to log onto Windows with a blank password, which I will go
over later, but it’s not recommended for security reasons. There are many
reasons why Windows has user accounts, including the following:
Having a way to protect their personal files from being accessed from
others (unless they want them to be accessed);
Providing a way to assign permissions to shared files and folders on
the local computer or network;
Determining what type of functions that person is allowed to perform
on the computer itself;
Tracking things such as login times, failed login attempts, and file
access using event logging;
Setting allowed times for users to be able to log onto a computer or
network;
Saving the personal settings of your computer such as the desktop
background and installed computers etc.;
Assigning levels of access for software usage.
Keep in mind as a home user you won’t have to worry about most of these
because your user account will mainly be used to save personalization
settings that you customized for your user account and to keep your
documents from being accessed by other users. Once again, Microsoft has
given us a couple of ways to work with user accounts, and each way works a
little differently. To access your user account settings, you will want to go to
Control Panel (discussed later in this chapter), find the User Accounts icon,
and double click it (figure 3.12). This screen will look very similar, if not
identical depending on your version of Windows.
Figure 3.12
In Windows 10, besides the using Control Panel method, you can also go to
the Windows 10 Settings and then Accounts to get to a different screen that
essentially has the same user information, just laid out differently with some
additional options (figure 3.13). (I will be going over Windows 10 settings
later in this chapter.)
One thing about Windows 10 which can be good or bad depending on how
you look at it, is that Microsoft wants you to manage your user account using
a Microsoft account so that you do things like sync your settings across all of
your devices and make the most out of OneDrive (discussed in Chapter 16)
when signed in with the same user account. If you are running Windows 10,
you might already have a Microsoft account configured and don’t even know
it, but there is an option to switch it to a local account that is not tied to
Microsoft, but only to the computer itself (discussed next).
Figure 3.13
For our discussion on user accounts, I will focus on the Control Panel method
since it’s more straightforward than the way you would get to it from
Windows 10 Settings, but feel free to experiment with either one. Keep in
mind that if you are running Windows 10 and try to perform certain tasks
such as adding a new user, it will open up the other interface from Settings,
so you will have to do it there. I have a feeling that Microsoft will eventually
change the way things are done in Windows 10 so that the “new” way of
doing things will be the only way of doing things, and maybe even get rid of
Control Panel altogether in favor of the Settings interface.
As you can see in figure 3.12, it will show the user account that you are
logged in with and give you options to do things such as change your account
name and change your account type. In the desktop versions of Windows you
will have the option to be a standard user, which allows you to use most
software and will also let you change system settings on the computer that
don’t affect security or other user accounts. (This is a good type of account to
choose when making an account for your kids to lessen the potential of you
having to fix problems after they use the computer!) The other option is to
have an administrator account, which gives you full control over the
computer and allows you to change any setting and access any file on the
computer. You should always have at least one user account that is an
administrator, otherwise you may run into problems down the road when you
need to change something that only an administrator can change. In a work
environment you will have many more account types that you can use on
servers to delegate permissions for any kind of task you can think of.
If you want to add another user to your computer, you can do so by clicking
on “Manage another account”, and from there you would click on “Create a
new account”. If you are running Windows 10, you will only have the option
to click on “Add a new user” in PC settings, which will open up the Windows
10 user account options in Settings. Otherwise, you will type in the account
name and select if you want this new user to be a standard user or an
administrator. When you are finished, you will have the new user listed under
your accounts and you can then assign that user a password by clicking on
Create a password. You can also do things like change the user’s account
picture, change the name, change the account type, and even delete the
account.
To add another user using the Windows 10 Settings, you will click on
“Family & other people” and then “Add someone else to this PC”. It will
prompt you for the new user’s email address or phone number to set up a
Microsoft account. If you just want to create a local user, you can click on I
don’t have this person’s sign-in information on the bottom of the screen
(figure 3.14). Then, on the next window where it asks for an email address
again, click on the link that says Add a user without a Microsoft account.
Then you will be able to type in the username and password for your new
local user. For the password hint section, choose something that will remind
you of what the password is in case you forget it, but at the same time doesn’t
give the password itself away.
Figure 3.14
As mentioned earlier, there is another way to manage user accounts in

Windows with some different options. This is also the area where you can go
to have your account sign in without a password. The easiest way to get to
this user account section is to click on Start (or Cortana for Windows 10) and
type in netplwiz in the search box and press enter. Now you should see a
different user accounts window (figure 3.15) where you can do the same type
of things such as add a new account, change account types, and change user
passwords.
Figure 3.15
If you don’t want to type in a password when you log in, you can uncheck the
box that says Users must enter a user name and password to use this
computer. The only catch is that if you have more than one user account,
none of them will require a password to log in, and you will need to choose
which one will automatically be logged into the computer at startup. This
might be a problem since it’s an all or nothing type of configuration.
User Account Troubleshooting

For the most part, you shouldn’t have any trouble with user accounts, but it is
possible for them to become corrupt, and when that happens you will be
stuck making a new one. You need to make sure that you don’t delete your
personal files in the process of making the new user account. If your account
does become corrupt, you should get a message at login saying there was
trouble accessing your profile and that a temporary one has been made for
you. When this happens, you will also notice that your personal settings, such
as your desktop icons or background, will be set to the default, as if you
logged in for the first time. If you do end up having to remove your user
account to recreate it, then you should back up your files first (backups will
be covered in Chapter 13) to be safe.
When you choose to remove your account, you will need to be logged in as a
different user, so you may have to create another temporary administrator
user account before deleting your account if you don’t have any other admin
user accounts on the computer. When you choose to remove the user account
using Control Panel, you will be prompted to keep or delete the user’s files
along with the user account, so you can do this here if you forgot to backup
first. They will be put on the desktop of the user account you are deleting the
account from. Unfortunately, if you delete the account from the Windows 10
Settings, you don’t get this option. Once the account is deleted simply create
a new account with the same name and password if you like, and copy your
files back to the proper folders.
Another user account related issue you may run into has to deal with
permissions for files. If you need to share files on the same computer with
another user, then they may not have the appropriate permissions to access
the required files, or if they can access them they might not have the right
permission to modify or save them. I will cover file and folder permissions
later on in this chapter, but the short version is that you simply need to right
click the file or folder and choose Share with or Give access to (you may
have either option) and choose a name from the list. Or you can click on
Specific people and add the required user or users from there and the type of
access you want them to have for the files or folders such as read or
read\write. Keep in mind that this is just basic sharing, and I will talk about
more advanced sharing and permissions later.
Another common issue with user accounts is when you forget your password,
and this happens more often than you think. If you have another user on the
computer with the appropriate rights to reset your password, then it’s an easy
fix (I discussed that a little bit ago). But what if you are the only user on the
computer? If that’s the case, then hopefully you made a password reset disk
before forgetting your password. To make a password reset disk, type in
“password reset” from the search box or Cortana and follow the prompts to
make the password reset disk using a USB flash drive. (And no, I don’t know
why they call it a reset “disk”). All you need to do is insert a USB flash drive
that doesn’t have any important data on it, type in your current user
password, let it do its thing, and then store the flash drive in a safe location.
Then, if you forget your password and enter it incorrectly, you will notice a
link under the password box that says Reset password (figure 3.16). You
will be prompted to connect your password reset flash drive and have your
password recovered. You will also be shown your password hint, which is
hopefully enough to get you to remember what your password was.
Figure 3.16
If you didn’t make a password reset disk, then there is still hope. There are
companies out there that make password reset boot disks where you can boot
your computer to a CD or flash drive, choose your user account, and clear out
the password to make it blank. Then the next time you boot your computer,
you will have no password and can assign your account a new one. There are
a couple of programs I have tested that work well, and they are PCUnlocker
and Renee PassNow, and will cost you about $30.
Windows File Management

One of the most important things to know how to do when it comes to
Windows, or even any operating system, is knowing how to manage your
files and folders. Once you get this figured out, you will notice that using a
computer is much easier because knowing how the Windows file structure
works will make you much more efficient when using pretty much any
program you have on your computer.
Windows uses a tree structure for its folders with files and\or subfolders
within folders. As you can see, there is a folder tree in the left pane with the
contents of the Users folder displayed underneath it, and as well as in the
right pane (figure 3.17).
Figure 3.17
To access your files and folders you can use Windows Explorer, or as it’s
called in newer versions of Windows, File Explorer. The easiest way to open
this app is to right click on the Start button and choose Windows Explorer or
File Explorer and you will see a window similar to figure 3.17. Within this
window there is the left pane which will show all your installed drives such
as your hard drive(s), DVD drive, and any USB connected flash drives or
hard drives. Each drive is assigned a letter with the Windows\system drive
assigned the letter C by default. The name of your C drive will vary
depending on what the drive label was named during its initial configuration.
As you add drives to your computer, Windows will assign the next available
drive letter to that drive. It is possible to customize these drive letters, but that
is a more advanced topic. When you click on a folder in the left pane, the
contents of that folder will be displayed in the right pane. You can drill down
into these folders and subfolders to see their contents. On the top address bar
you will see the path to the current folder that is highlighted. In figure 3.17
the path is C:\users. If you were to drill down to the admin folder the path
would then be C:\Users\admin and so on.
Changing File and Folder Views

If you don’t find the files and folders easy to work with then you can change
their view to another format, such as details, list, tiles, large icons, small
icons, and so on. To do so, go to the View tab or menu item (depending on
your version of Windows) and choose the view that best suits your needs
(figure 3.18). You can try out different views until you find the one you like
best. If you use the details view, then you can sort the files or folders by
name, date, size, type, and other attributes.
Figure 3.18
Keep in mind that this view will only apply to the folder you are currently in.
To make it apply to all of your folders, you will need to choose a folder and
change the view to the setting you like. Then you will need to go to the
Windows Folder Options, then the View tab, and click the button that says
“Apply to Folders” (figure 3.19).
Figure 3.19
Once again, depending on your version of Windows you will either go to the
View tab and choose Options, then Change folder and search options, or go
to the Tools menu item and choose Folder Options. There are other options
you can apply here before clicking on Apply to Folders such as having
Windows show hidden files or have Windows show file extensions
(discussed next). If you make a mess of things and want to go back to the
way things were at the beginning, then you can click the Reset Folders or
Restore Defaults button and then OK.
File Extensions
File extensions are used to tell Windows what program to open a certain type
of file with. If they weren’t used, then every time you double clicked a file
you would be asked what program you wanted to open it with, and if you
didn’t know what type of file it was, then that would make things very
difficult. File extensions are hidden by default in Windows with a few
exceptions. A file extension consists of a period followed by three or more
letters (or sometimes numbers) afterward denoting what program the file is to
be associated with. For example, with a file called resume.docx the file name
is resume and the extension is .docx, and .docx is the file extension
associated with Microsoft Word. So, when you double click the resume.docx
file, Windows knows to open it with Microsoft Word. However, if you don’t
have Microsoft Word installed, it won’t know what to open it with because
Word will register that extension with Windows only after you install it on
the computer. If you want to have Windows show all file extensions (which
is usually a good idea) then uncheck the box that says Hide extensions for
known file types in figure 3.19.
File and Folder Permissions

I discussed permissions earlier in this chapter, but now I will go into more
detail about what permissions are available and how you check them and also
modify them. Permissions are not something you want to change without
some careful planning because you can run into some real problems with
accessing files or even making your computer inaccessible.
Permissions are meant to give access to files and folders to the people you
want to give access to while keeping the people you don’t want to give access
to out. There are different levels of permissions, and also different types of
access. You can share files and assign permissions to them, but at the same
time you can assign permissions to files that are not shared. Shared files are
mostly used over the network to allow users on one computer to access files
on another computer, but can also be used locally on a single computer to
share files and folders between users. When you share a file, there are two
levels of access permissions: share level and NTFS (NT file system)
permissions. The share level permission determines who can access that
shared file or folder over the network, and the NTFS permission determines
what they can do with that file. Share permissions consist of full control,
change, and read, and you can allow or deny either one with “deny
permissions”, overriding allow permissions. NTFS permissions consist of
allowing or denying the following:
Full control – Allows a user to read, execute, create, and delete data,
along with the added ability to assign other user accounts permissions
to the object.
Modify – A full combination of both Read and Write permissions. A
user can also delete files within a folder that has this permission and
view the contents of subfolders.
Read & execute – The Read permission with the ability to read file
and folder permissions along with the contents of subfolders.
List folder contents – The same as Read & Execute without the
ability to execute files.
Read – Allows a user to view the contents of a folder or the contents
of a file. The user cannot view the contents of subfolders.
Write – Allows a user to create files and folders, but not read the
contents of any files and folders they did not create.
Special permissions – Special permissions provide more of a
customized unique level of permissions for your files and folders.
NTFS permissions have the final say when it comes to access, so if you
assign a user full control to a folder with the share permission, yet read only
access with the NFTS permission, then that user will only have read access. If
you aren’t sharing any files or only have one user on the computer, then
sharing isn’t something you will really need to worry about.
I discussed how to go about setting up simple sharing earlier in this chapter,

so now I will get into a little more advanced sharing and file and folder
permissions. The first thing you need to do is find the file or folder you want
to share and right click it, but this time choose Properties. Next, click on the
Sharing tab, and then click the Advanced Sharing button. From there check
the box that says “Share this folder” and then click on the Permissions button.
As you can see in figure 3.20 the folder named Misc has the Everyone group
and the user Jim assigned to the share, with Jim having read permissions. To
add other users or groups, simply click the Add button and type in the names.
Or you can click the Remove button to remove users or groups. You can also
change the permissions by checking the box or boxes for the desired setting.
Figure 3.20
For the NTFS permissions, click on the Security tab back at the Properties
window and you will see something similar to figure 3.21 where it shows the
groups or user accounts that have access to the Misc folder and what
permissions they have. If you want to add or remove a user or group, click on
the Edit button and then on either the Add or Remove button.
Figure 3.21
If you are adding a user or group, you can type in the name and click on the
Check Names button to verify you typed it right. If you don’t know the name
offhand, you can click on the Advanced button and then the Find Now button
to have all the groups and users on the computer shown in a list (figure 3.22).
Figure 3.22
Once you add the user or group name, then you can determine what access
permissions you want to give them. Keep in mind that they are the same as
the ones mentioned earlier in this section. Now there is a lot more to sharing
files and folders than I will be discussing in this chapter, but I don’t want to
get too involved and make it any more confusing than we have to, so for now
I will just stick with the basics.
Troubleshooting Permissions
The default permissions for file and folders usually work fine for most
people, but if you start to play around with them, then you might get yourself
into a little bit of trouble when you or another user on the computer can’t
access files they need to be able to access. When this happens, you need to
think logically and go about the problem step by step.
For example, you might have set the permissions on a folder called Invoices
that is inside a folder called Sales (Sales\Invoices), and then shared the
Invoices folder with another user named Linda. However, for some reason
Linda can’t access the Invoices folder and can’t get past the Sales folder
itself. This is most likely because you set the permissions on the Invoices
folder, but the parent folder (Sales) does not have the correct permissions for
Linda to get past it to see the Invoices folder and its contents. So now you
should look at the permissions of the Sales folder and how they apply to
Linda and change them accordingly so she can either access the Sales folder
as well, or at least traverse the Sales folder to get to the Invoices folder.
Traversing folders is a special permission, and is more on the advanced side
of sharing.
When creating shared folders, it’s best to set the permissions on the parent
folder, that way they will apply down the folder tree to subfolders and files
when you create new folders and files within that parent folder. This is called
“inheriting permissions” and is enabled by default. If you want to do some
custom sharing, you can disable inheritance under the “advanced” settings of
the Security tab (figure 3.23).
Speaking of the advanced settings, if you ever encounter a problem where

you can’t get into a folder or change permissions on a folder and know you
should be able to, then something or someone might have gone in there and
messed some things up, preventing you from fixing them. A way to get
around this and get your user account back in control of a folder is to take
ownership of the folder. To do this go back to the Security tab and then click
on the Advanced button. Where it says Owner at the top (figure 3.23), click
on the Change link and make yourself the owner.
Figure 3.23
Just be careful doing this on system folders or other folders that you are
unsure about or didn’t create, because you can cause some serious problems
if you make yourself the owner of a folder that should belong to a Windows
system account. Windows system accounts are used by the operating system
and by services that run under Windows. They have the same file privileges
as the administrator account but don’t work the same way.
Another way to go about troubleshooting permissions is to make sure that the

user or group that is not able to access the file or folder has not been given
the deny permission for any of the access levels shown in figure 3.21,
because like I mentioned, deny always overrules allow.
Moving, Copying, Renaming and Deleting Files

One thing you will be doing a lot of once you are more comfortable with your
file management skills will be copying, moving, renaming, and deleting files
as needed. But before we begin our discussion, I must say BE CAREFUL
when doing so to files, because you can cause your programs or even cause
Windows to stop working if you play around with the wrong files. And, of
course, you can also misplace or delete your own personal files, which is
never a good thing.
Manipulating file locations is very common because you have so many

options as to what you can do with your files and where you can store them.
This all applies to folders as well by the way, so keep that in mind. If you are
working on a document, for example, and want to save it, then you can pretty
much save it wherever you want on your hard drive, even someplace you
shouldn’t like the Windows folder. So, what do you do if you need to move a
file that you saved someplace you didn’t want to save it at? The answer is
easy. You move it! I will now go over three ways that you can move a file
from one folder to another.
The first thing you need to do is to locate the file you want to move, and that
can be done with Windows\File Explorer. Once you’ve found the file, simply
click on it once to highlight it and then you can go to the Home tab (figure
3.24) in newer versions of Windows or the Edit menu in older versions, click
on “Move to”, then choose a suggested location from the list or click on
Choose Location at the bottom and browse to where you want to move the
file to. It will then move the file. If you change your mind or picked the
wrong folder, simply use the keyboard Ctrl-z shortcut to undo the last move.
Figure 3.24
Another method you can use to move a file is to right click on it and choose
Cut, then browse to the folder you want to move it to, right click on a blank
area, and choose Paste. Just be careful not to choose Paste shortcut, because
that is not the same thing, and I will be discussing what that later in the
chapter. The last method you can use involves the keyboard shortcuts you
learned earlier in the chapter. Once you have the file highlighted, press Ctrl-x
to cut the file, and then click within your destination folder and press Ctrl-v
to paste the file into the new folder. If you have both the source and
destination folders open in two Windows\File Explorer windows, or can see
both of them in one Windows\File Explorer window, then you can simply
drag the file from the source folder to the destination folder to move it. This
will only work if the source and destination folders are on the same drive,
otherwise it will copy the file instead.
You can do the exact same thing to copy a file from one folder to another,
except you will use the Copy to option from the first method (figure 3.24)
and then for the second method right click the file and choose Copy rather
than Cut. Finally, for the third method use Ctrl-c rather than Ctrl-x to copy,
and then use the same Ctrl-v keyboard shortcut to paste the file into the
destination folder. The drag and drop method will not work for copying files
unless it’s from two separate drives, or you can use the right mouse button to
drag the file over and then let go and choose Copy here.
Deleting files is pretty straightforward, and all you have to do is highlight the
file and click the Delete button from figure 3.24. Or you can right click a file
and choose Delete, or press the Delete key on your keyboard. By default,
Windows will send the file to the Recycle Bin rather than delete them
permanently. If you made a mistake and want the file back, you can use Ctrl-
z for undo to have the file undeleted from the Recycle Bin and returned to its
original location. Keep in mind that Ctrl-z only works for the last operation,
so if you deleted another file since the one you wanted recovered, it won’t
work and you will have to go into the Recycle Bin to get it back.
If you want to see all the files you have deleted, you can open the Recycle
Bin from the desktop, or, if for some reason you don’t have an icon for it,
then you can get to it by typing C:\$Recycle.Bin in the Windows\File
Explorer address bar, but you will need to have the “hide protected operating
system files” option unchecked. Or you can type in desktop icons in the run
box or Cortana search box, then click “Show or hide common icons” on the
desktop and check the box next to Recycle Bin. For Windows 10 users, you
will click on the link that says Desktop icon settings and then check the box
next to Recycle Bin.
Once you are in the Recycle Bin you can sort the deleted files and folder by
things such as name, size, original location, date deleted, and so on. If you
want to recover a deleted file or folder, then simply right click on it and
choose “Restore”. You can also do this for multiple files and folders at a
time. This will move the file back to its original location. You can also right
click the file, choose Cut, and then paste it wherever you like or simply drag
it out of the Recycle Bin to a different location.
If you right click the Recycle Bin and choose Properties, or click the
Properties icon in the toolbar, you will see its location and how much hard
drive space is allocated to hold recycled files (figure 3.25).
Figure 3.25
These settings can be modified to give you more space for recycled files and
folders if needed. You can also see that there is an option to bypass the
Recycle Bin and delete the files off the computer instead. This can also be
accomplished manually by holding down the Shift key while deleting files or
folders. Just know that if you do this, the files are gone for good (unless you
use some type of file recovery software to get them back). Plus, there is never
a guarantee that the recovery will work, and the longer you wait to recover
them, the more likely the sectors the file occupies on the hard drive will get
overwritten with new data. If you do need to recover some deleted files, I
recommend using a free program called Recuva by Piriform.
Another common thing you will most likely do with your files and folders is
to rename them. Once again, be careful when doing this, and don’t try to
rename any Windows system files or files belonging to other software
because you are only asking for trouble. Try and stick with only renaming
personal files such as documents, pictures, music, etc. Also, be sure not to
alter file extensions such as changing resume.docx to resume.me because
Windows won’t know what program to open the file with if you do so.
The procedure for renaming files is similar to copying or moving files. Once
you highlight the file or folder you want to rename, you can click on the
Rename button (as shown in figure 3.24) or you can right click the file and
choose Rename. Then simply type in the new name, press Enter, and you are
all set. If you want to rename a bunch of files you can highlight them all and
right click on the first one, choose rename, type in a new name, and press
Enter. It will name all the files the same, but will add numbers after them
such as Resume (1).docx, Resume (2).docx, and so on. In Windows you can’t
have two files with the same name in the same folder or two subfolders
folders with the same name within the same parent folder.
Now, if you want to perform any of these file and folder operations to
multiple files or folders, you can simply select the ones you want and then
take action on them after they are selected. For example, you might want to
delete a bunch of files, but don’t want to have to delete them one at a time.
There are two ways to select multiple files depending on whether you want to
select a concurrent list of files or just certain ones.
To select an entire row of files simply click on the first file in the group, hold
down the Shift key, and then click on the last file in the group. This will
highlight all the files in that particular grouping of files or folders (figure
3.26). To select a non-contiguous listing of files you can click on one file,
hold down the Ctrl key and then click on whichever files you want to
highlight, and it won’t highlight the entire group of files (figure 3.27).
Figure 3.26
Figure 3.27
To select all the files in a folder or all of the subfolders within a folder, you
can click on the “Select all” button in figure 3.24, or you can use the Ctrl-a
keyboard shortcut. When copying, moving, renaming, and deleting files just
remember that Ctrl-z (undo) is your friend, and if you mess something up and
want to go back a step, you can use that to make your life easier.
Shortcuts vs. Actual Files

I have been discussing files for some time now, so you should be pretty
familiar with what they are and how to manipulate them. But let’s say you
have a shared file that multiple people need access to, and you want to be
able to quickly open the file from your desktop, but don’t want to give other
users access to your desktop itself and its other files. This is where a shortcut
comes into play. A shortcut is simply a pointer to a file, which means it’s an
icon for that particular file that points to the actual location of that file. So, if
you have a file called Sales.xlsx in a folder on your C drive under
c:\finances\business\Sales.xlsx and want to open that file from your desktop,
rather than having to navigate to c:\finances\business\Sales.xlsx each time,
you would simply create a shortcut file that points to the actual file.
There are a few different ways to create a shortcut file, but the easiest method
is to locate the actual file, right click on it, and choose Copy. Then go to the
location on your computer where you want the shortcut to that file to be (such
as your desktop), and then right click and choose “Paste shortcut” rather
than choosing Paste itself like I discussed in the section on how to copy and
move files. In figure 3.28, the file on the left is the original Sales.xlsx file,
and the file on the right is what you will see after you paste a shortcut. Notice
how it keeps the name and just adds “- Shortcut” after it, and the icon has a
blue arrow indicating that it’s a shortcut and not the actual file. You can
rename the file to take off the shortcut label and the blue arrow will stay so
you will still be able to tell it’s a shortcut and not the actual file itself.
Figure 3.28
Other users on the computer can do the same thing, and you can have as
many shortcuts to the same file as you like. Creating shortcuts to files is very
common when the files are stored on file servers on a network where you
might not know how to find the real file, or don’t want to have to navigate to
a networked server every time you want to open your files. Right clicking on
a shortcut file and choosing Properties will tell you the path (or target) to the
actual file if you want to know what your shortcut is pointing to. If you
decide you don’t want a shortcut to a file anymore, you can simply delete the
shortcut and the actual file will not be affected. (Just be careful that you are
deleting the shortcut and not the file itself!)
Searching for Files and Folders

Another important file management task that you will need to learn to do is to
search for files and folders because you will not always remember where
certain files and folders are located, and maybe not even remember what they
are named! Searching for files and folders is pretty easy, and you can fine
tune your searches to really narrow things down. The easiest way to do a
search is to open Windows\File Explorer and navigate to the folder you want
to search. If you don’t know what folder the file might be in, then you can
search the entire PC by clicking on “This PC” (or “Computer” for older
versions of Windows). The search box is located at the upper right-hand side
of the window, and once you click in the search box, the Search tab will
become active if you have Windows 10 (figure 3.29).
Figure 3.29
To do a simple search, type in the file or folder name you want to search for.
Windows will begin searching automatically and show you the results as it
finds them. If you are running Windows 10, you can use the options on the
Search tab to fine tune your searches, such as specifying the type of file or
the size of the file and so on. You can also search by date modified, and if
you plan on using your custom configured search again, you can save the
search. Clicking on Recent searches will show you the items you searched for
in the past and allow you to search for them again. If you only want to search
the current folder, then click on the Current folder button, otherwise leave it
on All subfolders to search all the subfolders of the folder you are currently
in.
One effective way to search for files is to use wildcards. These come in
handy when you know part of the name, or at least know what type of file it
is that you are looking for. For example, if you know you have a file that
might have been called Birthday2018, or maybe Bday2018, but aren’t sure,
you can use the wildcard symbol, which is an asterisk (*), and search for
*2018 to bring up any file that has some characters and then 2018 afterward.
Or, if you want to search for all the jpeg images on your computer, you can
search for *.jpg, which will search for any file with .jpg on the end (which is
the file extension for jpeg images).
Creating a New Folder or File

As you save files on your computer you will need a place to store them, and
that place is called a “folder”. There are default folders within Windows
(discussed next) used to store documents and pictures etc., but sometimes you
will want to create your own folder for a specific purpose. This process is
easy to do, and here is how you do it. Once again, open Windows\File
Explorer and decide where you want your new folder to go. Next, you will
find a blank spot within that folder, right click there, choose New on the
drop-down menu, and then Folder. Then type a name for the new folder and
press Enter. Another method for Windows 10 users is to go to the Home tab
in the toolbar (figure 3.24) and click on the New folder button. As for the
permissions on the new folder you create, they will be inherited from the
parent folder (unless you have disable inheritance turned on). Any files you
put in this new folder will inherit the permissions as well.
The process of creating new files works a little differently. Normally you
create new files when you save your work in one of your programs. For
example, if you are working on a new document in Microsoft Word and
decide to save it to your desktop, a file will be created on your desktop and
named whatever you called it when you saved it. If you want to create a new
blank Word document on your desktop, simply right click an empty spot on
your desktop, choose New, then Microsoft Word Document, type in a name,
and press Enter. The file type choices you will have will vary depending on
what software you have on your computer and if that software puts an entry
under the New right click menu. There is a way to customize what items are
under the New menu, so if you are feeling up to the challenge, you can do a
little research and figure out how to customize the menu.
Default Windows Folders

Windows comes with many default folders that can be used to store a variety
of files to help keep things organized. You may have noticed some folders
named Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, and Videos. These folders
are created when Windows is installed and are meant to be used as a place to
hold certain types of files. That doesn’t mean you have to use them, but many
programs will default to these folders when you click on save within that
program. Of course, these options can usually be changed, just like
everything else.
Let’s focus on the Downloads folder for a minute since the rest of them are
pretty self-explanatory. When you are using a web browser (discussed in
Chapter 6) and download a file or program from a website, most of the time
these files will go into your Downloads folder. Some web browsers use this
by default and others don’t. Microsoft web browsers (such as Internet
Explorer and Edge) will use the Downloads folder unless you configure them
otherwise. If you download something from a website and don’t recall where
you saved it to or just clicked on save without looking when it asked where
you want to save it to, then it’s most likely in the Download folder, so you
can go there and browse for it. If you are using the Details view, then you can
sort by date and have the newest files be at the top of the list to help you find
your most recently downloaded file.
Compressing\Zipping Files
If you tend to work with files such as high-quality photographs or documents
with a lot of pictures in them, then the size of your files can tend to get quite
large, and if you frequently email these files, then many times the email will
get rejected because the attachments are over the allowed size limit. This is
where compressing or “zipping” files comes into play. Compressing a file
will take that file and reduce its size, making it easier to email or copy to a
flash drive or DVD etc. Some files compress better than others, and some
other types of files won’t even compress at all, so you will have to
experiment to see how far you can reduce your large files when needed.
When you compress a file, Windows will copy that file into a compressed zip
file and leave the original file intact. As you can see in figure 3.30, there was
a movie file and a music file that were compressed, and you can see the
before and after size difference with the music file being reduced to half of its
original size.
Figure 3.30
Compressing files is also a good way to take a bunch of files and combine
them into a single file, which comes in handy for emailing so you don’t have
too many attachments to deal with. To make a zip file with one or multiple
files, simply highlight the file or files you want to add to the zip file, right
click on them, and choose Send to > Compressed (zipped) folder. Windows
will create the zip file, and you can name it after it’s created or leave the
default name of the zip file, which will match the name of the file you are
creating.
Windows Control Panel

If you plan on being a serious Windows administrator, or even if you just
plan on tweaking your computer’s settings, you will need to get yourself
familiar with the Windows Control Panel. This is where you can go to get to
many of the Windows configuration settings and options to change the way
Windows operates, or to fix problems you may run into. Once again, how
you get to Control Panel varies on your version of Windows, so your best bet
is to just type in “control panel” from the search box from the Start menu or
from Cortana in Windows 10. If it’s the first time you have opened Control
Panel, then it will most likely be in the category display view, but if you click
the down arrow next to “View by”, then you can change it to large icons or
small icons and see everything in one place (figure 3.31).
Figure 3.31
As you can see, there are many settings to choose from, but keep in mind
yours may vary a little depending on your version of Windows and its
configuration. Rather than go over each utility, I will discuss some of the
more commonly used ones. (You can experiment with the others on your
own, though some of these you will never have a reason to use at all.)
Administrative Tools
Disk Defragmenter – Used to rearrange data on your hard drive
into a chronological order so that when it is accessed the hard
drive doesn't have to search all over the disk to find what it’s
looking for.
Disk Cleanup – Removes temporary files to free up disk space.
Event Viewer – Log utility used to diagnose errors and other
computer events (discussed in Chapter 11).
Services – Shows what services are installed on the computer
and their current state (discussed in Chapter 11).
Task Scheduler – Used to schedule programs and other tasks to
run at certain times.
Ease of Access Center – Allows you to set options that make the
computer easier to use.
On screen keyboard.
Magnifier to enlarge areas of the screen.
Narrator to read text out loud.
Mouse and keyboard enhancements.
Fonts – This is where you can see installed fonts and also add and
remove them.
Network and Sharing Center – Allows for configuration of network

settings and connections
Sound – Used to configure Windows sounds as well as recording and

playback options for your sound hardware.
System – This is where you can find information about your computer
as well as configure other settings.
Device Manager – Used to view installed hardware and its
status as well as update drivers (discussed in Chapter 11).
Remote Settings – Where you can enable Remote Desktop and
Remote Assistance so others can connect to your computer and
use it remotely.
System Protection – Where you can enable System Restore
(discussed in Chapter 11) and configure its settings.
Advanced Settings – Various configurations for paging files,
visual effects, user profiles, and system failure settings.
Default Programs – Used to tell Windows what program to use as the
default for types of files (discussed in Chapter 4).
Power Options – Controls how Windows manages power for your
hardware (discussed later in this chapter).
User Accounts – This is where you manage your local users for the
computer (discussed earlier in this chapter).
Windows 10 Settings App

With Windows 10, Microsoft has come up with new ways to accomplish
common tasks and try to make them easier to do at the same time. But for
people who are used to doing things a certain way and like the way things
used to work, this means they have to change their ways. Even though you
can still get to most of the same configuration settings the old way, Microsoft
has a new interface that puts most of its settings for Windows in one place,
and also includes some new options that we didn’t have before Windows 10.
To access these settings simply click on the Settings icon (that looks like a
gear) from the Start button, or type in settings in the Cortana search box and
you will see the main Settings window with all its categories (figure 3.32).
Figure 3.32
You might have noticed I called this settings area an “app”. Starting with
Windows 8, Microsoft introduced apps into its operating system that work
side by side with your programs. (This was mostly because they wanted to
run the same operating system on computers\PCs as they did on tablets and
smartphones.) But, for the regular computer user, these apps function pretty
much like all your other programs. They may just look a little different.
Now, let’s go over what each settings category contains so you can get an
idea of what type of settings you can configure in Windows 10. I won’t go
over each setting, but rather the more commonly used settings within each
category. (You can play around with the other settings yourself if you have
Windows 10.)
System Settings
Display – This is where you can change your screen resolution, text
size, and configure multiple displays.
Notifications – Lets you enable and disable notifications for things
like apps, calls, and updates.
Power & Sleep – Allows you to configure settings for turning off your
monitor and putting your PC to sleep, as well as other power settings.
Storage – Lets you see your local storage drives and devices, free
space, and what types of data is using up the space on the specific
device.
Remote Desktop – This is where you can enable or disable Remote
Desktop and assign users access to this feature. Remote Desktop
allows you to remotely control a computer over the network, or even
over the Internet.
Devices
Bluetooth & other devices – Here you can enable or disable
Bluetooth and remove unneeded devices if required.
Printers & scanners – Shows you your installed printers and scanners
and allows you to manage or remove them. You can also add a new
printer and scanner from here.
Mouse – Shows configuration options for your mouse, such as the
primary mouse button and wheel scrolling options.
AutoPlay – Decides what Windows does by default when you do
things like insert a removable drive, memory card, camera, CD, and so
on.
Phone
This is where you can add your smartphone and use it for web
browsing, email, etc., and then connect it to your computer and
continue your activities on your PC.
Network & Internet

Status – Tells you the status of your current wired or wireless internet
connection and allows you to change adapter settings as well as
sharing and HomeGroup options. You can also see your network
properties and change Windows Firewall settings.
Wi-Fi – Allows you to enable and disable your wireless connection
and also shows the available wireless connections in your area. It also
helps you connect to and configure Wi-Fi hotspots.
Ethernet – Shows your Ethernet connection status and gives you
another place to change adapter, sharing, HomeGroup, and firewall
settings.
VPN – Lets you add VPN (virtual private network) connections.
Mobile hotspot – If you want to share your Internet connection with
other devices, you can configure it here.
Personalization
Background – Here you can change your desktop background
wallpaper image or choose a solid color if you like.
Colors – Here you can change accent colors for things like the
Taskbar and window bars.
Themes – Themes allow you to customize the look of Windows by
using a preconfigured design for things such as the desktop
background, color, mouse cursor, and system sounds.
Start – This section allows you to further customize the Start menu,
which I already discussed in this chapter.
Taskbar – This section allows you to further customize the Taskbar,
which I already discussed in this chapter.
Apps
Apps & features – In this section there are options to choose where
you can get apps from, as well as a way to uninstall apps and other
programs.
Default Apps – Here you can tell Windows what programs or apps
you want it to use for things such as email, music, photos, and your
web browser.
Accounts
Your info – Shows you information about the currently logged in user
and allows you to manage your account as well as add a picture.
Email & app accounts – Here you can manage various email and app
accounts as well as calendar and contact information.
Sign-in options – In this section, you can determine when Windows
requires you to sign in again after a certain event like the computer
going to sleep. You can also change your password, or add a PIN if
you would rather use that instead of a password.
Family & other people – Here you can add another user account to
your computer.
Sync your settings – If you like to have data like passwords and
themes synced across all your Windows devices, you can set that up
here.
Time & language

Date & time – Provides a place to change the date, time, and time
zone, as well as turn daylight savings settings on or off.
Region & language – If you want to add another language to your
computer you can do that here, as well as change your region to get
local content.
Speech – Windows will let you talk into a microphone and have it
dictated to a program such as Word so you don’t have to type it.
Gaming
Game bar – Lets you record videos and screenshots while playing
your favorite video games.
Game DVR – Determines where your videos and screenshots are
saved.
Ease of access
Narrator – Reads the text on the screen out loud through your
computer speakers.
Magnifier – Lets you zoom in on sections of the screen to see things
better.
Color & high contrast – Provides color filters to let you see your
screen more clearly.
Keyboard – Provides various options to make using the keyboard
easier such as having single key keyboard shortcuts.
Mouse - Provides various options to make using the mouse easier such
as changing the pointer size and color.
Cortana
Talk to Cortana – If you have a microphone or are running Windows
10 on a tablet, you can say “Hey Cortana” to have it respond to your
voice.
Permissions & history – Determine what Cortana knows about you
and retains in her history.
Privacy
General – Here you can change privacy options such as what
Windows tracks about your activity, as well as advertising options.
Location – Tells Windows where you are located to help with content
that is presented to you.
Camera – Tells Windows what programs or apps can access your
camera (if you have one).
Microphone – Tells Windows what programs or apps can access your
microphone (if you have one).
Account info – Determines if Windows can use your name, picture,
and other account information with applications.
Contacts – Tells Windows what apps can access your contacts.
Calendar – Tells Windows what apps can access your calendar.
Email – Lets you decide which apps can access and send emails on
your behalf.
Update and security

Windows Update – Shows the status of updates for Windows and lets
you choose when to have Windows install updates and restart your
computer.
Backup – Turns File History backup off or on to back up your local
files.
Troubleshoot – Offers various troubleshooting wizards to diagnose
common problems.
Recovery – If you are having problems with Windows not running
right, you can reset your PC or restore it from an image backup.
Chapter 4 – Software
So, you have this nice, fast, new computer with Windows installed on it
ready to go. You may be wondering what do you do now? If you only have
Windows installed, then there is only so much you can do, such as browse the
web and play games. To make your computer really useful, you will need to
install additional software to perform specific tasks such as creating
presentations, opening specific types of files, and protecting you from viruses
and spyware attacks. Windows can do a lot as is, but the other software you
can install is designed for a specific task, so normally you are better off with
the additional software. For example, Windows comes with a program called
WordPad, which is a very basic word processor that some people can get by
on. But on the other hand, you have Microsoft Word, which is a full featured
word processor that can do more things than you would ever want to do with
this type of program, but it needs to be installed separately.
There are many types of software to choose from and many companies can
make similar software at different price points and with different features. For
example, if you want to edit your own movies you can go with one of the top
programs such as Adobe Premiere (which is very expensive) or you can go
with something much cheaper or maybe even free. Just because a particular
program is the most popular doesn’t mean it’s the best match for you. Then
again, if it is a really popular program such as Microsoft Word or Excel, you
might want to learn it just for the sake of being able to do your job
successfully since most companies use these programs on their computers.
Compatibility
Another thing to watch out for is software compatibility with your version of
Windows and also on occasion with your computer’s hardware. Most
software manufacturers will list what versions of Windows their software will
run on and what the hardware requirements are when it comes to processor
speed, installed RAM, and free hard drive space. They usually list the
minimum requirements, but to run at its best I find your computer needs to
have higher specs than what is listed for the minimum requirements.
Most Windows software is backward compatible, meaning it will run on

older versions of Windows within reason. So, if you have a program that runs
on Windows 10, it should run on Windows 8 and Windows 7. Also, older
software designed for earlier versions of Windows usually runs fine on newer
versions of Windows (you should get a message if it’s not supported). One
thing to watch for is to check to see if it requires a 64 bit processor compared
to a 32 bit processor.
Most if not all newer computers have 64 bit processors, and much of the
newer software is designed to run on 64 bit processors. To see what type of
processor you are running, refer to the Finding your Version of Windows
section in Chapter 3, and it will be on the main system information screen
(figure 4.1).
Figure 4.1
The bottom line is to always check the requirements for Windows and
hardware before buying any software for your computer. If you are a
computer gamer and like the graphics intensive video games, then it’s
important to focus on the hardware requirements and also look at the specs
for your video card.
Installing and Uninstalling Software

In order to have software to use on your computer, you will need to install it
first. Just like with Windows, software needs to be installed before it will run.
There are exceptions to that rule, and some software will run without being
installed just by clicking on an executable file in a folder, flash drive, or
DVD, but that is uncommon. Software comes on a variety of installation
media such as CD, DVD, flash drives, and executable and zip files you can
download off of the Internet.
If you are installing software from a CD or DVD, once you place the disk in
the drive Windows should recognize it and start its autorun feature to begin
the installation. Some software doesn’t have this autorun feature, but most
commercially bought software does. When this process begins, you might see
what they call a “splash screen” with options for things such as reading the
information file, going to the software publisher’s website, and installing the
software itself (figure 4.2).
Figure 4.2
If there is no autorun feature, you will most likely need to browse the CD or
DVD and look for a file called setup.exe or install.exe and double click it to
start the installation. Or, if you downloaded the software from a website, it
might be in a zip file that will need to be extracted. Then you can find the
setup file within the extracted files.
Once the setup process begins, for the most part it will be a lot of clicking on
the “Next” button unless you want to customize the installation. If you do
customize the installation you can choose things such as which components
are installed and what location on your hard drive they are installed to (figure
4.3).
Figure 4.3
If you want to go with the defaults that usually works out fine for most users,
so you can just click on Next until you are finished with the installation. You
might have to agree to a licensing agreement at some point during the
installation so look out for that.
Once the software is installed there should be an entry for it on your Start
menu under your programs, and a lot of software publishers will have the
installation put a shortcut to the program on your desktop or on the Taskbar.
Once you find your icon, you can start using your newly installed software.
On a side note, you might have noticed a folder called Program Files and
then another one called Program Files (x86) on your hard drive. These two
folders are where most software is installed to by default, with Program Files
being for 64 bit software and Program Files (x86) being for 32 bit software.
Just because your version of Windows is 64 bit doesn’t mean it can’t run 32
bit software, but if you have a 32 bit version of Windows you can’t run 64 bit
software.
If you decide that there is some software on your computer that you don’t
want any more or if you need to free up some space by removing unused
software, then you can uninstall it to remove it from your computer. It’s
important that you use the programs uninstall feature to remove the software
rather than just deleting the files from your hard drive. This is because most
Windows software also installs files into the Windows folder and puts entries
into the Windows registry, which holds configuration information for
Windows and other software. So if you just delete the software’s files from
the hard drive it won’t clean out the unneeded files from the Windows folder
or the entries from the registry. The Windows registry is beyond the scope of
this book.
The most common way to uninstall software is from the Programs and
Features Control Panel utility (figure 4.4). I discussed the Control Panel and
its options in Chapter 3. Once you are in the Programs and Features utility it
will list all of your installed software and also show other information such as
the publisher name, date installed, and how much disk space it is consuming.
You can sort this list by whichever column you like by clicking on the
column header name.
Figure 4.4
To uninstall a particular piece of software simply click on the software in the

list and then click on Uninstall at the top of the title bar and the software’s
uninstall process will begin. This process is very similar to the installation
process where you will be clicking on Next a few times until the removal is
complete. Some software will want you to reboot your computer after it's
removed, but it’s usually not necessary to do so right away unless you want
to.
One thing you might have noticed in figure 4.4 are the options to view
installed updates and turn Windows features on or off. Microsoft is always
providing updates for Windows to keep things working correctly and fix any
security issues or bugs. I will be discussing Windows Update in Chapter 14,
but for now just know that you can click on the “View installed updates” link
to get a listing of all the installed Windows updates. If you know that one is
causing you problems (which happens) you can remove it here. Windows
comes with many other features that are not enabled by default, and if you
need to enable something like Telnet or Microsoft Print to PDF then you can
enable them from the “Turn Windows features on or off” link.
Software Licensing
Just like most things in life, software is generally not free. Sure you can scour
the Internet for free software, but a lot of the time it is poorly written, full of
spyware, or tries to get you to install additional software you don’t want
during the installation. Of course, this is not always the case, and you can
find quality software for free if you look hard enough. In fact, many software
publishers will let you install free versions of their software in the hopes of
selling you the pay-for version that offers more features after you fall in love
with the free version.
There are a few different ways you can buy and license software depending
on how you use it and who you are getting it from. It used to be that you
bought some software and it came with an installation key or license number
that you entered after the installation and it was yours for life. Now the trend
seems to be subscription-based licensing where you buy a subscription that
allows you to use the software for a set period of time (usually 1 year) and
then you get to install any updates or new versions for free. This way you are
always running the latest and greatest, but at the same time you are always
paying for your software. Of course, the yearly charge is much less than if
you bought the software outright and owned it forever with no upgrades.
Another increasingly common way to use software and even hardware is to
have a cloud-based subscription. This is where you are using the software
over the Internet and it’s technically running on computers housed at another
location using their processing power rather than yours. The only problem
with this is if you lose your Internet connection, you lose access to your
software.
The bottom line is you need to weigh your options and see what type of
licensing works best for your budget and decide if you want to own your
software or “lease” it. Of course, if you only have one option for licensing,
then you will be stuck with that unless you can find an older version or some
different software that does the same type of thing. Or you can try and find a
free version that does the trick and doesn’t destroy your computer at the same
time.
Setting Windows Default Programs

Back in Chapter 3 I talked about file extensions and how they tell Windows
what program the file should be opened with. You may have more than one
program that is used for the same purpose such as a music player, web
browser, or picture editor, and you will most likely want your favorite one to
be set as the default program for opening a certain type of file. This is where
default programs come into play. You can tell Windows what program you
want used to open a certain type of file when you have more than one
program that will open that particular file type.
To set your default programs go to Control Panel and click on Default

Programs and then Set your default programs or go to the Windows 10
settings and click on Apps and then Default apps. I will use the Windows 10
method in our discussion since its newer. When you first click on Apps &
features you will be shown the most common programs you can set the
defaults for, but if you click on “Choose default apps by file type” you will
be shown all the file extensions on your computer and the program associated
with them (figure 4.5). If you click on an entry in the list, it will pop up with
other choices you can use to open that type of file with as the default.
Figure 4.5
Another way to do this is to right click on a file type you want to set a default
for and choose Open with and then click on Choose another app. Then find
the program in the list you want to use (figure 4.6) and click on that. Make
sure to click the box that says Always use this app to open .xxx files and
click OK.
Figure 4.6
From now on Windows will always use that program to open that type of file
unless you change it again or install another program that takes over as the
default program for that type of file.
Software Troubleshooting
Just like everything else with computers, there is a chance that you will have
problems installing, uninstalling, or even running the software that is on your
computer. Fortunately, many software issues come with error messages that
clearly describe what the problem is, but there will be other times you will be
on your own. Here are some common software issues and what you can do to
try and resolve them.
Incompatibility error when installing software

If you get this type of error there is not much you can do about
it because the software was not designed to run on your version
of Windows, so you will need to see if you can find a newer or
older version depending on your situation.
Error when uninstalling software
This can happen if the uninstaller part of the software has been
corrupted and will not run. In this case, you can try to reinstall
the software over itself to fix the uninstaller issue then try to
uninstall. Or you can try a third-party program such as Revo
Uninstaller to forcefully remove the software.
Software does not run correctly
If you are running software that was not really designed for your
version of Windows it may still run, but not as well as it should.
In this case, you can try to find the executable (.exe) file for the
program, right click it, choose “Properties”, and then click on
the Compatibility tab. Then you can change the compatibility
mode to another version of Windows and see how it runs, or
you can run the compatibility troubleshooter and see what it can
find for you.
32 bit vs. 64 bit compatibility errors
Like I mentioned before, 64 bit software will not run on a 32 bit
version of Windows, so if you can’t find a 32 bit version of the
software, you won’t be able to run it unless you upgrade your
copy of Windows.
Low hard drive space
If you do not have enough free space on your hard drive to
install software then you won’t be able to install the software
and will have to free up space by doing things like uninstalling
other software, deleting temporary files, or copying other files
like pictures or music to a separate drive. Most of the time the
software will tell you if you don’t have enough free space
during the install process.
Slow software performance
If your computer does not have the required hardware resources
to run the software then performance may suffer. Also, if you
are running a lot of other software at the same time or have a lot
of files open you are using the RAM in your computer to run
them, so try closing some files or other programs to see if
performance improves. Sometimes a simple reboot will bring
back software performance. In rare cases one piece of software
doesn’t get along well with another piece of software, so
running them at the same time may cause issues.
Program won’t open
If you are low on resources you may have trouble opening
additional programs. Using Task Manager (discussed in Chapter
11) can help you diagnose which software is using up your
resources. I have also seen it where some software simply won’t
open for no reason at all and you end up having to reboot the
computer to get it working again.
Software is expired or not activated
Like I mentioned before, you need to license your software in
order to use it. Many publishers will have a 30 or 60 day trial
period so you can see if you like the software, but after that you
have to purchase it in order to keep using it otherwise it stops
working or loses some critical functionality. If you think that
you can just uninstall and reinstall it to get another free trial
period, it’s not always that easy. A lot of the time there will be
leftover information in the Windows registry that the program
can use to see that it has already been installed.
Chapter 5 – Printers
Printers have been around for as long as the personal computer itself, and if
you have a PC in your home or office, there is a very good chance you have a
printer as well. Printers are commonly used to print out documents,
spreadsheets, photographs, and so on, and there are many options to choose
from when selecting a printer to use with your computer. The prices of
printers can vary quite a bit as well.
Types of Printers
There are many types of printers, and they each have their place in our homes
and offices. There are also specialty printers as well, such as label printers,
which have a more specific purpose. Many of these specialty printers you
may never come across, and for this discussion I will be sticking with inkjet
printers and laser printers since they are the most commonly used printers by
far, with inkjet printers being the most popular for home users and laser
printers being more commonly used in the office.
Inkjet Printer
Inkjet printers work by using tiny guns to fire tiny ink dots on the paper at
precise locations to make up the text or image that you requested to be
printed from your computer. They are fairly inexpensive, with the
replacement ink being the biggest maintenance cost and sometimes even
costing you more than the printer itself!
Some inkjet printers will have a single black ink cartridge and a single color
cartridge, while others will have three separate color cartridges that you can
replace as they run out of ink. There will be one for cyan, magenta, and
yellow, and together they will create all the custom colors the printer is
capable of putting on paper. As for the paper, inkjet printers require you have
a lot of choices, since almost any type of paper will work just fine. Most
people use copy paper (called bond paper) and others will use inkjet specific
paper, which is a little thicker. If the feeder on your printer will take
cardstock, then you can even print on that. The only paper you might have
trouble with is glossy paper, unless your printer is designed to print
photographs and has photo specific ink.
Print quality is very good these days, but not as good as it is in laser printers
because of the way they work in comparison to inkjet. Depending on the
model of the printer, you can get about 250 pages or so out of a single print
cartridge (depending on what you are printing). You will know when you are
running out of ink because the text or images will be lighter than they should
be or will be missing sections completely. Or, when the page comes out
blank, that is a good sign you are out of ink, but, then again, it can also be a
sign that your printer has died. Many inkjet printers have built-in monitors
that work with the software to show you the ink levels in your cartridges.
Laser Printer
A laser printer differs from other types of printers (such as dot matrix and
inkjet) in the way that it doesn't directly put ink on the paper. It uses a laser
along with electricity to fuse the image to the paper with toner.
The core component of this system is the photoreceptor, which is a revolving,

cylinder-shaped drum. This drum assembly is made of photoconductive
material that is discharged by light photons. Before printing occurs, the drum
must be cleaned to remove any traces of previous pages. The drum is given a
positive charge by the corona wire, which is a wire with an electrical current
running through it.
As the drum revolves, the printer shoots a small laser beam across the surface
to discharge certain points to draw the letters and images to be printed as a
pattern of electrical charges. The data in the printer's memory is written to the
drum using this laser instead of ink or toner, and this process changes the
electrical charge in those spots.
After the pattern is made, the printer coats the drum with a positively charged
black powder called “toner”. As the paper is being drawn into the printer, the
toner is applied to the drum. Since it has a positive charge, the toner clings to
the negatively discharged areas of the drum, but not to the positively charged
areas. At this point, the image is on the drum, along with the toner.
Finally, the printer passes the paper through the fuser, which is a pair of
heated rollers. When the paper passes through these rollers, the loose toner
powder melts and fuses with the fibers in the paper, making it stick to the
paper.
The last step of the fusing process is the pressure roller. This is a rubber roller
that presses against the fuser roller, and the paper feeds between it and the
fuser roller. After putting the toner on the paper, the drum surface passes the
discharge lamp. This light exposes the entire photoreceptor surface, erasing
the original image and making it ready for the next print job.
Multifunction Printer
There are also multifunction (also called all-in-one) printers that can print,
scan, copy, and fax all within one unit (figure 5.1). They tend to cost more
than standalone printers, but these days you can get one for less than $200.
They are larger than standalone printers, and usually require software to
allow you to use all the features from your computer, otherwise you have to
do it from the touchscreen on the printer itself, which can be cumbersome
and not as customizable. HP (Hewlett Packard) is the king of these all-in-one
printers, and is one of, if not the, top inkjet and laser printer manufacturer.
Figure 5.1
Printer Connections
There are several ways to connect your computer to your printer, and the
method you use will depend on what your printer supports as well as the
environment you are using it in. For home users, the most popular connection
methods are USB and wireless, with wireless rapidly growing in popularity. I
discussed USB connections back in Chapter 2 and will discuss wireless (Wi-
Fi) more in Chapter 12. Most home use printers have more than one way to
connect, and may also offer a network connection (networking is discussed in
Chapter 16) in case you want to connect your printer to a network switch and
share access to it that way.
Printers will usually only have one USB connection, so if you go with that
method you will only be able to connect one computer to the printer. Of
course, you can share the printer connection in Windows and others can print
via or through your computer, but, then again, your computer will need to be
turned on and accessible to the network. If you connect to your printer
wirelessly then other computers can connect the same way, assuming they
have wireless capabilities. You can also connect your smartphone to your
printer wirelessly if the model is supported by your phone.
Office printers are often connected via the network and shared on what is
called a “print server”. A print server generally has all the shared printers
installed on it. Then all end users need to do is connect to that print server,
install their printer software from it, and they will print via the print server
itself. This offers administrators one centralized place to control printer
access and check for problems such as printers being offline or out of paper.
These shared printers are usually laser printers or networked copiers that have
network cards that attach to the network just like computers do.
Installing a Printer
To get a printer to work with your computer involves more than just plugging
it into the power outlet and then connecting it to your computer with a cable.
There is software involved that allows Windows to recognize the printer and
make it available to use it with your programs. This software includes what is
called a “driver”, which Windows uses to communicate with the printer’s
hardware itself. The software may also include an interface for scanning and
copying if you got an all-in-one printer, and also usually has an ink level
monitoring feature.
There is more than one way to install a printer, but most of the time it’s just a
matter of inserting the CD that came with your printer and following the
prompts to connect and install your printer. Sometimes you may have to
download the software from the manufacturer's website, especially if you
want the latest driver and software version. For more common printers you
just connect it, turn it on, and Windows will already have a driver installed
for it and do the rest of the setup for you. Another method you can try if the
software is not working for you is to install it manually from the Windows
printer utility, which is discussed next.
Configuring Printer Options

Once you get your printer installed and configured you can go to the Devices
and Printers utility in Windows to do additional configuration and check
your printer status. Of course, Windows 10 has two areas to manage your
printers, but you can do most of the same things from both interfaces. To get
to Devices and Printers simply do a search for it, or if you have Windows 7,
it will be on your Start menu. Once you open it you will be shown a Devices
section, and then a Printer section (figure 5.2) showing you many common
devices installed on your computer as well as all of your printers. Even
printers that are not physical printers (like PDF printers) will be shown here.
If you need to manually install a printer you can click the “Add a printer” link
and go through a process where Windows will search for locally and network
installed printers, as well as wireless models. If it can’t find the printer it will
prompt you for the location of the driver files or attempt to use Windows
Update to find the files it needs.
Figure 5.2
The Windows 10 specific interface can be found in

Settings>Devices>Printers & scanners, and only shows printer and scanner
information and not any other devices, but is essentially the same thing
(figure 5.3).
Figure 5.3
From either interface you can go into the printer’s settings by right clicking it
and choosing “Printer properties”, or by clicking the “Manage” button and
then clicking on “Printer properties” depending on which utility you are
using. Once you get to the properties of the printer, you will see a screen
similar to figure 5.4 with a bunch of tabs that let you change various settings
with your printer.
Figure 5.4
Here is what settings each tab will let you check or adjust. The tabs for your
printer properties may or may not be identical to this example.
General – Shows the printer name and allows you to enter its
location if needed as well as any comments. It also shows you
what paper is loaded and what features the printer is equipped
with.
Sharing – Lets you share the printer with other users on your
attached network and also allows for additional drivers to be
installed for different operating systems.
Ports – Shows what type of port the printer is using and its
name such as a USB or TCP\IP port. You can also configure
additional ports here.
Advanced – Here you can configure the availability of the
printer so it can be used all the time or only at certain times. If
you want to install a new driver you can do that here as well.
Color Management – Opens the Windows color management
utility to adjust things such as printer and monitor color
profiles.
Security – This is where you can configure which users can
use the printer and whether they can only print, or also do
things like manage the printer and its printing documents.
Device Settings – Shows what types of paper trays are
available and what type of paper is in the trays, as well as other
options such as two-sided printing.
Services – This is more of a printer specific area, and you
might see options for cleaning the print cartridges or aligning
the print heads.
Setting Your Default Printer

If you have more than one printer and have one that you use more than the
rest, then you can set that one as your default printer. When you click on print
within a program, it will automatically print to the printer that is selected as
the default. If you want to print to a different printer, then you will manually
need to change it before printing.
Changing the default printer is an easy thing to do. From Device and Printers
(figure 5.2) simply right click the printer you want to set as default and then
click on Set as default printer. From the Windows 10 Settings click on the
printer and then the Manage button and finally the Set as default button.
One thing to keep in mind when it comes to your default printer is that many
programs will print to whatever printer was used last until you change it to a
different printer again. For example, if you were in Word and changed the
printer to a non-default printer to print your last document, then that non-
default printer will be used for the next print job unless you set it back
manually or close and reopen Word.
Printer Troubleshooting
Printers have their share of issues and tend to not work properly when you
need them the most, but there are several things you can do to get your
printer back online if you know what to look for. Printer issues can consist of
things such as blank pages printing out, no pages printing out, strange
characters on the page, and so on. Here are some fixes you can try for certain
types of printer issues:
Nothing printing at all

Make sure the printer is turned on.
Make sure the USB cable is connected if that method is being used.
Check your wireless connection on your computer and printer if using
a wireless connection.
Click the printer queue icon by the clock in the Taskbar and see if
there are any failed or backed-up jobs causing your print job not to go
through. Clear out any backed-up jobs and try again.
Look for error messages on your printer screen if it has one.
See if your printer is listed as “offline” in Devices and Printers.
Restart the Print Spooler service. (Services are covered in Chapter 11.)
Look in Device Manager for errors. (Device Manager is covered in
Chapter 11.)
Turn the printer off and on and maybe reboot the computer as well.
Print to a different printer (if you have one) to see if the issue is
computer or printer specific.
Printing blank pages

Check the ink levels in the software if it’s supported.
Take the inkjet cartridge out and shake it to see if there appears to be
ink in it.
If you are printing something like black text, try changing it to red to
see if it actually prints. (This way you will know it’s your black ink
cartridge that’s causing the problem.)
Install a new cartridge temporarily (if you have one) to see if it fixes
the problem.
Clean the print heads for inkjet printers using the printer software.
Take the inkjet cartridges out and clean the tip where the ink comes
out with a tissue.
Take the laser printer toner cartridge out and shake it, then put it back
in and try again.
Make sure you are printing a page with something on it and not a
blank page.
Paper jams
Make sure the paper is properly aligned in the paper tray.
Try a different paper tray or manual feed tray (if you have one).
Make sure the paper is not curled or warped.
Make sure you are not using paper not designed to run through your
printer.
Check the rollers for the paper trays and feeder for excessive wear or
try cleaning them.
Laser printers require periodic cleaning to function at their best.
Strange characters (gibberish) being printed on the page

Check your printer property settings under the Advanced tab to make
sure the right driver is being used.
Download and install a new driver.
If you recently installed a new driver or did some type of printer
update, see if you can roll back to the old driver.
Chapter 6 – The Internet
Now we are getting to the part of the book which will cover what most
people use their computer for these days, the Internet. The Internet was
invented in 1983 when ARPANET adopted TCP/IP and started working on
its plan for the Internet. Later on in 1991, the World Wide Web went live to
the world. Now, many years later, it has spread around the world and we can
connect to it from all kinds of devices, including our refrigerators! It’s also
faster than ever, and more reliable as well. Back before the Internet exploded,
nobody ever thought we would ever be able to download an HD movie from
another country in a matter of minutes. The Internet is also used for many
other things besides web browsing and checking your Facebook status. Many
companies connect to remote offices, sometimes in other countries, to access
files and computers using the Internet. Streaming services such as Netflix
also use the Internet to get their movies into your living room.
Web Browsers
If you are an Internet user then you will have used a web browser to view
content on various websites from devices such as your computer, tablet, and
smartphone. There are many web browsers to choose from, each having their
own features and capabilities, and you don’t have to use just one. For the
most part, web browsers are free and should stay that way for a long time, if
not forever.
Before we move on, let’s discuss the difference between a web browser and a
search engine because many people get them confused or think they are the
same thing. A web browser is a piece of software that is installed on your
computer. Some popular web browsers include Mozilla Firefox, Google
Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Edge. When you install
Windows, it will automatically install Internet Explorer and\or Edge since
they are Microsoft products. If you decide you don’t like the preinstalled
browser, then you can download and install another one or two to try out.
Search engines are actually websites that you go to using your web browser
and then perform your searches from there. Common search engines include
Google, Yahoo, and Bing. You can use any search engine from within any
web browser, and you can use as many as you want. So, if you aren’t finding
the results you want with one search engine, then you can try another and see
if you can find what you are looking for.
Now that we got that straightened out, let’s continue our discussion on web
browsers. For the most part, all web browsers work the same way, which
makes it easier to use multiple browsers if you like. Image 6.1 is a screenshot
of a Google Chrome web browser on Google’s home page with the main
sections labeled. Now let’s talk about what each part of the web browser
does.
Figure 6.1
Address bar – This area shows you the website address or URL
(uniform resource locator) of the webpage you are on. If you type in a
valid address in this bar and press enter, then the browser will take you
to that website.
Home button – Once you setup your default homepage (which is the
web page you want to start at every time you open your browser)
clicking the Home button will take you back to that page.
Refresh button – If you want to refresh the content of a particular
web page you can click the refresh button (or press F5 on your
keyboard).
Back & forward buttons – These buttons allow you to navigate
forwards and backward within the pages you were viewing.
New tab button – All modern browsers have a multiple tab feature
which lets you have many different web pages open in one browser
session. You can toggle back and forth between them just by clicking
on that particular tab. Before tabbed browsing you would need to open
multiple web browser copies to do the same thing, and that could
potentially get messy.
Search box – This is where you type in what you want the search
engine to find for you. Most browsers will let you type your search
terms in the address bar as well.
One other important thing to mention about web browsers is how you can use
“bookmarks” or “favorites”, as they are often called, to keep a list of websites
that you go to often so you don’t need to memorize its address or search for it
each time you want to go to it. These bookmarks are located in different
places in different browsers, so you will have to figure out how to get to
them. Sometimes you will have a bookmark menu item on the top of the
browser, and sometimes you will have to click a special button to have them
pop out of the side of the browser. You can also have them always stay
visible, but that will take up some of the viewing space on your browser.
Another option is to use the bookmark toolbar, which will place an additional
toolbar under the address bar where you can add your favorites. Just keep in
mind if you have a lot of favorites this bookmark toolbar will get cluttered
quickly. The process for adding a site to your bookmarks will vary, but
basically you get to the page you want to add, then find the menu item that
says “add to bookmarks” or “add to favorites” and then it will be saved for
future use. Another thing to keep in mind is that sometimes websites change
their address, so your bookmark might become invalid and you will have to
delete and recreate it or edit the existing one.
Saving Pictures From Websites

Most websites use pictures to enhance their presence, show examples of
products they sell, etc. There may come a time where you want to save one of
these pictures for whatever reason, and it’s very easy to do. The steps are
pretty much the same between web browsers, but the wording may be a little
different. Once you are on a webpage that has the image you want to save
simply right click on it and choose Save picture as or Save image as.
Browse to a location on your computer where you would like to save it,
change the name if you like, and then click on Save. Keep in mind that some
of these pictures may be copyright protected, so if you plan on using them for
your own website or advertising you might be asking for trouble.
Another thing you might want to do is to copy the image address or URL and
then paste it in an email and send it off to someone so they can click the
address and bring up the picture in their browser. That way you don’t have to
save the image and then add it as an attachment to the email. This comes in
especially handy when you have multiple pictures you want to show
someone. This also works for website addresses if you ever want to email one
to another person so they can open it with the web browser on their computer.
If looking at or saving pictures from websites is your thing then you should
try out an image search rather than just a website search. This way you will
be searching for only images that match your search term rather than the site
itself. Major search engines like Google and Bing offer image search sites
where you can do this and also customize the image searches for things like
image quality or type, such as artwork. To find one of these sites just do a
search for Google images or Bing images and it should take you there.
Printing Web Pages

Just like with almost any other thing on your computer, if you can see it then
you can most likely print it. The same goes for web pages, but there is
something you need to watch out for when printing them. When you work on
a Word document, for example, the page is formatted for the size of the paper
you are printing on (such as 8.5x11 inches). Web pages are formatted for
your screen, and for the most part are designed to be viewed on widescreen
monitors, so when you try and print them you might notice that one side of it
gets cut off.
To get around this, many websites will have a print option on the site itself
that will format the page so it looks correct when printed out. This is different
than clicking on File and Print within your browser. If the website doesn’t
have the print option and you still want to print the page, you can go into the
print settings within the browser and look for options such as changing the
layout from portrait to landscape or a scaling setting where you can reduce
the webpage size to better fit on the paper. Sometimes reducing the margins
will allow you to fit more on a page. One other thing you can do is highlight
all the content on the page, copy it and paste it into a program like Word, and
then see if you can make it look right for printing. The copy and paste web
page method usually gives you mixed results because when you paste it into
your other page the formatting often gets so messed up that everything gets
put out of place.
Web Browser History

As you browse the Internet your web browser will keep track of what sites
you visited just in case you want to go back to an earlier point in time or a
different day and find a site that you went to before. This can come in handy
when you forget to bookmark something or your browser doesn’t remember
your last browsing session after you reopen it, and by that I mean that most
web browsers have a feature that will open all the sites and tabs you had open
after you close the browsers so you can continue where you left off. This
option can usually be turned off if you don’t want that feature active.
The amount of history that is kept varies between web browsers and is
usually customizable or can sometimes even be turned off. To view your
browsing history, find the history option within your particular browser to
bring up your history results. Sometimes you can bring up the current day,
last week, or even recently closed tabs. Then when you find the site you were
looking for you can simply click on it to bring it back up again. Some
browsers such as Google Chrome will let you delete individual history items
by selecting that site and then clicking on delete (figure 6.2). All browsers
will let you delete your entire history, or even let you delete just the current
day or previous hour.
Figure 6.2
If you want to search the web for a period of time without any history being
kept at all then you can browse in a mode often called incognito, private, or
InPrivate mode, depending on your browser. When using this mode no
history is kept and no cookies are saved from websites to your computer. If
you have a private session open with multiple tabs and then close the
browser, the website and tab history will not be restored when you open your
browser again.
Auto Filling Web Forms
Web browsers have the capability to remember common information such as
your name, address, phone number, and email address, and can then fill that
information into forms on websites automatically when needed. For example,
let’s say you are on a website making a purchase and are at the part where
you need to put in your shipping information. If your browser has saved that
information from a prior time you entered this info, then it can fill in all the
fields for you so you will not have to type them in each time. This feature can
be turned on or off within the web browser settings, so it’s not mandatory that
you use this feature.
Web browsers will usually not let you have them keep stored information for
things like credit card or social security numbers. One thing you should think
twice about is having your browser save passwords for sites that can be a
security risk, such as banking sites or even your email accounts. If someone
can get your Windows password then they will be able to get all of your
saved website passwords from Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, and
Microsoft Edge. If you use Firefox, they don’t even need to get your
Windows password, and can get your saved passwords right from Firefox
itself. If you do have saved passwords in your browser, then you can always
go in there and remove them and then the next time your browser asks if you
want it to remember your password for a site you can say no.
Cached Browser Files and Cookies

Web browsers will cache files such as pictures and web pages in order to
increase the performance of your web browser. Rather than have to go out
and download a page or picture each time you go to the same site, your
browser will get the files from the local cache on your hard drive to speed up
performance. These cached files are only kept until they are considered not to
be fresh anymore so you don’t get old information presented to you when
browsing a site.
Cookies are used by websites to place a small file on your computer to

remember information related to a browsing session you had on that website.
For example, if you were shopping on amazon.com and had items in your
cart and then went off that page to another site before coming back to
Amazon, you will notice that it remembered the items in your cart. This
information is stored within that cookie located on your computer. They are
also used for remembering logged in sessions to websites so you don’t have
to keep logging in if you go to another page and then come back.
Security
Security is just as important when surfing the web as it is when it comes to
letting other people on your computer. Actually, it may be more important
because you don’t know who you are really dealing with for the most part
when you are on many websites. You or someone you know might have been
the victim of a spyware infection (discussed in Chapter 9) just by going to a
malicious website that you thought was legitimate and not even downloading
anything. Cybercriminals are finding more and more advanced ways to steal
your information and get around the security methods used to stop them.
Checking the authenticity of websites is one of the essential things you need
to do to keep yourself safe online. When doing a search or clicking on a link
for something like a banking site, always make sure that the website address
is correct because many criminals will make fake websites that look just like
the same thing, but the address will be different since they can’t use the one
owned by the real site. So, if you normally go to a site with the address of
http://www.mybank.com but notice that the address from a link or email that
says http://www.mybanks.com (with an s on the end) then you know
something is not right and shouldn’t be going there.
Also, look for secure sites when logging in anywhere that requires a name
and password or where you would be making a payment for a purchase.
Secure sites are different from regular sites because they use things such as
encryption and certificates so you know that you are going to the website you
planned on going to. The easiest way you can tell that you are on a secure site
is that instead of having http:// at the beginning of the address, it will have
https:// with the s indicating it’s a secure site. Many web browsers will also
have some kind of security icon such as a lock as an additional way of telling
you that the site is secure.
Internet Speeds
You may not be old enough to remember the days of 28.8k dialup
connections, where you actually used your phone line to connect to the
Internet and couldn’t use your phone and be online at the same time. Back
then things were rough, but we didn’t know any better, and when the earlier
DSL lines came out with around 3Mbps (Megabits per second) connections
we thought we’d died and gone to heaven. Then when cable Internet
connections came out at 10Mbps we thought it couldn’t get any better.
Well, things have gotten a lot better, and now typical home Internet speeds
are 50Mpbs, 100Mbps, 200Mbps, and so on, making things like streaming
HD movies and downloading music and software incredibly fast. Of course
you have to pay more to go faster, just like with anything else, but prices are
still pretty reasonable, and many times you can get a discounted price for
signing a year-long contract. If you are just doing typical web browsing and
emailing then 50Mbps is going to be more than fast enough for you, but if
you are a movie streamer, serious downloader, or online gamer, you might
want to spend the money for the higher speed connections.
Cable Internet seems to be the connection of choice for performance, with

DSL lagging behind and fading away. If you are out in a rural area and can’t
get cable or DSL service, then you will be stuck with something like satellite
service, which is much slower but is better than nothing. If you don’t know
what your current Internet speed is, you can always test it on an Internet
speed testing site such as www.speedtest.net. It will test your upload and
download speed. Your download speed will usually be much higher than
your upload speed, especially for home accounts. I will also have an entire
chapter dedicated to Internet troubleshooting coming up.
How to use Social Media Sites

With everyone checking each other’s “status” on their phones, you might
have noticed that social media is a pretty big deal. There is always some
company coming out with some gimmick app to entice people (mostly
teenagers) into downloading and using it as the latest and greatest way to
keep track of their friends. Regardless, the larger of the social media sites are
still king, and if you want to join the club it’s pretty easy to do so, you just
need an email address to sign up. Here is a listing of some of the more
popular social media sites.
Facebook – Facebook was started in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, has

over two billion members, and is most popular of the social media
sites. Once you sign up you create your profile with things such as
your interests, birth date, where you live, work, went to school, and so
on. Then you connect with other users by “friending” them after
searching for them. If they accept, then your feed will show their posts
whenever they post something on their wall and they will see your
posts as well. You can also follow celebrities, bands, social groups,
and so on to see what they are up to.
Twitter – Twitter is a site and smartphone app that lets you “tweet”
short announcements or comments with pictures and videos to people
who follow you. Many people use it to follow celebrities or the
President to stay on top of the latest issues or gossip.
Instagram – Instagram is a smartphone app that allows you to share
photos and videos with friends and family or other people that are
following you. You can look at Instagram account posts on your
computer, but need to use your smartphone or tablet app to make posts
(at least for now).
YouTube – If you want to share videos with the entire world then
YouTube is the place to do it. When you post a video, it is public for
anyone to see if they are searching for that type of video. You can
make videos private if you like, but not many people do that. You can
have what they call subscribers on YouTube so whenever you post a
new video they will be notified so they can watch it.
Chapter 7 – Email
After web browsing, what is the next most popular thing people do on the
Internet? If you said sending emails, then you would be correct! If you don’t
already know what email is then you can think of it as sending a letter to
someone but using your computer rather than an envelope and having it get
there within seconds rather than within days. Email has been around almost
as long as the Internet and many people actually have more than one email
account.
To send an email you will first need to create an account and then decide
what method you will be using to send and receive emails. There are many
free email services such as Google Gmail, Microsoft Outlook.com, Yahoo
Mail, and so on that you can get online. If you work for a business that has its
own domain then you would be using a corporate email account. A corporate
email account is when you work for a company such as Microsoft, for
example, and have an email address such as jsmith@microsoft.com where
microsoft.com is the domain name. These corporate accounts are configured
by your IT administrator at work, so there is usually no setup required for you
to be able to start using your email account. Many companies host their own
email servers on site so they can manage them internally using software such
as Microsoft Exchange. It can be a full-time job managing these servers if the
company is large enough because they are capable of having thousands of
email accounts.
Accessing Your Email

Once you get your account setup then you will need to determine how you
want to access your email, with your main choices being using webmail or an
email client on your computer. Webmail is when you go to the email
provider’s website to check your mail using a web browser. One benefit of
using webmail includes being able to check your email from anywhere on
any device that can connect to the Internet and has a web browser. Another
benefit is that the email provider backs up your email for you so you don’t
need to worry about losing anything if your computer crashes because it’s not
stored locally on your hard drive.
The other option is to use an email client such as Microsoft Outlook or

Mozilla Thunderbird (figure 7.1). An email client is installed on your
computer and then your email is downloaded to the email client and kept on
your hard drive. Most email clients can configure multiple email accounts
that can be used on the one client, making it easy to stay organized. One
downside to using a local email client is that you have to configure it to
connect to the email server to get your messages. Fortunately, many newer
clients will auto configure themselves after you enter your email address and
password, but sometimes you will need to know things such as the incoming
and outgoing server addresses as well as the required port numbers.
Figure 7.1
A benefit of using an email client is that if you lose your Internet connection,
you can still look at any of your emails that were downloaded prior to losing
the connection. These clients often have integrated calendars, which come in
handy as well. If you use a POP3 email connection and your computer
crashes, causing you to lose the data on your hard drive, then your email is
most likely gone as well. This is because once a POP3 email client
downloads email from the provider’s server to your hard drive, it removes it
from the server, leaving the only copy of your emails on your hard drive.
This is not the case if you use an IMAP account.
POP3 vs. IMAP Email Accounts
I am sure you were wondering what I meant when I brought up POP3 and
IMAP email accounts and what the differences are. POP3 (Post Office
Protocol) is one of the most commonly used internet mail protocols and is
easy to configure and use. For a while it was the only choice you had. There
are many POP clients available for virtually every operating system. With a
POP account, you download the mail to your local computer and keep it
there. Most of the time it gets deleted off of the mail server after being
downloaded. One disadvantage of POP is that once you download it to your
computer you won't be able to check your mail from a different computer
since it will already be downloaded onto your own computer. They are
becoming less and less common in favor of IMAP email accounts.
IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) uses a method where all the
mailboxes and messages are maintained on the server. Therefore, you can
access your e-mail from any location with an internet connection. IMAP is
faster than POP because the mail client reads all of the message headers
without having to download the entire message. One thing to keep in mind is
the amount of disk space allocated to your mail on the server may not be
enough to hold all of your mail.
Using Your Email Account

Now that you have your email account configured and are using either the
webmail method or an email client installed on your computer, let’s discuss
the various components of email itself and how to use your account properly.
There is much more you can do with your email account besides just sending
and receiving basic emails. Like I mentioned earlier, many email clients have
built-in calendars, and these calendars can be shared with corporate accounts
as well as your email itself. All email clients have a way to store contact
information (like an address book) so you don’t have to try and remember
their email address each time you want to send them an email.
Working with Emails

Once you get your email account setup and start sending and receiving
emails, it’s important to know how to work with your emails so you are
sending them to the right people and keeping things confidential when they
need to be. In this section I will talk about composing a new email, replying
to an email, forwarding an email, and, finally, blind copying an email.
Composing a new email consists of typing in the email address of the person
or people you want to send it to or selecting them from your address book. To
send to multiple people you can enter each email address on the “To” line
separated by semicolons (most likely) depending on your email client. If you
select the recipients from your address book it will put them in the To line
automatically in the right format. A complete email address consists of the
name, @ symbol, a period, and a com or net or whichever top-level domain
they are using. So jsmith@microsoft won’t work, but
jsmith@microsoft.com will work.
After you enter the recipient(s) then you can add the subject of the email in
the subject line. This should be a brief description of what the email is about
without too much detail, which should be saved for the body of the email.
The body of the email is the area where you enter all of the information that
you want to cover in the email. Here you can add a custom background to
brighten up your emails, or a signature that summarizes who you are and
your contact information, which can be automatically added to every email
you compose. Once you have all the information the way you like it, then you
can click on the Send button to send it on its way (figure 7.2).
Figure 7.2
Sometimes you will receive emails and want to share them with other people,
or they may contain information that someone else needs to know about. This
is where forwarding comes into play. When you click on the forward button
from within an email, you can then choose who you want to forward the
email to. This will send an exact copy of the email to that person or people
along with any attachments, but at the top of the message there will be
something added saying that it is a forwarded email from you. Also a FW:
will most likely be added to the subject line in front of the original subject
noting that it’s a forwarded email. You can usually edit out these changes so
it looks like the email was from you rather than one that you are forwarding
from someone else. The forward button won’t be available in new emails but
only ones that have been sent to you.
When someone sends you an email that you want to reply to then it’s just
simply a matter of clicking the reply button, typing in your response, then
sending it on its way. You will usually see a “reply” option as well as a
“reply to all option”. The reply option just sends the response to the original
sender while the reply to all option will send your reply to everyone who was
sent the original email. If you want to reply to all but one or some of the
people on the email, then you can click on reply to all and remove the people
you don’t want to reply to off the list of recipients.
Finally, I want to go over a couple of special options you will see when
composing a new email. They are the carbon copy (CC) option and the blind
copy (BC) option. The carbon copy option is used to include another
recipient or recipients in the email, but more for the purpose of just to let
them know or as an FYI rather as showing that it is something that really
concerns them or that they need to act on. The blind copy option does the
same thing but the other people who receive the email won’t see the BC
email address as a recipient like they will other addresses from the to or
forward fields. This way you can include other people on the email without
anyone else knowing they got the email.
Email Folders
Now I am going to talk about folders within your mailbox. Folders are used
to organize your email just like you would organize files on your hard drive.
There are default, or built-in, folders, and you can also make your own
custom folders. The most commonly used default folder will be your “inbox”
because this is where all new emails will arrive. Once you read an email it
will stay in your inbox until you do something with it such as delete it or
move it to a different folder. Emails that have not been read generally will
appear in bold, and then once you read it the bold typestyle will be removed.
There is an option to mark an email as unread which will make it bold again.
You can do this if you want to keep an email as new for whatever reason you
choose to do so.
Another commonly used default folder is the “sent items” folder. Every time
you send out an email a copy will be kept in your sent folder so you can go
back and review any emails you have sent out. This comes in very handy if
you forgot if you sent an email or not and want to check, or if you need to see
if you sent it to all the people you meant to send it to. Keep in mind that your
sent items folder can get full quickly, so if you have a limit on how much
email your account can hold then you might want to clean out older sent
items once in a while, especially if they have attachments, which can take up
even more space.
Finally, we have the default outbox folder, which is used to store emails that
are ready to be sent out but have not been sent yet. The outbox is more
common when you are using an email client on your computer rather than
webmail. Many clients put the email in your outbox and then will send them
out when you click on the send\receive button. Some people like this option
because they can “send” a bunch of emails but keep them from leaving their
computer until they are ready in case there are some changes that need to be
made.
Within your webmail or email client you will have the option to create your
own folders. These are used to organize your email into whatever types of
categories you desire. This is a good practice to get into because your inbox
can get crowded very quickly if you get a lot of emails, and this way you can
make them easier to find if you categorize them. Of course you can search
your inbox as well as your folders, but keeping your inbox clean does make a
difference. You can also make subfolders within your custom folders for
another level of organization. For the most part you can drag and drop emails
from your inbox to another folder or from folder to folder. You can also
create rules in some email clients, such as Microsoft Outlook, that look at
incoming emails and will act on them based on things like the sender, the
subject, or other factors that you can configure. For example, you can
configure your client to automatically file emails with the phrase tax forms
in the subject into a folder called Taxes within your email client.
Attachments
When sending emails it’s very common to want to include other items that
the recipient may want or need. You can also send files along with your
emails, and these are called attachments. Attachments can be almost any type
of file, such as a document or picture. There are some files that you cannot
send because they will most likely be blocked by the email server on the
other end for security reasons. For example, if you were to try and send an
executable file (.exe) or a JavaScript file (.js) there is a good chance they will
not make it through to the person you want to send it to. One way around this
is to change the file extension and tell the other person to change it back after
they download the attachment. Or you can add the file or files to a zip file
and send it that way because zip files are usually not blocked.
To add an attachment to your email simply compose a new one or reply to an

existing one and look for a button that says “add attachment”. In many email
interfaces it will be represented by a paperclip (figure 7.2). After clicking on
add attachment you will see the standard browse for files box. Then you just
need to locate the file or files you want to attach and click OK. After, you
should see your attached file(s) in the email that you are composing. If you
change your mind, you can remove one or all of the attachments before
sending the email.
Another thing to consider when attaching files to an email is the size of the
attachment. Most email providers have size limits on received emails and
sometimes even on outgoing emails. A typical size limit may be 10 or 20MB
(megabytes), so if you think your file is too big, check its properties first by
right clicking the file, choosing Properties, and looking for the size
information line (figure 7.3). If the file is too big, then you can try to
compress\zip it, or, if you have multiple files, you might try to zip them up or
send them in more than one email.
Figure 7.3
Pictures are one of the most commonly sent email attachments, and with a
good camera or smartphone your pictures can get quite large. Common sizes
for pictures these days are 6-8MB each, so you can see how it would be hard
to send a bunch of pictures in one email. If these are just pictures that people
will be viewing on their computer and not something that you are sending out
for artwork or printing purposes, then you should consider shrinking them
down to make the file size smaller. This usually involves using some type of
photo editing software, but there is a great (and free) utility called Image
Resizer that you can download and use to resize pictures one at a time or in
bulk to make them smaller while still keeping the image quality. Another way
to include pictures in an email is to paste a copy into the body of the email
rather than attach it. This method varies depending on the source of your
picture. For example, if you found a picture on a website or in a document
that you want to share, you can copy the picture by right clicking on it,
choosing copy, and then paste it into the body of the email. This way the
person on the other end can see the picture right in the message rather than
having to download an attachment.
Sharing Website Links

Another common and very useful thing you can do with emails is to share
website addresses. This way instead of trying to explain how to get to a
certain website or page on that website, you can include a link right in the
body of the email that the recipient can click on and it will take them right to
page you are referring to. This also works for online documents such as PDF
files that are shared on websites.
To share a web page in an email all you need to do is to go to the page you
want to share, highlight the address in the address bar, and then right click it
and choose Copy. You can also use the Ctrl-c keyboard shortcut for copy.
Then go to the email you are composing or start a new one. Right click in the
body of the email where you want the link to go and choose Paste or use the
Ctrl-v keyboard shortcut. You can add several links to one email, but just be
sure to separate them by putting them on separate lines.
Email Troubleshooting
Even though email is a great invention, that doesn’t mean it works flawlessly
all the time, just like everything else with computers. From time to time, you
will have issues such as your email provider being down, your email client
not working correctly, having emails rejected, and so on. In this section I will
talk about common email issues and what you can try to do to fix them.
Rejected Emails
One common problem that almost everyone will face at some point is having
an email rejected and sent back to you. The cause can be difficult to
determine, but if you look at the reply message from the server sometimes it
will tell you why it was rejected. If not, then you can look for error codes and
then research their meaning online. Here are some of the more common email
error codes:
450 – The requested command failed because the user’s mailbox was
unavailable.
451 – The command has been aborted due to a server error.
501 – A syntax error was encountered in command arguments.
550 – This is a generic code stating that the email could not be
delivered. It could be for reasons such as the user’s mailbox was full,
there was no such user with that address, or it thought it was spam.
552 – The action was aborted due to exceeded storage allocation.
Invalid Username or Password Message

If you are using a local email client on your computer (like Outlook), you
might come across an issue of your username or password being rejected
when trying to send or receive email. With email clients, you set up the initial
configuration and credentials and the client stores them so you don’t have to
enter them each time. But what can happen is the email provider makes
changes to their server settings and you need to update your client with these
new settings. It could be that they changed the name of the incoming or
outgoing server, or maybe even the port numbers they used. Or it can be that
they made some security changes and you need use secure SSL settings with
your client (figure 7.4).
Figure 7.4
Missing Emails
Just like socks in the dryer, there will be a time where you are missing an
email or maybe a bunch of emails and you will be left scratching your head
trying to figure out what happened to them. When this happens it’s usually a
user error type of thing, so it’s just a matter of figuring out what you did and
then trying to get them back. The first thing you should do is check your trash
and make sure you didn’t accidentally delete them. If you did and they are in
your trash, you can go in there and restore them or drag them back to your
inbox. If your email service automatically clears out your deleted items after
a set period of time, then you might be out of luck.
Another common cause of missing emails is when they get dragged to the
wrong folder. If you have a lot of folders and are using the drag and drop
method to move them, then it can be easy to drag them into the wrong folder,
so you can try to browse through your other folders to see if you can find
them. If you have too many folders to go through, then try a search of all
your folders instead, assuming you have some information about the missing
emails that you can use as a search term. If you are using a local email client
and also have access to your email via a webmail service, then check them
both to compare and see if your missing emails are still showing on your
webmail.
Missing Attachments
If you are expecting an email that is supposed to have an attachment but the
email shows up without one, then there can be a couple of reasons for it. The
first thing you should do is reply to the sender and ask if they forgot to attach
the file or files to the email.
Next, if you don’t know what type of file it was, you can see if you can find
out and try and determine if it’s a potentially dangerous file type and has
been blocked by your email provider or your local email client. For example,
Outlook will block known dangerous file types and put a message in the
email letting you know it was blocked. If that’s the case, then you can have
the sender zip up the file like I discussed earlier in the chapter and try to
resend the file.
Another thing I discussed previously was size limits on files. Try and find out
how big the attachment was supposed to be, and then you can get an idea if it
was blocked by your email provider or the sender’s server.
Chapter 8 – Office Productivity Software
Types of Office Productivity Software
If you use a computer at work then you have most likely used some type of
office productivity software to create and edit things like documents and
spreadsheets. This type of software has been around about as long as
Windows itself, and keeps on improving with every new version. In fact, this
type of software can do so many things that it can be difficult to master or to
even really be able to take full advantage of all its capabilities. Let’s talk now
about the most common types of programs that come with these office
productivity programs.
Word Processors
One of the most commonly used programs in the office is the word processor.
This type of program allows you to type up any kind of document you can
dream of, from resumes to sales invoices. There are many software publishers
that sell word processing software, from Microsoft with their Word product
to Apache with their free Open Office suite. Most word processing programs
have the same basic features such as formatting text, inserting pictures, and
so on, but the more advanced ones will let you do things like add charts and
graphs, comments, videos, tables, and even more. Figure 8.1 shows a
Microsoft Word document with some of these advanced features in place.
Figure 8.1
However, if you don’t need all that fancy stuff and just want something to
write some letters with, then you can even check out WordPad (which comes
built in to Windows) and see if that works for you.
Spreadsheets
Spreadsheets are a more complicated tool than word processors and are used
by people who need to store data in an organized format and be able to
manipulate that data with formulas and other calculations. As you can see in
figure 8.2, the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet has a simple table with some
header values, and then that table was turned into a chart and inserted into the
spreadsheet itself. With spreadsheets, you can create formulas to manipulate
data or use one of the built-in formulas. Many people just use spreadsheets as
a place to enter basic data because it’s easier to manipulate the columns and
rows compared to trying to do the same thing with a word processing
program.
Figure 8.2
Databases
A database contains a collection of data and its attributes. Database software
such as Microsoft Access (figure 8.3) can be used to manage, search, edit,
and extract that information so it can be used for things such as managing
inventory, clients, product costs, and so on. You can also run reports to help
you analyze your data. Databases are similar to spreadsheets but are used
differently and focus more on keeping track of data and relating it to other
data.
Figure 8.3
Presentation Software
If you have ever gone to a meeting at work where you had to sit through a
presentation being shown from a projector onto the wall, then it was most
likely created by some sort of presentation software. This type of software,
for the most part, is fairly easy to use and involves putting text and pictures
on slides and arranging them how you want them to be displayed during your
presentation. You can add things like movies, music, and animations to spice
them up a little and hope that it keeps people awake. Figure 8.4 shows a
Microsoft PowerPoint presentation. On the left side of the screen are the
slides with the main section displaying the current slide that is being worked
on. You can add as many slides as you like and rearrange them as needed.
Then, when you have everything looking the way you want, you can play it
as a full screen slideshow on a projector.
Figure 8.4
Microsoft OneNote
One more office productivity program that I wanted to mention is Microsoft
OneNote. This is a Microsoft specific program, but you can find similar
software such as Simplenote, Google Keep, and DropBox Paper. OneNote is
a great program if you have a lot of projects or tasks that you are working on
simultaneously and need to keep notes on your work. OneNote lets you make
tabbed sections, and you can also add subpages within each tabbed section
(figure 8.5). If you need to share your work, you can publish your notebook
to the cloud and allow other people to view it. It also has all the same tabbed
interface for the File, Home, Insert, and other menus, plus you can insert
images, web page links, audio, video, spreadsheets, equations, and so on.
Figure 8.5
Microsoft Office Basics

Speaking of Microsoft and their office productivity software, let's shift our
focus to how you would perform some of the basic tasks when using one of
the Office programs. Microsoft calls their suite of programs Microsoft Office,
and you can purchase it in various versions depending on which of the
programs you need and your budget. If you were to buy the top of the line
home version of the Office suite, it would come with the following programs
and services:
Word
Excel
PowerPoint
OneNote
Outlook
Publisher
Access
OneDrive
Skype
All of the Office programs use the Ribbon interface to house all of the tools
you need to work with whatever program you are in (figure 8.6). The Ribbon
was introduced in Office 2007 and replaced the standard text-based menus.
The specific tabs on the Ribbon will vary a little depending on what Office
program you are working on, but many of them are the same, such as the
File, Home, and Insert tabs. The Quick Launch bar at the top left of the
window is customizable, and you can add icons for items such as save, open,
new, and print and have commonly used functions all in one place.
Figure 8.6
Opening, Saving and Creating Files

To open an existing file you can go to the File tab, then either browse for a
file to open or choose from a list of previously opened files. There are also
options from the File tab to create a new blank file or open a predesigned
template for things like resumes and reports. If you want to save or print a
document, those options are under the File tab as well, but as you can see in
figure 8.5, all of these options are either on the Quick Launch Bar by default
or have been easily added. The File tab works pretty much the same way for
all of the Office programs.
Save vs. Save As

Speaking of saving documents, you need to know the difference between
“Save” and “Save As”. Let’s say you started a new document and did some
work but haven’t saved it yet. If you click on Save, you will be prompted to
name the document and choose a location on your computer to save it. This
will save it as a new file on your computer. Then the next time you click on
Save the file will be updated with the latest and most current changes you
have made to it. Now let’s say you want to keep the currently saved version
of the file as is but have made some changes and want to save them as a
different file. This is where Save As comes into play because you are saving
the file AS some other file rather than as the current file. So, after you click
on Save As, name the file, and choose its location, you will have two
different files, one with the old contents and one with the new changes and
new name. One thing to remember is that you can’t save a file with the same
name as another file in the same folder, so if you choose Save As and pick a
name of an existing file, then that existing file will be overwritten by the one
you are saving.
Fonts and Font Sizes

Fonts are the typestyles you can use within your documents, spreadsheets,
and presentations. They can be mixed and matched to spruce up the look of
your documents or make them easier to read. You can only use the fonts that
are installed on your computer, but it’s possible to install many more fonts
that you can download or buy. Many programs will add new fonts to your
computer when you install them, especially graphics programs. To view all
your installed fonts and add more, go to Control Panel and then to Fonts. (I
discussed the Control Panel in Chapter 3.)
To change the font for existing text simply highlight the text, go to the font
dropdown menu under the Home tab, and choose the font you want to use.
Or, if it’s for new text, simply change the size before you start typing. In
Office programs, Microsoft has added font previews for each one so you
don’t have to guess as to what the font looks like. In figure 8.7 you can see
the font dropdown list, which shows the font names in alphabetical order
along with a preview of what each one looks like. At the top of the list you
will see the default theme fonts, as well as the recently used fonts.
Figure 8.7
You will notice that there is a type size next to the font name. This controls
how big the typestyle is on the page. Certain fonts will look bigger or smaller
than others when used at the same font size, so it’s always a good idea to try
out different sizes to see what looks and fits the best.
Inserting Pictures and Other Objects

There is more to having a document that stands out besides just the text and
some fancy fonts, especially for something like a presentation. This is where
inserting items such as pictures, videos, shapes, charts, and so on will add
some excitement to your work. Your choices for what you can insert will
vary between Office programs, but if you go to the Insert tab you can see
what types of things you can add. For example, you can insert a PivotChart in
Excel, but not in Word, and you can insert a cover page in Word, but not in
Excel.
To insert an object, you need to put the cursor where you want it or highlight
the cell you want in Excel (etc.). Then, from the Insert menu, select the object
you want to insert. Many objects that you can insert can be moved and
resized after they have been placed. For some options, like inserting an online
picture or YouTube video, you will have to specify its location or search for
it.
Printing From Office Programs

I discussed printers in Chapter 5, so now I will focus on printing from
Microsoft Office programs and what options you have when printing. If you
don’t have a print shortcut icon on your Quick Access toolbar, then you will
need to go to the File tab and then click on “print”. From there you will have
several options including the number of copies, what printer you want to use,
what pages to print, paper size, and so on (figure 8.8).
Figure 8.8
If you need to change any of the printer specific settings, you can click on the
Printer Properties link and it will take you to settings such as changing the
layout from portrait to landscape, changing the paper source and media type,
as well as quality and color settings. Clicking on the Page Setup link will let
you change things such as the document margins, paper size, and header and
footer settings. If you decide that you don’t want to print, simply click the
back arrow on the top left to go back to where you left off.
As I mentioned before with Office programs, they will print to the last used
printer if you don’t change the printer from the File tab. So, if you change
from your default printer to another one, print a page, and then click on print
again, it will still print to your other printer and not your default. (Setting
your default printer was discussed in Chapter 5.)
Emailing a Document From Within Office

Normally when you attach a document, spreadsheet, presentation, etc., to an
email, you have to go to your email and create a new message and then use
the add attachment feature. Within Office programs you can attach the file
you are currently working on right to an email, assuming you are using an
email client like Outlook and not webmail (which was discussed in Chapter
7).
To attach a document to an email from an Office program, go to the File tab

and then to Sharing. Next, you will click on the Email icon and choose the
type of attachment you want to use (figure 8.9). If you choose Send as
Attachment, then the document will be attached in its current format, such as
a Word document or Excel spreadsheet. If you want your document
converted to a PDF file first so others can’t easily edit it, then you would
choose the Send as PDF option. The Save as XPS option is similar to the
PDF option, but is a Microsoft file type.
Figure 8.9
Chapter 9 – Antivirus and Antispyware Software
Protecting your computer and your files from outside threats is becoming
more and more of an issue these days, with the threats getting more serious
and harder to fight off. Cybercriminals are coming up with more
sophisticated ways to try and get valuable information from your computer,
such as banking credentials and credit card information. Sometimes it’s
obvious when you have some sort of “infection” on your computer, and other
times you won’t even know until it’s too late and they already got the
information they wanted.
Viruses vs. Spyware

When you hear of the latest computer threat on the news or your favorite tech
website, you might have noticed the terms “virus” and “spyware” used
interchangeably. Even though this seems to be the norm, it doesn’t mean that
they are the same thing. There is a difference between the two, with spyware
being the more popular type of infection people get these days, but both are
still something you need to protect yourself against.
Viruses tend to be more destructive and are designed for a certain purpose,
such as deleting your files on a specific date or slowing down all the
computers to a crawl at your workplace. Spyware, on the other hand, is meant
to steal personal and financial information and send it to its creator’s
computers so they can use it for illegal means.
How You Get Viruses and Spyware Infections

There are many ways to get a virus or spyware infection on your computer,
and that’s why it’s always necessary to be careful and have the right type of
protection, which I will be discussing next. One of the ways you can get
viruses is from email attachments. These can be from people you know who
didn’t realize they were sending you an infected file from their computer, and
also from junk or scam emails that have attachments that you opened. Zip
files and PDF files tend to be popular file types for transporting viruses.
Word and Excel files can contain macro viruses which are designed to run
within those programs, and then do anything from corrupting data to
formatting your hard drive. So, the bottom line is to be careful when opening
attachments and to make sure you know who the email is from, and that the
attachment was supposed to be there before opening it.
Another way to get a virus or spyware infection is by downloading software

from the Internet. This is usually only a problem with free software since
they try to entice you by making the software free so you will download and
install it. There is a difference between free software and free software that
offers a pay-for version as well. Usually when there is a free version and a
pay-for version they want you to install the free version, then buy the one that
costs money to get the additional features that the free one doesn’t have. This
type of software tends to be safer. So when it comes to downloading software
from the Internet, do your research, only download from reputable publishers,
and try and read some reviews or do a web search to make sure it’s safe.
If you have kids who like to play games online, then you need to check on the
game sites that they are visiting, because many times they will have popup
dialog boxes telling you that something needs to be installed to play the
particular game and so on to get your child to click OK, and then it installs
some type of spyware on your computer. It is common for other types of
random popups to occur on these types of sites, and most kids click on OK to
whatever pops up in front of them, so it’s important that they know that it’s
not ok to just click OK to anything they see on the screen.
Another common way to get spyware on your computer is just by going to a

website itself. When you get spyware this way it’s called a “drive by
download”. Some of these malicious sites have ways of getting the spyware
on your computer by visiting a site that takes advantage of a security flaw in
your web browser or Windows itself. The most common sites that do this are
illegal download sites, porn sites, and hacking sites. Any type of website that
has some sort of shady content can be a place where you can get spyware put
on your computer.
Available Software
There are many commercial as well as free antivirus and antispyware
programs you can use to scan your computer for infections, as well as
proactively prevent them from happening in the first place. Actually, many of
the free ones work just as well, or even better than the pay-for kinds. The
thing to be careful of is to go with a reputable software publisher, because
many free programs will actually do your computer harm after making you
think it will help you by installing it. One common trick that is used is that
you will install a free program, or you somehow get it installed without you
knowing it, and it will tell you that your computer is infected with viruses.
Then it will say the only way it can remove them is if you pay for the full
version of the software when in fact there is no real infection on your
computer at all.
Some software will be virus specific while others will be spyware specific,
and then there will be others that protect against both. The key to finding the
right software for you is to do your research, check reviews, and talk with
other people and see what they are using. You can check out our website and
read reviews on this type of software as well.
www.onlinecomputertips.com/support-categories/virus
www.onlinecomputertips.com/support-categories/spyware
There are some very good antivirus programs out there, and I have always
been a fan of Sophos and their products. They have a version called Sophos
Home that is free to use, and you can manage all of your devices from one
interface online. It will also protect you from spyware and block access to
sites that can be harmful to your computer. There is also other software such
as Avira, Kaspersky, and Norton which are commonly used to fight viruses.
One of the most popular programs for preventing and fighting spyware is
called Malwarebytes Anti Malware (figure 9.1). There is a free version that
will allow you to scan your computer for existing infections, and a pay-for
version that will monitor your computer in real time to prevent spyware from
getting on your computer in the first place. There are regular updates to the
program so you can always be up to date with the latest protection, and if you
use the pay-for version these updates are applied automatically (except for
new versions of the software which you will be prompted to install
manually).
Figure 9.1
Other popular choices for spyware protection include Spybot Search and
Destroy, SpywareBlaster, and Comodo Cleaning Essentials.
Another method you can use to check for viruses and spyware is to use online
scans. These scans run from your web browser and you do not need to
download and install any software on your computer. You may have to install
a browser plugin, but that is no big deal, and is usually automatic. Some of
the better online scans include ESET Online Virus and Spyware Scanner and
TrendMicro HouseCall.
Manual Scans vs. Scheduled Scans vs. Real Time Protection

Like I mentioned before, you need to have effective antivirus and
antispyware software installed on your computer to keep yourself protected
from outside threats and cybercriminals. One thing you need to be aware of is
that just because you installed some software, it doesn’t necessarily mean you
are protected. These programs don’t always all work the same way when it
comes to scanning your computer for threats. Some software requires you to
run scans manually to check for issues, so if it’s not something you remember
to do, then the software is not doing you much good. Most software will let
you schedule scans, at least in the pay-for versions, and many will
automatically set up scheduled scans after you install it.
If you are able to use scheduled scans, be sure to check the settings to see if
the software has set up a scan for you, or if you need to set it up yourself. Be
sure to schedule the scan during a day and time where your computer will be
on, otherwise it won’t be able to run. You can schedule daily scans or for
certain days of the week. Many programs will schedule daily scans, but that
might be overkill unless you are doing things you shouldn’t be doing on your
computer on a regular basis. Once a week should be fine for most situations.
Another thing to check for is any type of logging to make sure that the scan
was run successfully and to see if any threats were found and how they were
handled (discussed next).
Besides manual scans and scheduled scans, many antivirus and antispyware
programs offer real time protection. What this does is constantly monitors
your computer’s activity for malicious events such as when you download a
file, open a file, go to a website, and so on. If it finds a potentially threatening
situation it can block you from performing that certain action. If you decide
that this is something you still want to do, then you can usually override the
block and continue. The process for doing this varies between programs.
Another feature that is often offered is email scanning, where the program
will scan incoming emails and their attachments for threats. This is mostly for
people who use email clients like Outlook on their computers.
Acting on Scan Results

Now that I have talked about the multiple ways that these antivirus and
antispyware programs can scan and protect your computer, there leaves one
more question: What do you do when the software finds a threat? There are
usually settings you can adjust that determine what the software does when it
finds threats, such as clean or delete infected files, remove the infection if
possible, and quarantine files to keep them from causing your computer any
additional harm.
What action you will take depends on what type of infection you have. For
example, if you had a malicious file that was found in an email, you would
delete it because you don’t want that file causing any harm to your computer.
If it’s an important file on your computer that got infected, then you would
want to clean the file to see if the infection can be removed so you can
continue to use that file. Many times it's not specific files that are infected,
but rather Windows itself, and that’s when you want to have your system
cleaned so the virus or spyware is removed. When the software quarantines a
file it puts it in a locked area where it can’t do any additional damage. You
can then view these files and decide what action you want to take with them.
This is the default for many antivirus and antispyware programs because you
don’t want them deciding which files get deleted and which don’t.
When looking at scan reports or the results of manual scans, you will find
that some of the things they find and mark as malicious are really not
something that will hurt your computer. For example, Malwarebytes will find
what they call Potentially Unwanted Programs (PUPs) and quarantine them
automatically. If you know the reported issue is not really something bad,
you can just ignore it or choose to remove it anyway if it’s not something that
will negatively affect your computer. If you are unsure about something in
the results, then you can search for them on Google or any other search
engine to see if you can find out more information.
Chapter 10 – Avoiding Scams
As discussed in Chapter 9, viruses and spyware are specially designed
software created to harm your computer or steal your information, but some
cybercriminals prefer to do their dirty work without the aid of software.
Lately, there has been an increasing trend in more personalized computer
scams, so in this chapter I am going to talk about what to look out for and
how to avoid becoming a victim.
Email Scams
Let’s begin by talking about email scams, since they seem to be the most
popular type of scam these days and almost everyone uses email at home, at
work, or at both. One commonly used method by scammers is for them to
spoof a name or an email address of someone you know so it looks like the
email is coming from them, hoping you won’t notice that it’s not. Then they
will include malicious files or links to sites that will attempt to steal your
personal information or install some spyware on your computer. If you ever
get an email from someone you know and it just has a link with no
explanation, or says something like “check this out!” then you need to be
wary of it and check the email address to make sure it belongs to the person
who sent it. Sometimes you can click on the name of the sender in the email
to reveal the actual email address that was used to send the message. Another
common practice is for cybercriminals to hack the passwords of real email
accounts and use them to send out spam emails looking for someone to fall
for their trick. Also be sure to double check links before clicking on them if
you are unsure if they are safe or not. Many times you can hover the mouse
arrow over a link to find its real address in case it’s been masked to look like
something else.
Phone Scams
Another tactic that is used to try and trick people into giving up personal
information is the use of phone calls. What will happen is that these criminals
will make calls and say that things like you owe the IRS or some bill
collector money and if you don’t pay they will be sending the authorities after
you. Or they will claim to be from Microsoft or another similar company and
say that your computer is infected with a virus or your copy of Windows is
illegal and that you need to pay up to get things straightened out.
Sometimes they will try and convince you that they need to get on your
computer to fix a problem that doesn’t exist and will want to be paid for it.
Then they will charge your credit card a couple hundred dollars or so and
have you give them remote access to your computer. Next, they will pretend
to be fixing something while at the same time either stealing whatever
information they can, or planting some malicious software on your computer
to do more harm after they are done. The bottom line is that nobody will ever
call you to tell you that there is a problem with your computer because they
have no way of knowing.
Website Popups
Popup ads are a way of life when it comes to surfing the Internet, so we either
get used to them, or employ some sort of popup blocker to keep them in
check for us. The problem is that it’s possible to get around these popup
blockers or overpower them, if you will, with multiple pop-up ads.
Normally these ads are more of a nuisance than anything else, but the craftier
ones can freeze up your computer with alarming sounds and scary messages,
causing the uninformed to panic. Many times they will say things like your
computer is infected and you need to click here or call this number to get it
fixed. You will also see messages saying you are doing something illegal and
your files will be deleted unless you call a specific number. If you call that
number, you will then have to deal with the same scams I talked about in the
last section on phone scams.
If this happens to you and you can’t close out the ads, then try pressing Ctrl-
Alt-Delete to bring up Task Manager (discussed in Chapter 11) to see if you
can force your web browser closed. If not, see if the Start button is working
and try to shut down your computer, or at least save anything you need to
save and close whatever programs you can before manually shutting down
the computer by holding down the power button. Then restart your computer,
see how things are looking, and run a manual virus and\or spyware scan.
Fake Antivirus Software

We tend to trust our antivirus software and assume that it is looking out for
our best interests. With that in mind, another scam is to silently install fake
antivirus software on your computer without you knowing it. This can
happen when you go to non-trustworthy websites and many times the fake
software gets installed in the background and then shows up later telling you
that it found all kinds of infections on your computer. These are often called
“drive by installations”.
If you notice that there is some antivirus or antispyware software installed on

your computer that you didn’t install, then you can assume it’s bogus and
there to hurt you rather than help you. There are some exceptions such as
when you install something like an Adobe Flash update and forget to uncheck
the box that says it will install some free virus scanner along with the update.
After this bogus software gets installed it will pop up notifications saying
your computer is compromised and show you all the issues it found before
asking you if you want them fixed. The problem is that in able to fix them,
you will need to buy the software first. Then after you do so it will “fix” the
problems that never existed in the first place. If you see something like this
on your computer, go to “Programs and Features” in Control Panel and
uninstall the software if possible. (Uninstalling software was discussed in
Chapter 4.) If it’s not an option, then you will need to run your scanners to
see if they can remove the software for you.
File Encryption Scams

One of the worst kinds of threats currently out there involves getting a virus
on your computer that encrypts all of your files and makes them inaccessible
to you. When you encrypt a file, it takes that file and “scrambles it”, for lack
of a better term, so that nobody can read the file unless you have the
encryption key to decrypt it. If you have any USB drives attached to your
computer those files will most likely get encrypted as well. Plus, if you use a
service like DropBox (discussed in Chapter 15) there is a chance your remote
files will become encrypted also.
This type of attack is often called ransomware because in order to get your
files decrypted and put back to normal, you will have to pay a lot of money to
get the key to decrypt them. This can often be $1000 or more. Even if you
pay the ransom, there is still a chance you won’t ever get the decryption key
and just be out a lot of money. These attacks commonly come from different
countries, so it’s hard to prevent them or bring the criminals to justice. These
types of attacks can come from something as simple as opening an infected
PDF file from an email. One possible way to recover is to restore your files
from Shadow Copies or Previous Versions, which are usually safe from this
type of attack. (Previous Versions will be discussed in Chapter 13.)
Chapter 11 – Error Messages, Crashes &
Troubleshooting
To be a self-sufficient computer user you will need to be able to diagnose and
troubleshoot issues with your computer to some degree as they occur,
otherwise you will be taking it into your local computer shop or paying for a
house call every time something goes wrong. The purpose of this chapter is
to help you diagnose common problems and errors so you can save yourself
some money in the long run, and at the same time better your understanding
as to how computers work in general.
There are many reasons why a computer can crash, freeze, reboot itself, and
so on. Sometimes it’s easy to figure out the problem, and sometimes it is very
difficult. Poorly written software can cause crashes because of conflicts with
other programs, shared files, and compatibility issues with Windows itself.
Hardware can cause crashes as well, mostly because of buggy device drivers
which the software used to allow the hardware to work with Windows.
The computer’s hardware itself can cause issues because if there is a problem
with essential hardware (such as the processor or RAM) then Windows will
not run properly, if at all. Even something as simple as your processor getting
hot can cause issues and crashes. Computer hardware doesn’t last forever,
even though it seems that if it’s going to go bad it will happen sooner rather
than later.
I discussed viruses and spyware in Chapter 9, and these can definitely cause
crashes and freezes. These infections can dig themselves deep into Windows
and alter or even replace critical system files and services while trying to hide
themselves. Sometimes, even if you clean up the infection, the system files
that were infected are still altered and can cause problems after the fact.
Error Types
There are many types of errors you can receive on your computer, which
makes it even harder to narrow down the cause sometimes. I will now go
over some of the more common error types and what they mean.
Application errors – These can be caused by faulty software in
regards to how it was created\programmed. They can also happen
because of an unexplained glitch in the software, a compatibility error
with other software, or with Windows itself.
System errors – When you see these you can assume it’s related to a
Windows problem, or maybe even a hardware or driver issue. Many
times a reboot will clear up these types of errors.
Stop errors – These are usually caused by faulty hardware such as
bad RAM or a bad sector on your hard drive. When you see these
errors, you are usually looking at the famous Blue Screen of Death
(discussed next) message on your monitor.
POST errors – POST (Power On Self Test) errors can be caused by
faulty hardware or BIOS\motherboard misconfigurations. You usually
hear a beep sequence on boot up, and then you can research the beep
pattern to help narrow down the problem.
Runtime errors – These are usually caused by corrupt application
executables or system files that cause certain program to shut itself
down, or not even open to begin with. Sometimes they can even cause
your computer to freeze up.
Windows Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)

If you have been using Microsoft Windows for a while, there is most likely a
chance you have encountered a blue screen of death error. This is where the
computer will simply crash in the middle of whatever you are doing and the
screen will be a blue background with white text (figure 11.1) showing the
error and some suggestions as to what the cause can be. Many times you can
look up the hex values that say something similar to 0xF73120AE to get an
idea of the cause. If you are lucky you can reboot and carry on, but
sometimes the BSOD will occur again right after you reboot. BSOD errors
are usually caused by faulty hardware or poorly written device driver
software, and can be very difficult to diagnose.
Figure 11.1
Mouse or Keyboard Doesn’t Respond

Sometimes when your computer crashes it might be hard to tell that it crashed
because of the behavior it exhibits during the crash. Many times it will show
an error or even the BSOD, as discussed above. Other times your mouse or
keyboard will not respond and it’s hard to tell for sure what is really going
on. You might just think it’s a hiccup and assume things will go back to
normal in a few seconds, and then it doesn’t. Or you might think it’s just a
mouse issue, but then notice that the keyboard is not working either, or vice
versa. Then you start to wonder if it’s really a mouse and keyboard issue or if
something else is going on.
If you use a wireless mouse and\or keyboard, then you need to look at those
as well as the computer when they stop working. Wireless mice and
keyboards require a transmitter that is connected to a USB port on your
computer so that the wireless signal from the mouse and keyboard can be
transmitted to the computer. So, it can be a case of your wireless transceiver
having an issue causing the mouse and\or keyboard to stop responding. One
thing to keep in mind is that you might have a transceiver for the mouse and
another one for the keyboard, or you might have one transceiver that is used
for both. Either way, you can try to remove the transceiver and reconnect it,
or try a different USB port to see if you get any response from the mouse or
keyboard before you resort to a hard reboot of your computer and risk data
loss. Another thing to look for is a connection button on the mouse or
keyboard that will attempt to resync it with the USB transceiver. Of course, it
can be as simple as replacing the batteries, but if both your mouse and
keyboard stop working, it’s unlikely that the batteries went bad on both.
Computer Won’t Start

Just like a car is no good to you when it won’t start, the same applies to your
computer, and it’s hard to say which one is more frustrating! But what do you
do when your computer doesn’t want to start? Well, it depends on what
exactly is happening. Not starting might mean it powers up but never gets
into Windows, or not starting might mean you press the power button and
nothing happens at all.
If it’s a case of the computer being able to power on but not getting into
Windows, then that can be a variety of things. You will need to look for error
messages or see what the last thing on the screen says before it stops going
any further. There is a good chance that it is a hardware or driver error, and
you might get some information on the screen indicating the problem. If not,
then it may be that there is a conflict or corruption with some Windows files.
It that’s the case, then you can try to boot with your Windows DVD and try
one of the available recovery options that are available. These options will
vary depending on what version of Windows you are running. Other options
include a System Restore, or scanning and repairing Windows files using the
System File Checker. (Both of these options are discussed later in this
chapter.)
If you don’t get anything on the screen but can hear the computer power on
or see the power light has lit up, then you should check your video
connections on the computer and monitor itself. If you have another monitor
to test with the computer, then try that. Or, if you have another computer or
laptop available to test out your monitor on, then that is another
troubleshooting step to try. If your monitor and computer have more than one
type of video connection (such as a DVI or HDMI connection) then you can’t
try to use that connection as a troubleshooting step. If you have another cable
to swap out, then give that a shot. It might be as simple as tightening the
connection on the back of the computer or back of the monitor. If none of
those steps work, then you might be looking at a bad video card or
motherboard. You can install a different video card or try moving the existing
one to a different slot on the motherboard (assuming you have a standalone
video card, which most common computers don’t have these days). If your
video card is built into the computer, you can try to add a standalone card and
see if that fixes it. Just make sure you get the right type for your motherboard.
When a computer won’t even power up it can be a few different things that
can cause it. One common problem is a faulty power supply. The power
supply is what all the connections inside the computer connect to in order to
provide power to your components. Power supplies occasionally go bad and
need to be replaced (figure 11.2). Just check the specs on the existing one and
get one with identical specs or higher. Also, be sure that it has the proper
power connections for your motherboard, hard drive, DVD drive, and so on.
Figure 11.2
Another cause that is not nearly as common is the power button on the case
itself going bad. The power button is wired to a jumper which connects to
pins on the motherboard, and when the button is pressed it shorts the pins to
make a connection which, in turn, turns your computer on (figure 11.3). One
way to test this to unplug the wired connection from the motherboard pins
and then take a flathead screwdriver and touch it to the 2 pins to make a
connection and see if your computer starts up. If so, then your power button
or the wire connecting it to the motherboard is bad and it’s time to either find
a way to fix it, or get a new case and transfer everything into it.
Figure 11.3
The worst case scenario for a computer not powering on at all is a faulty
motherboard. This is a little harder to diagnose, but if the previously
mentioned troubleshooting methods don’t fix the problem, then you are
probably looking at a bad motherboard. The problem with this is if you want
to replace it then you have to find one that is compatible with your processor,
RAM, and so on, and that also fits in your case. Sometimes you can get the
model number off the motherboard itself and see if you can find a used one,
but if it’s an older computer, you are better off just replacing the entire
system.
Using Task Manager and Ctrl-Alt-Del
One of the tools you will become familiar with when learning how to
troubleshoot your computer is called “Task Manager”. This tool is used for a
variety of different things, from monitoring performance to killing
unresponsive programs. The interface was changed a little for Windows 10,
but the features are pretty much the same.
To open Task Manager you can right click on any blank area of your Taskbar
and then click Task Manager, or you can press Ctrl-Alt-Del on your keyboard
and then choose Task Manager from the menu items. Many times if your
computer is not responding to mouse input, you have to use the Ctrl-Alt-Del
method. The purpose of Ctrl-Alt-Del is to be sure that you are typing your
password into a real login form and not some other fake process trying to
steal your password, and to also restart the computer if needed. Once you
have Task Manager open, you will see a window with multiple tabs similar to
figure 11.4.
Figure 11.4
Now I will briefly go over what all the tabs in Task Manager are used for so
you have a basic understanding of what you can do with it.
Processes – Shows the running processes on the computer and what

percentage of CPU, memory, disk, etc. is being used by that process.
Processes are instances of an executable (.exe) used to run programs.
If you have a program that is not responding, you can highlight it and
then click the “End task” button to force close the program. You can
also right click the program and go to the actual location of the
running executable file.
Performance – This tab shows the CPU, memory, disk, Ethernet,
Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and GPU total usage. You can click on each one and
get real time usage graphs as well.
App history – Here you can see what apps were recently used and
what resources they have consumed.
Startup – This tab shows you what programs are set to run every time
you start your computer. This topic will be discussed further when I
get to the MSconfig tool in the next section.
Users – If you have multiple users logged on to your computer, then
you can get information about what resources and programs they are
using from here. You can also disconnect remote users from here.
Details – Here you will find information such as the process ID,
status, CPU usage, and memory for running programs. You can also
see what user account is running the program, as well as a description
of the process.
Services – This tab shows you all the installed services running on
your computer and their running state. You can also start or stop
services from here. (Services are discussed in more detail later in this
chapter.)
System Configuration Utility (MSconfig)

The Windows System Configuration utility (also commonly known as
MSconfig since that’s what most people type in the search or run box to open
it) has been around for many years and is still a valuable tool for
troubleshooting. It especially comes in handy when you have a virus or
spyware issue since they like to set malicious programs to start with your
computer. It’s also a good tool to use to increase the performance of your
computer, which I will get to in a bit.
When you open the System Configuration utility you will notice that it has
several tabs just like Task Manager does (figure 11.5). Once again, I will go
over what each tab does so you can get an idea of how the System
Configuration utility can help you manage and troubleshoot your computer.
Figure 11.5
General – Here you can choose how you want your computer to start
up when it comes to device drivers and services. Normal will load all
drivers and services, diagnostic will load only the basic drivers and
services, and selective will let you choose what services and startup
items are loaded. The default is Normal, but the Normal startup option
changes to Selective startup if you select any of the options in the
Advanced Troubleshooting Settings dialog box.
Boot – This tab lets you decide what operating system to load if you
have more than one installed on your computer. The Boot options
section lets you choose how your computer boots. So, if you want to
do some diagnostics or testing, you can choose “Safe boot” and choose
what options to load with it. Safe boot is the same thing as booting
into Safe Mode (discussed next) where you would press F8 on startup
to load a basic configuration of Windows. Just be sure to change it
back to normal after you are done so it won’t go into Safe Mode on
your next reboot. You can also change the timeout setting from the
default of thirty seconds so it will load the default operating system
faster if you have more than one.
Services – Just like Task Manager, MSconfig has a Services tab, but
here you can enable and disable services so they start or don’t start
with Windows. This comes in handy for diagnosing issues, and if you
have some services that don’t need to start every time with Windows
you can disable them to improve your computer’s performance. (Just
be sure that you know what the service does before you enable or
disable it.)
Startup – In older versions of Windows this would be where you
would see what programs are set to run when Windows starts, but in
Windows 10 it just shows a link to open Task Manager, and it will
take you to the Startup tab there. This is one of the most commonly
used areas because it allows you to prevent software from starting up
that doesn’t need to run every time you boot your computer, saving
you resources and also allowing the computer to start faster. Virus and
spyware infections love to put items in your startup section so they
will load every time you start your computer. So, if you are having a
virus or spyware issue, this should be one of the first places you check
to see if there is anything set to run that shouldn’t be running, and then
you can disable it.
Tools – This tab will let you run a variety of common tools all from
one location. Some of these tools include Task Manager, System
Restore, and Event Viewer. You can open all these tools from their
default location, but it’s nice to be able to see them all in one place.
Plus, you may even discover a tool you didn’t know existed.
Safe Mode
Using Safe Mode has been one of the go to troubleshooting methods for
many years and many versions of Windows. Safe Mode starts the computer
with the minimum amount of services and drivers necessary to get it started.
This is a good way to get the computer running so you can try and figure out
why it won't boot up in normal mode. There are various ways to get into Safe
Mode when needed. The old school way many of us are used to is to
repeatedly press the F8 key while the computer is booting to get to the Safe
Mode menu. Other ways include checking the Safe boot option on the Boot
tab in the System Configuration utility (MSconfig), or you can also try
holding down the Shift key while restarting the computer from the Windows
Start menu.
When you boot into Safe Mode several things happen, or should I say don’t
happen. Most device drivers are not loaded to avoid any driver conflicts that
may be causing your computer not to boot. Your video driver will not be
used, but rather a generic VGS driver will be loaded instead. The Windows
desktop loads up in 16 colors and at a resolution of 640 x 480.
Once you are able to get your computer booted using Safe Mode, you can
then try to troubleshoot the issue that is causing your computer not to start in
normal mode. You can look at things such as the Event Viewer and
MSconfig to see if anything stands out as a potential problem. (Event Viewer
will be discussed later in this chapter.)
Checking Services
Windows services are programs that run in the background and are used for
things such as printing, updating software, and attaching to Bluetooth
devices. They are either set to start automatically with the computer or set to
start manually (figure 11.6). If a required service stops unexpectedly for some
reason or doesn’t start with the computer when it is set to automatic, then that
can cause problems with the way Windows or your programs work. Many
times you will get a message saying that the particular service failed to start
and you can try and start it manually. Services also have other services that
are “dependencies”, meaning they require a certain service to be running in
order for them to run themselves.
Figure 11.6
To get to the services console you can type services.msc or just services in
the run box or Cortana search box. Then you will see the list of all the
installed services on your computer and their running status. Right clicking
on one of them brings up a menu where you can start, stop, restart, pause, and
resume the service. There is also a Properties menu item that has tabs where
you can do the following:
General – Change the startup type as well as start, stop, pause, and
resume the service.
Log On – Check or change the user account used to run the service. If
you are using a user account that has a password set to expire and it
does, then the service won’t start at the next login.
Recovery – Here you can set options for when the service fails, such
as restart the service automatically, run a program, restart the
computer, or do nothing.
Dependencies – Shows you what components or services this service
depends on to run.
Sometimes when you try to start a service it will take a really long time and
fail to start. If this happens over and over, you should reboot your computer
and see if it starts up automatically (if it’s set to automatic) or if it starts
manually. If not, then there might be a problem with one of the dependencies
or the executable for the service itself. If that’s the case, you will need to do
some research and see if you can find the cause. If the service is not a
Windows service but one that was installed by a program, then reinstalling or
repairing that program might fix it.
Device Manager
Windows provides a utility that will let you manage the hardware devices on
your computer, and it’s called what else but Device Manager. There are a few
ways to open Device Manager, but the easiest is just typing in “device
manager” in the run box or Cortana. Once you get Device Manager open, you
will see a listing of the hardware that is installed on your computer (figure
11.7). Your listing will vary from ours since you most likely have different
hardware inside of your computer.
Figure 11.7
The hardware listing is grouped into the main components. You can click the
arrow next to that category to see specific hardware devices. In figure 11.7
you can see that Disk drives and Sound, video, and game controllers has been
expanded to show the actual hardware devices for those categories. If you
ever plan on formatting your hard drive and reinstalling Windows, it’s a good
idea to come here and expand the devices for display adapters, network
adapters, as well as sound, video, and game controllers and print out a
screenshot of the Device Manager window so you know what hardware you
have in case you need to find driver software to get them working with your
new installation of Windows.
When there is a problem with the hardware or its driver, you usually see a
yellow question mark or exclamation point on the device indicating that it is
not working correctly. You won’t really get any information as to why it’s not
working, but it’s a good place to start to see if any hardware is having an
issue, which may be the underlying cause of your computer not working the
way it should be.
What you can do from Device Manager is check the properties of any
hardware device by right clicking on it and choosing Properties. Then you
can check the Events tab for any clues to the problem. The “General” tab
itself will have a status section that will tell you the status of the device. One
option you can try which often solves problems when they are driver related
is to roll back the driver to the previously installed version. This can be done
from the “Driver” tab by clicking on the “Roll Back Driver” button. If it's
greyed out, then the current driver is the only one that was ever installed on
your computer and you won’t be able to roll it back.
System Restore
In recent versions of Windows, Microsoft has come up with a great recovery
feature called “System Restore”. This lets you restore your computer back to
a point in time before you were having issues, but will leave all of your
current personal files intact and up to date. It does this by backing up
important Windows files, the registry, and installed programs into that restore
point. The catch is that you need to have System Restore enabled on your
computer and have some actual restore points created beforehand. These
restore points are often created automatically before Windows Updates are
applied and can also be created manually in a matter of minutes. To enable
System Restore go to your System Properties, and then the System Protection
tab. From there make sure that there’s protection for your system drive (most
likely C:) and make sure that it is enabled by clicking the “Configure” button
(figure 11.8).
Figure 11.8
Once you have it enabled, you can determine how much disk space is
allowed to be used to create restore points. You can also delete all current
restore points that have been created to free up room for newer ones. Clicking
the “Create” button will make a restore point based on the current system
state.
To revert back to a saved restore point simply click the System Restore
button (shown in figure 11.8), and you will be shown a listing of any restore
points that were made on your computer. It most likely will show only
automatically created restore points, but if you check the Show more restore
points box it will list any additional restore points, such as manual ones
(figure 11.9).
Figure 11.9
Clicking on the “Scan for affected programs” button will search for programs
and driver updates that were installed since the restore point was made. Then
it will tell you which programs and drivers will be removed so you can
reinstall them after the restore is complete. It will also list programs and
drivers that might be restored, and then you might or might not have to
reinstall them to get them working again. Then, after you have made your
decision as to what restore point you want to go back to, click on Next, and
then it will restart your computer and begin the restore process. When it is
finished, you will get a message that the restore was successful. If it wasn’t
successful, which occasionally happens, you can try it again with a different
restore point.
System Restore is great to use when you have a virus or spyware infection
that you are having trouble getting rid of. Many times you can just restore
your computer back to a point in time before you had the infection and you
are back in business. The downside is that you may have to reinstall some
programs that were installed after the restore point was made, and then you
should also check for Windows updates to make sure you are up to date.
Windows System File Checker

Windows comes with a command line tool called the System File Checker
that is used to check and see if there are any corrupt Windows system files.
This utility will check these files and replace them if needed. To run the
System File Checker, you need to run the command prompt as an
administrator by typing cmd in the run box or in the Cortana search box, and
then pressing Ctrl-Shift-Enter. Or you can find the command prompt icon,
right click it, and then choose “Run as administrator”. Then at the prompt
type in sfc /scannow and press enter again (figure 11.10). Windows will
begin its scan, and if it finds any problems it will attempt to fix them.
Figure 11.10
If it doesn’t find any problems then it will show a message saying it did not
find any integrity violations. Keep in mind that when you run the System File
Checker it might ask you to insert your Windows DVD in the drive in case it
needs to copy some files off of it.
Researching Errors
Part of becoming a proficient computer troubleshooter is knowing where to
go to find out information about error messages that your computer will
certainly give you from time to time. Programmers create error messages for
a reason—so you know what caused the malfunction with your hardware or
software. Of course, many of these error messages are hard to understand,
and that is why you sometimes need to take additional steps to get the
answers you need.
Event Viewer
The Windows Event Viewer has been around forever, and is still one of the
main tools you will use to find out information about errors and even crashes.
The main purpose of the Event Viewer is to manage Windows event logs and
allow you to view them all in one place in an easy to read format. There are a
few ways to open the Event Viewer, but for the sake of simplicity you can
simply type in “event viewer” from the run box or Cortana search box. As
you can see in figure 11.11, the Event Viewer has several panes that show
various components of the tool. On the left is the listing of the various logs
you can view. On the top middle pane you will see the entries for that
particular log type that you clicked on from the list on the left. Underneath
that it shows the details about the particular event you clicked on from the
top. On the right hand side, you have additional options such as opening a
saved log, filtering the current log, saving the events to a file, and so on.
Figure 11.11
The most common logs that you will look at to find error events are located
under the “Windows Logs” folder. Within this folder, the most commonly
viewed logs will be the “Application” and “System” logs. The Application
log is used by reporting services to write its logs so they can be viewed if
needed. The System logs contain events logged by Windows itself, such as
errors and warnings. The events are categorized into informational, warning,
error, and critical. The Applications and Services Logs section will vary
depending on your computer’s configuration. Once you choose a log, you can
sort the event listings by level, date, source, event ID, and so on.
If you know when the event occurred that you want to research, you should
sort by date and time and then see if you can find the specific event in the
listing. Then, once you think you’ve found the event, look at the information
in the bottom pane. If you need more detailed information than what Event
Viewer gives you, then make a note of the event ID and do some research
online. If you want to know how often a certain event occurred you can filter
the results by the event ID and it will only show you the events with that ID.
You can also use the “find” option to search for certain keywords related to
your error. If you are working with some sort of tech support person, you can
save the event log to a file and then email it to them so they can do their own
diagnostics.
Search Engines and Forums

Searching the Internet is a great way to find out causes and fixes for errors
because any error you encounter has most likely been encountered by
someone before you. Simply typing in the error message into your favorite
search engine should bring you several results, but you will most likely need
to filter through a bunch of nonsense to get the information you need. When
typing in search terms try and add as much of the error message as possible,
especially any specific error codes. Just be sure to type them correctly,
otherwise you might get information for a different error with a similar error
code.
Computer forums are a great way to get help on problems you can’t solve by
yourself. Of course, some forums are better than others, and some people
know what they are talking about and some don’t. Once you find a reputable
forum that is based on the technology you are looking for, such as Windows,
networking, databases, etc., then you can join that forum and post questions
and wait for others to reply. It’s always a good idea to include as much
information as you can, as well as any screenshots that you might think will
help. Often you will be asked to paste log entries or error message text into
the forum post so they can use it to help diagnose your issue. Just be sure to
check back frequently for suggestions or requests for additional information
from others. Many forums have email notifications so you will be sent an
email when a reply to your question has been posted.
Hard Reboots and Their Potential Problems

When you click on Start, choose reboot, and the computer shuts down
normally then restarts itself, which is called a “soft reboot”. This is the way
you are supposed to restart your computer, and you should always use the
shutdown option when you want to turn off your computer because there is a
specific process Windows goes through to make sure everything shuts down
as required.
Sometimes you will run into a problem where your computer freezes and you
can’t shut it down properly. Then you are left with no option but to press the
reset button (if your computer has one) or press and hold the power button
until the computer shuts off and then manually restart it. This is what is
known as a “hard reboot” and is something you want to avoid if at all
possible. The reason for this is because improperly rebooting a computer can
cause data loss and file corruption, but newer versions of Windows are better
at surviving hard reboots without any negative effect. And yes, I realize that
there will be times when you have no other choice, but just wanted to point
out that it is not good for your computer to do this so you know to avoid it
whenever possible.
Getting Outside Help

Unless you are a seasoned computer tech, there will probably be a time when
you have to seek outside help to solve a computer related problem. The first
thing you will need to do here is to accept defeat so you will allow yourself to
seek outside help. Then you will need to figure out what type of help you
need and the best way to go about getting it.
If you know other people in the business or other people who have used
outside help for their technology issues, then you should ask them for
referrals and whether or not they felt they got good service for a fair price.
Using online reviews such as Yelp can also come in handy, but keep in mind
that those can be inaccurate if fake reviews have been posted. Also, check for
how long they have been in business, and if they are licensed and insured.
You can even go as far as checking the Better Business Bureau for any
complaints against them.
Pricing for computer services tends to be all over the place, and you might
pay as little as $25 an hour or up to $200 an hour depending on what level of
support you need. If you are a home using a standard computer setup, then try
to avoid large tech companies that normally service larger businesses. They
will have higher prices because their techs are most likely highly trained in
advanced topics (which you won’t need help with). Also try to avoid the guy
working out of his van, because if he knew what he was doing, he wouldn’t
be working out of his van!
When the work is completed on your computer be sure to get a detailed
invoice stating exactly what they did and how long it took them to complete
the task. This way if the issue comes right back you have proof that they
fixed it before and need to fix it again. And if you have any hardware or
software replaced, make sure that is listed as well and ask about warranties.
Another reason for getting a detailed invoice is that if you end up using
another company for service, they can see exactly what was done before.
Chapter 12 - Wi-Fi and Internet Troubleshooting
What is the one thing that people freak out about when it stops working more
than anything else? Yes, that’s correct, it’s the Internet. Unfortunately, when
the Internet stops working, it’s never for the same reason each time, so that’s
where learning a little troubleshooting will really help ease your pain. So,
where do you start when your Internet connection stops working? That’s a
very good question, and the answer depends on how you are connected to the
Internet, what equipment you are using, and whether it was your fault or not.
Components
Let’s begin by talking about the hardware needed to provide you with your
connection to the Internet. The main component is the modem, and these will
vary depending on if you are using cable, DSL, or another connection type,
but they basically work the same. The modem gets the signal from the
provider and then provides that connection to you at your home or business.
The connection comes into your house, and then through the wall into some
type of wall jack. This may be a phone jack for DSL, or a TV\coaxial cable
for cable Internet, and from there it connects to your modem.
After the modem, you can take the Internet connection and branch it off into
a network switch that can be shared with multiple wired connections. In
office situations, you might have a rather large switch, such as a 24 or 48 port
model connected to your modem or even multiple switches. For home users,
you can apply the same principle by connecting your modem to a small
switch, like an 8 or 12 port model, and share the connection with your other
wired devices.
If you use mostly wireless connections, then you would connect the modem
to a wireless router that can then share the connection wirelessly with other
devices. Most wireless routers have 4 or more ports that will allow you to
connect wired devices as well. Nowadays, Internet providers offer wireless
capabilities built into their modems so there is no need for another wireless
router, but the number of wired ports tends to be limited, so you may still end
up needing a network switch to cover those other connections. Figure 12.1
shows some typical connection types, along with their hardware.
Figure 12.1
Wireless vs. Wired Connections

If you use wireless capabilities, then you might have a wireless router built
into your modem, or your modem may connect to a separate wireless router,
as I discussed previously. Either way, this wireless component (or access
point) is what provides the Internet connection to your computer,
smartphone, tablet, and other wireless devices. If you also have wired
connections, then they will either physically connect with a cable to the
modem, or to the back of the wireless router itself.
Wireless connections, or Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity), as its commonly called,

uses radio frequencies to send signals through the air between devices. This
technology is not as reliable as having an Ethernet cable connected right to
the modem or a switch and is also more susceptible to interference. Wireless
speeds are usually lower than wired speeds, but with every upgrade to the
wireless standards, the speeds keep increasing. Here are some of the speed
limits for past and present wireless specifications.
802.11 - 2Mbps (megabits per second) speed.

802.11b - 11Mbps using the 2.4Ghz (gigahertz) frequency.
802.11a - 54Mbps using the 5Ghz (gigahertz) frequency.
802.11g - 54Mbps speed but uses the 2.4Ghz frequency to obtain a
greater range.
802.11n - 300Mbps using MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) and
dual antennas.
802.11ac - 450Mbps on the 2.4GHz frequency and 1300Mbps on the
5GHz frequency using MIMO.
To connect to a wireless access point, you would go on your device and view
the available connections and then choose the one that belongs to you and
make the connection. For Windows, you can look at the wireless icon in the
System Tray by the clock and view any connections in range. As you can see
from figure 12.2, all of the available connections are secured with passwords,
so you can’t just connect to whichever one you like. It’s also not a good idea
to connect to a random access point that you know nothing about because it
could be trap for someone to get into your computer, so be wary of ones with
no security or password in place when in public, and always use one on your
Wi-Fi connection at home.
Figure 12.2
There are various security methods that are used on Wi-Fi connections, and
they are as follows:
WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) – Designed to offer the same level

of security as wired connections, but was found too easy to break into.
It uses 128 bit encryption.
WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) – Used a pre-shared key for security,
but was also found to be easy to hack. It uses 256 bit encryption.
WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup) – Allows a user is to add new devices
to their network by simply pushing a button within the software or on
the router itself, then typing in an 8-digit PIN number on the client
device to connect. Unfortunately, the PIN can be guessed using
password hacking software.
WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access 2) – Uses Advanced Encryption
Standard (AES) for encryption purposes. This is currently your best
bet for security.
For wired connections, you will use an Ethernet cable which has an RJ-45
jack on both ends which looks like a larger phone cable connection. One end
will connect either to your modem, switch, or the back of your wireless
router, and the other end will connect to the back of your computer. Most
computers have built-in network cards even if they have built-in wireless as
well. Some newer laptops might not have an Ethernet port built-in, so if that’s
something you think you will need, be sure to check. Figure 12.3 shows a
typical Ethernet cable.
Figure 12.3
Like wireless standards, Ethernet has speed ratings as well, and so here are
some typical maximum speeds for Ethernet cables:
Category 3 – 10Mbps (megabits per second)
Category 5 – 100Mbps
Category 5e – 1Gbps (gigabits per second)
Category 6 – 1Gbps
Category 6a – 10Gbps
You will rarely see anyone using anything older than category (or cat) 5e
these days. The category of the cable will be printed along the cable itself, so
it’s usually pretty easy to see which cable you are using. They are backward
compatible as well, and devices will just transfer data as fast as they can
based on the cable in use. But if you use a 10G cable with a 1G device, don’t
expect to get 10G speeds just because you used a 10G cable.
Troubleshooting Internet Connectivity

There are several steps you can take when you need to troubleshoot lost
Internet connectivity. The way you are connected will determine what steps
you take to try and figure out the problem. In this section, I will go over the
various steps you can take based on how you have things configured, as well
as some universal troubleshooting steps that you can take.
Rebooting Your Devices

I’m sure you have been told to reboot your computer when you have an issue
since that seems to be the common go-to first step for fixing many problems.
Well, this does actually apply to Internet problems since when your computer
starts, Windows and your network adapter checks its network configuration.
If it’s not statically (manually) configured, then it will look for a DHCP
(dynamic host configuration protocol) server to get its IP address, subnet
mask, and default gateway so it can communicate on the network. For home
users, the modem or wireless router usually has the role of a DHCP server
built into them. (IP addresses and DHCP are discussed in Chapter 16.)
The next option is to reboot your computer and all of your connected devices.
Let’s say you have a computer, modem, and wireless router. The modem has
the Internet connection from the provider and the router gets its connection
from the modem. Then the computer gets its connection from the router. So
the way you would reboot your devices in this scenario is modem first, router
second, and computer third, but make sure to wait until each device is fully
booted up before turning the next one on. If you don’t have a router, then
reboot the modem first and then the computer.
When you lose your connection, the first thing to do is to check your other
devices to see if they are still connected. You can’t really rely on your
smartphone because if it has its cellular connection available, you might not
be able to tell if it’s using that or your home Internet connection. And just
because a device is connected to your wireless access point doesn’t mean it
has an Internet connection because that is two different things, or should I say
two different steps in the connection process.
Checking Your Cabling

If you use a wired connection rather than Wi-Fi to connect to the Internet and
you are having issues, you should check the cabling between your devices.
You most likely have an Ethernet cable running from your computer to the
modem or from your computer to a router, and then another cable from the
router to the modem. Make sure that the cables are plugged in and you get a
link light on both devices where the cable is plugged into. It’s usually a small
green light right next to the port itself.
If there is no light, that means there is no signal traveling between the devices
and you should either try another port on the modem or router, or try a new
cable. Just be careful that you are using the correct ports when plugging in
your cables. The WAN port on the modem is where the connection from the
wall\provider connects, and the WAN port on the router is where the
connection from the modem plugs in. It may also be a case of your network
card having an issue, so check Device Manager for any errors. Device
Manager was discussed in Chapter 11.)
Wi-Fi Troubleshooting
When it comes to problems, wireless Internet connections will be more
troublesome than wired connections because there is more involved with
making a successful wireless connection compared to a wired connection.
There is usually more hardware and software configuration with wireless
connections that leaves more areas for things to go wrong.
The first step in troubleshooting wireless connections is to see if your

computer is connected to your wireless router\access point. The first place
you should look is at your wireless connection, and the easiest way to do that
is to click on your wireless connection icon in your system tray down by the
clock (as shown in figure 12.2). This will tell you if your computer is
connected to your access point, and if not, then the first thing you need to do
is reconnect it. If it doesn’t want to connect, then there is an issue with your
access point or the wireless device on your computer. You can try to
reboot\reset your access point and see if that fixes it, or try to connect to your
access point with a different device such as your smartphone or tablet. If
other devices connect successfully, then you know it’s the computer that has
the problem.
Another place you can look to see connectivity status is the Network and
Sharing Center in Control Panel (figure 12.4). Here you will be able to see
what network your computer is connected to and the connection name. Next
to where it says Access type, it will say if your computer has Internet access
or not. Most of the information in the following sections also applies to
wired as well.
Figure 12.4
If you click on the name of the connection you will get details such as the
SSID (service set identifier) which is the name of the wireless access point
you are connecting to, the connection speed, and also the signal quality if it’s
a wireless connection (figure 12.5).
Figure 12.5
Clicking on the Details button will tell you more advanced information about
the connection, such as the IP address, subnet mask, default gateway, DHCP
server, and DNS server (figure 12.6). I will go over this information in more
detail in Chapter 16. If you don’t have anything shown for these settings, then
that is most likely your problem.
Figure 12.6
Clicking the Diagnose button, as seen in figure 12.5, will start the Windows
Network Diagnostics, which may be able to determine why you can’t get on
the Internet and fix the problem for you. Sometimes this utility works great
and sometimes it’s a waste of time, but it’s worth trying out.
If your connection to your access point is working then you will want to see
if your computer has an IP address, subnet mask, and default gateway. Like I
mentioned earlier, all of these are needed to make a successful connection to
the Internet or any other type of network. You can check this information
from the details area as shown in figure 12.6, or from a command prompt.
Open a command prompt by typing cmd from the run box or Cortana search
box and then type ipconfig. Then press enter, and it will show you similar
information (figure 12.7).
Figure 12.7
If you do have an IP address and it starts with 169.254, then that is called an
APIPA (Automatic Private IP Addressing) address. This type of IP address is
assigned to a computer that has DHCP enabled, but can’t get a valid IP
address from a DHCP server. In most cases the modem or router acts as the
DHCP server and gives out IP addresses to the computers and other devices
that try to connect to it for Internet access. So, if you see an APIPA address,
then you need to look into your modem, router, or whatever device your
computer is supposed to get its IP address from because you can only use an
APIPA IP address to communicate with other devices using APIPA IP
addresses.
If all of your hardware appears to be functioning properly and you have a
valid IP address, then there are some other troubleshooting steps you can
perform on your computer. Many times a software or spyware issue can
prevent your web browser from accessing web pages properly, so it will look
as though your Internet connection is not working when it’s really just a
browser problem. One simple test you can run is to ping a website to see if it
makes the connection. Ping (Packet InterNet Groper) sends network packets
to the remote host or website and waits for a reply back. If you get a reply,
then you know there is a valid connection to that remote location. This can be
used to test connectivity over the Internet as well as on your local network to
other computers. Keep in mind that not all websites or all computers will
allow ping requests, and if that’s the case you won’t get a reply, but that
doesn’t mean there is no connectivity and you can always try others.
To ping a website, open a command prompt and type in “ping” followed by

the website name or IP address and press enter. As you can see in figure 12.8,
I ran the command against a website called oninecomputertips.com and got
four replies back. Also, notice the time of the replies ranging from 28ms
(milliseconds) to 61ms. If you get some really large numbers or big
discrepancies in times between the four replies, that can indicate a
performance issue.
Figure 12.8
Another test you can run is to see if your email client is working for sending
and receiving emails. If so, then that proves you have an Internet connection
and that there is just something wrong with your web browser. This only
applies to locally installed email clients and not for webmail accounts, since
they are accessed via web pages.
If you have more than one web browser, then you should try and use a
different one to see if that allows you to access the Internet. If so, then you
know the problem lies within your other web browser and may be a case of a
configuration change or spyware infection that has altered its settings. If you
only have one web browser, you can try to download another one from a
different computer, put it on a flash drive, and then install it on your
computer and test it out to see if it works.
One other thing you can do is look at the Windows hosts file on your
computer. This file is used to map IP addresses to computer or host names
and is not really used these days, but still exists within Windows. Many virus
and spyware infections will edit this file to redirect your computer to
malicious sites or block other sites that can be used to download tools to
remove these infections, so it’s a good idea to take a look at this file.
To open the hosts file, use Windows\File Explorer and browse to

C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc. Double click on the file named hosts. It
will ask what program you want to use to open it, so just use Notepad. As
you can see in figure 12.9, it’s a pretty simple file with a description of what
it is used for and some examples.
Figure 12.9
Any line with # in front of it is just read as text by Windows and will not
affect the host file configuration. For the most part, you shouldn’t have
anything listed here that doesn’t have a # in front of it, otherwise that might
indicate a problem. It may or may not be obvious if there is something in the
file that should not be, so be careful when making any changes unless you are
sure of what you are doing. Also, be sure to run a virus and spyware scan
afterward to clean up any infections you might have on your computer that
could be affecting your Internet connectivity.
If none of these methods work and you have narrowed down the problem to
your computer and not your modem, router, or other network device, then
you could be looking at a Windows networking issue. This is beyond the
scope of this book, but there are other steps you can research to try and
narrow it down such as resetting the Windows TCP/IP stack.
Chapter 13 – Backup and Protection
Besides keeping viruses and spyware off your computer, there are other
things that need to be done in order to keep your data and computer itself safe
from harm. In this chapter, I will be talking about what you should do to
accomplish an acceptable level of protection. This will include backing up
your important data, backing up Windows itself, and also how to protect your
computer from the elements and other people.
Backing Up Data
One of the most common causes of stress and panic when it comes to
computers is when you have a loss of data. Data can be in the form of files
such as pictures and documents, or also in the form of software or Windows
configurations and settings. Data loss can occur from things such as hardware
failure, file corruption, virus and spyware attacks, and other users deleting or
changing your files. You should always have a backup plan in place because
you never know what will happen, and if your data is important to you, then
there is no reason not to, as it can cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars
to get it back if you have to use a data recovery service. In this section I will
discuss what you should be backing up, and how you can use one or more
methods to do so.
What to Backup
It’s up to you to determine what data is important to you and what you can or
can’t afford to lose. Before you decide how you are going to perform your
backups, you will need to determine what exactly you want to backup. To
start with, there are your personal files such as documents, pictures, videos,
music, and so on, and you will need to know the locations of these files so
you can make sure they all get backed up. Many people have these types of
files scattered around their computers in various places, so you might want to
consider doing some organizing before working on your backup plan. For the
most part, you should have most of your files under your Users folder on
your C drive under folders such as documents, music, favorites, and so on, or
on your Desktop, which is technically in your Users folder as well (figure
13.1).
Figure 13.1
Then there are software and Windows backups to consider. For the most part,
you can’t really back up your software, because if your computer dies and
you need to get a new one or reinstall Windows, then you will have to
reinstall the software as well. But sometimes there are specific configurations
that have been applied to software that can be exported and backed up so they
can be imported back into the new installation of the software. As for
Windows itself, you can back it up so it can be recovered in case of failure, or
you can back up the whole operating system with the software as an image
that can be restored back to the point in time when the backup took place.
Windows Backup is built into the operating system, but how it works will
vary depending on your version of Windows. For example, Windows 10
wants you to use what they call “File History” which makes periodic backups
of your important files to another location on a schedule that you choose. File
History is pretty easy to set up and use, and all you need is some type of
secondary backup location such as a flash drive, USB hard drive, network
drive, or secondary attached hard drive. To open File History, navigate to
Control Panel, System and Security, and then File History (figure 13.2).
Figure 13.2
Then there is the older Backup and Restore for Windows 7 that will also
work on Windows 10. This type of backup will let you choose what drive to
backup (if you have more than one), and where to back it up to, such as a
network location. Once you go through the wizard and choose a drive to
backup, you can then decide what files you want to backup, or let Windows
choose for you. Choosing this option will have Windows backup the default
Windows folders and create a system image that can be used to restore your
computer if needed. If you pick the option to choose your own files, you will
be given a chance to make a system image as well. There is also an option to
change the backup schedule to suit your needs. As for the backup location,
you should choose a drive that is different from the one that is being backed
up.
Once you have a successful backup you can go into Backup and Restore and
restore your data from the backup or run a recovery of the system image that
was created during the backup (figure 13.3). There are also other options
such as managing the space used by the backups where you can delete older
backups to free up disk space. You can also change the backup schedule
settings from here.
Figure 13.3
Under the “Restore” section there are options to restore your files, and from
here you can browse the backup to recover individual files or folders from the
backup itself. If you have multiple backups, you can click on “Select another
backup” to restore files from another date. To do an image restore you would
boot with your Windows DVD or system image boot disk that you created
from the Windows backup process, and restore the image. This will overwrite
the current files and settings with the ones from the backup, so be careful
before doing so.
How Often to Backup

Now that you know what you want to backup, the next question is how often
should you backup? The answer to that depends on how often your files
change, and how current you want your backup to be. Since most backups are
scheduled rather than done manually, you will need to decide at what interval
you want the backup to occur, as well as the day(s) and time. If you are
always editing documents or copying pictures from your camera or
smartphone to your computer, then you might want to have backups occur
more frequently than someone who just uses their computer mainly to browse
the Internet and check email.
For the average home computer user, backing up your computer once a week
will probably be enough, especially since each backup will take up room on
whatever drive you decide to use for backups. If you do not want to have
multiple backups but rather one backup that keeps getting overwritten, that
will be an option depending on what backup software you use or if you
decide to back up your files manually. Most businesses run backups daily off
hours to make sure they have the most current data backed up at all times,
and also keep backups for multiple days, weeks, months, and even years.
Backup Types
Not all backups are created equally when it comes to the type of backup
method being used. In fact, backup strategies can be pretty complex, but for
the sake of this book I will keep it simple and tell you what you need to know
to successfully backup your home or small business to keep your data safe.
When you back up your files the first time you do what is called a full
backup. This method will back up all the files and folders you specify
whether they are brand new or five years old. A full backup is used for the
very first backup no matter what type of backup you are using. If you have an
existing backup in place, you can still do a full backup and back up all of
your files and folders once again. Full backups can overwrite existing full
backups, or be saved as a separate full backup with the date and time of the
backup.
Next, we have what is called incremental backups. These types of backups
only backup the files and folders that have been changed or added since the
last backup. So, let’s say you have 300 files in your last backup, and then 25
of them were modified or changed and 5 new files were added since that
backup was run. The next incremental backup will only backup those 25
changed files plus the 5 new ones. This saves backup space because it doesn’t
back up files that have not been changed since there is no need to do so. But
on the downside, if you needed to do a full recovery, for example, if your
computer died, then you would need to restore the last full backup, plus every
incremental backup that was run since that full backup. This can get out of
control fast, and that is why full backups are run periodically so that you
don’t have too many incremental backups to restore since you only need to
restore the incremental backups that were run since the last full backup.
Finally, we have differential backups, which contain all files and folders
that have been changed since the last full backup, or in other words, the
differences since the last full backup. So, every time this type of backup runs
it will copy any files and folders that have been changed, modified, or added.
For example, let’s say you run a full backup on Saturday with 300 files. On
Monday you modify 10 files and add 5 new files. The differential backup will
copy only 15 files for the new backup. Then on Tuesday you modify 3 files
and add 2 new files. Then the differential backup will copy 20 files over
because it copies the 15 files from Monday and the 5 files from Tuesday.
This type of backup can start to take up space quickly depending on how
often you run it. The benefit of a differential backup is that you only need to
restore the last full backup and the last differential backup when doing a full
recovery because each differential backup has all of the files that have been
changed or added since the last full backup.
Backup Hardware
The purpose of a backup is to protect your data in case of hardware failure,
file corruption, or even theft, so it doesn’t make sense to back up your data on
the same computer as where the data itself is being stored. If you have your
backups stored on your C drive, for example, and that hard drive dies, then
your backup dies along with it.
If you plan on taking your backups seriously, then you need to come up with
a plan to keep the backups themselves safe from harm. This means storing
them on some other device or media separate from your computer, and there
are several options for doing so.
USB Flash Drive – This is a cheap and easy option because USB
flash drives are inexpensive and easy to store somewhere safe. If you
choose this option, try to rotate two flash drives in case one of them
gets lost or goes bad. The downside to using a flash drive is they don’t
have a lot of storage capacity, so if you have a lot of files they might
not all fit.
USB Hard Drive – This works in a similar fashion to flash drives
except you can get a lot more storage capacity, and hard drives tend to
be more durable than flash drives and less likely to get lost. If you plan
on having multiple backup copies from different dates, then you will
need the capacity of this type of hard drive.
CD\DVD – This backup method is not used too often, but is a valid
choice if you only plan to do full backups once in a while. CDs only
hold 700MB of data and DVDs 4.4GB of data, so if you have more
than that, then you are looking at using multiple disks, which might
not be practical. Plus, CDs and DVDs can only be used once (unless
you happen to have the rewritable type).
Network Location – If you have other computers on your network,
then you can backup your data to a shared drive\folder on one of the
other computers (assuming you have the permissions on the other
computer to do so). Just make sure that the backup location on the
remote computer is secure if you are worried about other people
seeing your data.
Tape – Backup tapes have been used for years in the business world
because they are relatively cheap and can hold a lot of data. The
downside is that they are slow, and require a specific tape drive to be
connected to your computer to hold the backup tapes. This is not really
an option for home users because it’s overkill and too expensive
compared to the other, more simple methods.
Network Storage – In the enterprise world of backups, you can use
networked attached storage to hold your backups because hard drives
are cheap, depending on the type, and they have a large storage
capacity. There are some small home network storage devices you can
buy that are similar in the way they work but have much less storage
that is most likely slower as well.
Cloud – Cloud backups will be discussed later in this chapter.
Backup Software
Unless you want to manually do full backups each time you want to backup
your data, you will need to run some sort of backup software to automate the
process. This type of software is specifically designed to run various types of
backups of your computer based on the type of backup you want to run. The
cost of this software varies quite a bit based on how you are using it, and if
it’s for home or enterprise business use.
Like I discussed earlier in this chapter, Windows comes with its own backup
software, and that should be sufficient for most home users. Business backup
software is more robust and offers many more options and configurations
than typical home use software. For example, there is a product called Veeam
that backs up virtual machines (VMs) and allows you to run the VM while
it’s being restored, which is quite a feat in itself.
To backup your computer, I suggest starting with Windows backup or File

History for Windows 10 and see how it works for you. If you need some
additional features, then you can search online for some more robust backup
software. You should be able to get a free trial in most cases, then you can
decide if you want to buy the software or not after that.
Backup vs. Synchronization

Another way to keep your data safe is to synchronize it with another device
so that you have identical copies at the source (your computer) and
destination (backup device). This is different from backing up data because
backups consist of the state of the files at the time of the backup, while
synchronization updates the files on the destination or sometimes even the
source in either real time or as scheduled by you.
Let’s say on your computer you have 200 documents and you copy them to a
removable hard drive so that the files on both locations are identical. Then on
your computer, you make changes to 10 of them and now your computer has
newer versions of those 10 documents. Your removable hard drive still has
the old versions of those 10 files. If you were to synchronize the computer
and removable drive, then it would copy the 10 updated files to the
removable drive and overwrite the copies there, making things identical
again. If you deleted a file on your computer and synchronized again, then it
would delete the matching file on the removable drive to make things match
once again.
Two-way synchronization is where the changes can go both ways. So, if you
deleted a file on the removable drive, then it would delete that matching file
on your computer when the synchronization ran again. Two-way
synchronization would be more commonly used in a situation where you
have two locations for the same files for redundancy or performance reasons
such as matching file servers at two different sites. In this case, you want the
files to be the same on each server, and when changes are made to a file on
one server those changes would be synchronized to the other server.
For the most part, one-way synchronization is what you would use at home,
and the direction of the synchronization would be to the removable drive or
whatever backup device you are using. There are software packages out there
that can do this for you, and I have had great success with one called
AllwaySync. It is free to use unless you have too much data to sync, and then
they will make you buy the professional version, but it only costs around $30.
Offsite\Cloud Backup
At some point you must have heard someone talking about “the cloud” and
either wondered what they meant or maybe didn’t care what they meant. But
if you want to be up to date with your technology terminology and be “cool”,
then you should know a little about how it works.
When people talk about the cloud they are referring to servers, software,
storage, and so on that is located at a remote site somewhere in the world and
is accessible over the Internet. Many companies run their servers in the cloud
so they don’t have to buy expensive hardware to use onsite. The same goes
for licensing software where you buy a certain amount of copies that can be
used by anyone with access to your account.
As for cloud backup, what you are doing is backing up your data to a server
or storage device at a remote location over the Internet using whatever
backup method you like (assuming its available to you). In this case, you are
usually charged based on how much storage you need to use for your
backups. There will be a software client that runs on your computer and
backs up your data to this remote server or storage. Then, on their end, they
will back it up again to make sure that they don’t lose any of your data. The
only downside is that your data is on some server that you most likely will
never know the location of, and if the Internet is down at your location, your
backup will not run, nor will you be able to recover files from your backup.
Windows Previous Versions

Windows has a neat feature called “Previous Versions” (sometimes referred
to as “Shadow Copies”) where it makes periodic copies of your files that you
can refer back to in case you make a change you didn’t mean to, or want to
revert back to an older version of that file. To use this feature, it has to be
enabled, and to do that go to your computer or system properties, click on
System Protection, and then on the System Protection tab under Restore
Settings. Select the button that says “Restore system settings and previous
versions of files”, or the button that says “Only restore previous versions of
files” based on your needs (figure 13.4).
Figure 13.4
Once it’s enabled and makes it copies of the files, all you need to do is simply
right click on a file and choose Properties. Then go to the Previous Versions
tab and it will show you all of the older versions of the file that is stored in a
protected area on your computer (figure 13.5).
Figure 13.5
From here you can open the older version of the file, restore the file to its
original location (overwriting the current copy), or restore it to an alternate
location. This comes in very handy if you did something like accidentally
saved a file with changes you didn’t want to keep.
This feature was replaced by File History in Windows 8 and Windows 10,
but Microsoft still allows you to use it assuming you are using File History as
well. Just make sure the Volume Shadow Copy and Microsoft Software
Shadow Copy Provider services are running on your computer and are not
disabled. Then, after some time, the shadow copies will be made and you can
access them the same way.
Protecting Your Computer

When it comes to keeping your data safe, there is more to the story than just
having an adequate backup plan in place. You will also need to protect your
actual computer itself from things like power surges, the elements, and other
people. In this section, I will talk about things you can do to keep your
computer safe, which in turn will help keep your data safe.
Surge Protectors
The purpose of surge protectors is to protect electrical devices from voltage
spikes. They do this by limiting the voltage supplied to an electronic device
by either blocking or shorting to ground any unwanted voltages above a safe
threshold. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes, as you can see in
figure 13.6, and these different models provide various levels of protection.
Figure 13.6
UPS
A UPS, or uninterruptible power supply, is a device that is used to power
devices such as your computer and monitor that are plugged into it for a short
period of time when the power to your home or office goes out. They can do
this because they contain a battery or batteries that keep your devices running
when the power goes off. They can switch to battery power instantly, so your
devices won’t even know they are now running on battery power. Then you
can shut down your computer properly before the battery time of the UPS
runs out. The UPS is plugged into the wall, and then your computer etc. is
plugged into the built-in outlets on the UPS (figure 13.7).
Figure 13.7
They come in various “sizes” that will let you run a given number of devices
for a given amount of time. So, the more devices you have connected to your
UPS, the less time they will stay running when the power goes out because
it’s more of a drain on the battery. When purchasing a UPS you should see
what kind of uptime they offer based on how many things you have plugged
into them. Also consider how many devices you will be plugging into it, and
what their power usage is. Then you can determine how much battery time
you can get for all of your equipment when the power goes out.
Cooling
Keeping your computer cool is essential in its longevity and also its
performance. When a computer runs hot, you risk the chance of damaging
components such as the processor and motherboard. When some components
get too hot they will simply stop working and become useless, even if you get
things cooled off again. Also, when things get too hot you may notice that
Windows will start acting up and freezing or crashing.
Computers have multiple fans located in various places such as inside the
case, in the power supply, and on the processor. If one of these fans goes bad
or begins to spin slower than what is required to keep things cool, then you
will start having problems. Many computers will shut themselves off when
heat levels get to a certain point, which is better than frying components, but
you might then be looking at data loss and file corruption because of
improper shutdowns. If you go into the settings\BIOS of the computer, you
can usually get a temperature reading and also see the shutdown temperature
set on the computer. There is third party software such as Pirform Speccy that
will let you see your computer’s temperature from within Windows.
Where you keep your computer will also affect its cooling. If you leave it on
all day upstairs in a hot climate with no air conditioning while you are at
work, then it may be too hot of an environment for the computer to be able to
keep itself cool. Doing things like placing your computer under your desk
with no ventilation can also be a potential overheating problem. You will
notice that your computer case has vent holes for cooling, so if they get
blocked, then the hot air has no way to escape.
Theft
Another thing you need to be concerned about when it comes to protecting
your computer is theft by other people. This might not be too big of an issue
in a secured office building, but it can be a concern with your desktop at
home. All it takes is for someone to walk through an open door and snatch
your computer, take it home, and then proceed to get all of your personal
information off of it.
Laptops are especially vulnerable because you often take them with you
outside of your home, and they are much easier to grab and carry away when
you are not looking. Many people use their laptops at coffee shops etc., and
all it takes is a quick bathroom break to give someone the opportunity to steal
it.
For the home user, there isn’t much you can do except to treat your computer
like any other valuable possession such as your TV or your jewelry and be
conscious of its location and who has access to it. Businesses usually have
their important servers with user files stored on them locked up in server
rooms that require special access to get into.
Cleaning Your Computer
Just like anything else in your house, your computer can become dirty just
from sitting around in the same location, and at some point you are going to
need to give it a cleaning. By cleaning I don’t mean spraying disinfectant on
it and giving it a rinse in the sink. You should always be careful when
cleaning your computer and take the appropriate steps to do it right.
Dust Problems
It seems that computers love to collect dust inside and outside of their cases,
and it’s something that needs to be cleaned off periodically otherwise you are
looking at some potential trouble. Dust on the outside of the computer is not
too big of a deal and can be removed the same way you remove it from your
furniture. But dust on the inside of the computer can cause overheating
problems and also affect how the fans inside the case are working.
To clean the inside of the computer you will need to first shut it off and
unplug it from the wall. Then carefully take off the cover so you can see the
components inside. Take a can of compressed air and blow all the dust off the
inside of the computer, the fans, and also the power supply fan from the rear
of the power supply itself. If the compressed air can gets too cold and starts
spraying out liquid, then stop and come back to it later. Never wipe things
down with a rag or use a vacuum cleaner because you don’t want to bend or
break off any resistors or diodes etc. Also, make sure to blow out the vent
holes on the cover as well to allow for proper airflow.
Cleaning Your Monitor

Just like with your smartphone, tablet, and TV, your monitor will get dirty
and possibly full of fingerprints or other smudges over time and will need to
be cleaned. Once again, you don’t want to spray it with cleaner and hose it
off, and you should try to be a little careful when cleaning it.
To begin with, give it a good dusting like you do with your TV and furniture
to get the dust off of it. Then get a clean, soft towel and get it a little bit
damp. Next, wipe down the monitor with the wet part of the towel to remove
any smudges or fingerprints. Finally, use a dry part of the towel or a new
towel to dry things off and give it a nice shine. Be careful not to put too much
pressure on the screen when cleaning it to avoid damage. You might have
seen monitor specific cleaning spray, but it’s really not necessary to use.
Cleaning Your Mouse and Keyboard

The dirtiest part of anyone’s computer is usually the mouse and keyboard
since they get the most abuse from dirty hands and food and drinks being
spilled on them. It’s a good idea to give them a good cleaning once in a while
for the sake of appearances and to clean who knows what out of them.
For the keyboard, you can use the same compressed air that you used for
cleaning the dust out of the inside of the computer. This way you can blow all
the dust and crumbs out from in between the keys that you normally wouldn’t
be able to get to. Then, with the computer off, you can use a damp towel
again and give the keys a wiping down. You don’t want to do this with the
computer on because you might press some key combination you don’t mean
to and cause something you don’t want to happen on your computer.
For the mouse, you can give the crevices a blowing out with the compressed
air as well, then take a damp towel and clean off the smudged on grime from
the mouse keys and mouse wheel. Back in the old days of mouse balls
(before laser mice), you would have to take out the ball and clean all of the
dust off of it as well. Once again, do this with the computer off so you don’t
click on something you shouldn’t.
Chapter 14 - Security
In addition to protecting your computer from physical threats, you will also
need to be aware of threats from places like the Internet, your internal
network users, email, wireless access points, and so on. In this chapter I will
cover the types of security threats you need to be concerned about and ways
you can protect your computer and your data from those threats. I discussed
antivirus and antispyware solutions in Chapter 9, so I won’t be going back to
them in this chapter even though they are related to the content here.
Firewalls
Firewalls are used as a protective barrier between one or more networks and
allow only the traffic you want in or out of your network to pass through
them. They can be hardware based or software based, with hardware based
firewalls being more expensive and usually more effective. You can use a
firewall to protect your internal network from an external network such as the
Internet (figure 14.1). Your wireless router at home acts as a type of firewall
to hide your internal resources from the outside world.
Figure 14.1
Firewalls work by allowing specific types of traffic in or out of your network,

such as http traffic (port 80) for websites, FTP traffic (port 21) for file
transfer protocol services, Remote Desktop Services (port 3389), and so on.
If a packet comes into your firewall that is not allowed, then it is rejected by
the firewall and won’t make it through to your network. The same applies to
outgoing packets, but they usually are not as restricted as incoming traffic.
Firewalls can also hide your computer’s IP address from the outside network
or Internet by using Network Address Translation (NAT), which essentially
takes any internal private IP addresses from a computer and translates it to a
public IP address that can be used on the Internet. This way you don’t need a
public IP address for each computer so that they can communicate on the
network because private IP addresses can’t be used for that purpose. You can
have a one-to-one NAT setup where each private IP address translates to one
public IP address, or a one-to-many configuration where multiple private IP
addresses map to a single public IP address.
If you want to only allow a certain computer to talk to a specific computer or

server, then you can set up access rules in your firewall to do this. Or, if you
want only computers that have a specific range of IP addresses to access a
specific server, then this can be set up as well. (Of course, this type of
firewall usage is more for larger corporations and not the average home user.)
Router Security
Now that everyone who has an Internet connection uses some type of fast
broadband service, there is a good chance that you have a wireless router at
home. Internet providers are getting smarter lately and building wireless
capabilities into their modems so you don’t need a separate router, but at the
same time they often charge extra for this added feature.
However, if you do have your own router at home or at the office, you need
to make sure that it is secured, just like with your computer itself. Even
though there are many advanced methods to apply security to your router,
there are three basic things you need to do at the minimum to make it more
secure.
Change the default admin password – Wireless routers will come

with a default login to allow you to go into their configuration and
change settings via a web browser. These default passwords can easily
be found online, so if you don’t change it, then you are leaving your
router open for others to hack into it and do as they please. It can be
changed from the security section in the web interface once you get
into the router with the default login.
Use a strong wireless password – Since your wireless connection is

out in the open for others to see as long as they are in range of your
router, you need to be sure to use a strong password so it can’t be
guessed. Otherwise you will have other people using your wireless
connection and you will be responsible for what they do with it. Try to
use capital letters, numbers, and special characters to make it more
complex.
Hide your SSID or don’t use an obvious SSID name – The SSID or
service set identifier is the name of your wireless connection so when
you browse for available connections you know which one is yours.
This name can be changed from the default and customized, so if you
have a neighbor that you don’t get along with, you might not want to
name it something where they will know it’s your wireless connection.
If you want to add an additional layer of security, you can have your
router prevent the SSID from being broadcasted so nobody will see it.
The only downside is that you will have to set up your wireless
connection manually in Windows and on any other devices (assuming
they support it).
Windows Update
Microsoft is always working on updates and fixes for its products and
releases them in what they call “Windows Update”. This is a feature that runs
automatically on your computer and downloads and installs what they call
“patches” as they come out. For older versions of Windows and server
versions, you have control over what type of updates are installed, when they
are installed, and if you even want them to be installed at all. With Windows
10, Microsoft has taken “the too bad for you” approach and installs updates
whether you want them or not.
If you do have a version of Windows where you have some control over
Windows Update, then it’s important to at least install the security updates. If
you don’t, then you risk leaving security holes in your operating system that
can be taken advantage of by cybercriminals by allowing them to take control
of your computer, or by other means.
For older versions of Windows, you can access Windows Update from
Control Panel and adjust the settings as needed. As you can see in figure
14.2, you have some options as to when to install the updates and can even
choose not to install them at all.
Figure 14.2
For Windows 10, you have options (figure 14.3) that give you control over
some aspects of Windows Update, such as changing the active hours of your
computer so that Windows won’t do any reboots for updates during that time.
You can also schedule restart times for updates so you can make sure you
have all of your documents saved before the reboot happens. There is also an
option to pause updates for up to 35 days, but after that you will be forced to
install the latest updates.
Figure 14.3
Passwords
There is no doubt that you have been told over and over how important it is
to have a complex password and to keep that password safe so nobody else
can get their hands on it. If you insist on making your passwords easy to
guess, then you might as well not have any.
When I say make your passwords complex, I mean that you should have at
least 8 characters, use upper and lower case letters, numbers, and special
characters. By special characters, I mean things like !@#$%^&*. Never use
your birthday, your kid’s name, dog’s name, or obvious things like that.
There is password cracking software out there that can try thousands of
passwords in a short amount of time, so if you use common dictionary words
then it will be easier for them to be cracked. If you do want to use a common
word then substitute special characters for letters such as using a ! for an i.
And don’t use the same password for all your website logins, because once
someone gets their hands on it, then it may be possible for them to get into all
of your other online accounts.
Speaking of online passwords, never let your web browser save important
passwords because they are easy to get from your browser itself. In order to
get these passwords from your browser, you will usually need to know the
user account password from the computer first. But for Firefox, for example,
all you need to do is go into the browser and have it show all the saved
passwords.
Windows Folder and File Security

Just because you store your files on your computer in folders you think that
nobody can find doesn’t mean that they are safe. If you share your computer
with other users, then there is a chance they will have access to your files. Or,
if your computer is on a network, then it could be possible for other
networked users to see your files from their computer if they have the
appropriate permissions.
I discussed file and folder permissions in detail in Chapter 3, so for now I

will just review some of the basics to make sure you know how important it
is to secure your files and folders on your computer. You don’t want to find
out the hard way, that’s for sure!
If your files are kept in your Users folder under Documents, Pictures,
Desktop, and so on, then they will be inaccessible from other users you share
the computer with unless they have local administrator access. The same goes
for other network users trying to access your computer over the network. If
they are not an administrator, they won’t even be able to see your folders
unless you have them shared.
So, if you have some confidential information you don’t want anyone to see,
consider changing the permissions on your files and\or folders so only you
can access them or that only the people you want to be able to access them
can.
Email Security
Since email is as popular as web browsing, there is definitely a need to keep
yours secure as well, and there are some things you need to know to avoid
getting you or your computer in trouble from some malicious email.
One thing you need to be aware of is to watch out for attachments. If you get
an attachment in an email from someone you don’t know, make sure not to
open it, because there is a good chance it will do your computer harm after
doing so. Viruses can come in many formats, such as zip files, PDF files,
Word documents, Excel files, and so on. Even if you get an attachment from
someone you do know, you should be wary unless you were expecting an
email from them with an attachment. Sometimes people’s email accounts can
get hacked and then the hacker will send out emails as that user to people in
their address book and attach a malicious file.
The next thing to watch out for that can be harmful to your computer is email
sent from fake email accounts. Many times cybercriminals will spoof email
addresses so it looks like it came from someone you know, and then add a
link to a website that will negatively affect your computer if you go there. For
most email programs and webmail accounts, you can see the sender’s real
email address if you look at the details of who it was from. For example, you
might know someone named Mike Foster with an email address of
mfoster@mymail.com and the name of the sender says Mike Foster. But
when you look at the details of the email it might say something different like
scammer@badmail.com, so then you will know it’s not actually from Mike
Foster.
Another thing to watch out for that can be harmful to your computer are
malicious links within an email. It’s easy to put a link to a website that is
displayed as simple text such as click here to reset your Microsoft
password, but in reality, the underlying link is not actually going to the
Microsoft website. Many times you can hover your mouse over the link to
have it show the real URL\destination and make sure it is going where it is
supposed to go. Or you can try to right click the link and choose copy link
location and then paste it into Notepad or Word and see where it goes rather
than clicking on it to find out.
And, of course, the secure password thing applies to your email accounts,
too. Plus, you might not want to save your email passwords in your browser
if you are worried about someone getting their hands on your account and
sending out spam email in your name.
Password Protecting Documents

I discussed file security and setting permissions on files so you can control
who has access to them, but if you want to take it a step further and decide
who can do things such as view or edit a file, then you can password protect
those particular documents as well.
In order to password protect your documents, it will need to be a feature that

is provided by the program they are created in. For example, Microsoft Excel
will let you configure files so that you need a password to open them or
modify them. Some programs will even let you require a password to print
the document. This way you can fine tune what levels or access you want
certain people to have with your files.
You can do something similar with any file on your computer if you adjust
the permissions for that file. For example, if you want someone to only be
able to view the file but not save any changes, then you can make that file
“read only”. Just keep in mind that the file will be read only for you as well
unless you change the permissions to where you have a different level of
access.
When setting permissions on documents be sure to remember what

passwords you assigned to them, otherwise you will not be able to use them
either. Sometimes you can get around this by doing a save as and saving the
file with a different name, but sometimes the permissions will stay with the
file even if you do this. Also, keep in mind that there is software out there
designed to crack passwords on protected files, so keep your passwords
complex just like you would for anything else.
Public Wi-Fi Connections

If you have ever taken your laptop or tablet on the road with you and stopped
somewhere like a coffee shop or pretty much any other type of business and
looked at the available wireless connections, you would have noticed that
there are always a multitude of hotspots available to connect to. Many of
them will be password protected, but some won’t, and it may be tempting to
connect to them.
Unless you know for sure that these unsecured hot spots are safe, it’s
generally not a good idea to connect to them, because they may not be what
they seem. It’s easy to make an SSID called “Starbucks guest” on your laptop
and hang out at Starbucks and wait for people to connect to it. Then once
they do, you can access their computer and have your way with it, assuming
you know what you are doing.
Your best bet is to connect to a guest network that is secured with a password
that is given to you by that business. Then, if that password works, you can
be pretty sure it’s a safe connection. But on the other hand, a smart hacker
would use that same password for their fake connection to trick you into
thinking it’s legitimate, so be careful!
If you do connect to a suspicious Wi-Fi hotspot, make sure you remove it

from your remembered connections on your device. The process for doing
this varies between devices and even between versions of Windows. For
example, in Windows 7 you would go to the Network and Sharing Center and
click on Manage Wireless Networks to see your remembered connections.
Then highlight the one you want Windows to forget and click on Remove.
For Windows 10, you would go to your Wi-Fi settings under Network and
Internet and click on the Manage known networks link, click the connection
you want your computer to forget, and then click the Forget button (figure
14.4).
Figure 14.4
Chapter 15 – Cloud Storage
I talked a little about the cloud in Chapter 13 in regards to backing up your
data, but now I will focus on using cloud storage as a place to keep your files
so they are accessible from anywhere that you have an Internet connection.
Cloud storage is also a useful way to share files with other people around the
world. When you put files “in the cloud” you are essentially storing them on
someone else’s server that may be in another city, state, or even another
country.
Advantages and Disadvantages

Just like with cloud backup, there are advantages and disadvantages to using
the cloud to store your files. Listed below are the main advantages and
disadvantages of using this technology.
Advantages
Access your files from anywhere – The main advantage is, like I just
mentioned above, having your files accessible from anywhere that you
have an Internet connection. You can also use other devices such as a
tablet or smartphone to download your files wherever you are.
Sharing files and folders – Cloud storage makes files and folders
easy to share because you can allow other people access to files and
folders that you specify by sharing them or sending links to a specific
file for a direct download.
Extra layer of backup – Since you are storing your files on someone
else’s server, and potentially paying to use this service, these cloud
providers will do their best to make sure your data stays safe by
backing up the data that they store for you.
Disadvantages
Dependency on the Internet – Since you need Internet access to get
to your files in the cloud, you will have to rely on your Internet service
to be up. If you lose your Internet connection, then you won’t be able
to access your files unless you downloaded a copy to your computer.
Trusting a third party with your data – Since you don’t know
exactly where your files are being stored and who really has access to
them, you will have to put some trust in your cloud provider.
Cost – Many cloud storage providers will allow you to have a small
amount of storage space for free with the plan of enticing you to buy
more space once you fill up the free space they provide. This can get
costly if you have a lot of data.
Types of Cloud Storage

There are many companies that provide high level cloud storage with all sorts
of options as to storage capacity and performance, but for the average home
user or small business owner you can stick with one of the “name brand”
cloud providers and be just fine. Here is a list of the most commonly used
ones:
DropBox – DropBox has been around for years and is probably the
most commonly used basic cloud provider service. They will give you
2-5GB of free storage, depending on your plan, and then after that you
will need to pay for an upgrade. The cost will vary depending on how
much storage you need. The cheapest 1TB plan starts at $9.99\month.
Microsoft OneDrive – Microsoft has gotten into the cloud storage
game with its OneDrive software which always seems to end up on
your computer whether you asked for it or not. They have a 5GB free
plan, and then they go up from there with the next level costing
$1.99\month for 50GB. They have some pricier options that Include an
Office 365 software subscription.
Google Drive – Google offers you 15GB of free storage, and for
$1.99\month you can upgrade to 100GB. The capacity and storage
amounts go up from there.
Amazon Drive – Amazon gives you 5GB of storage for free just for
being an Amazon customer. If you are an Amazon Prime member, you
get unlimited photo storage. For $11.99\year you can get 100GB of
storage.
iCloud Storage – Apple has their own cloud storage for all of your
Apple devices such as your Mac, iPhone, and iPad, and you will get
5GB for free automatically. If you need additional storage, you can
pay for it just like with the other cloud storage providers. For example,
a 50GB plan will cost you $0.99 a month.
Chapter 16 – Basic Networking
Now that we have reached the final chapter in this book, I will spend a little
time talking about basic networking in regards to hardware and the software
behind that hardware that makes it work. If you plan on taking your computer
skills to the next level, you will need to familiarize yourself with various
networking technology so you can increase your troubleshooting skills and
take your career to the next level if you intend to make a living working on
computers.
Networking Components
There are many more networking components used in the real world
compared to the basic devices you might have at home. The most advanced
network device you will really see in a home setup is usually a network
switch. Here I will list the most commonly used network devices and their
functions. Figure 16.1 shows what these typical network devices look like.
Notice how similar some of them look to each other.
Figure 16.1
Switch – Switches are used to send data from one network device to
another network device. They do this by storing the MAC addresses
(discussed later) of devices that communicate with them, and then
over time know exactly where to send data sent by one device when it
comes in on a switch port looking for another device. They can have
as little as four ports, and up to 48 ports or more based on the
configuration.
Hub – A hub can be thought of as a “dumb” switch because when data
comes into a port, it is sent out of all the ports because the hub doesn’t
know anything about the location of the destination device, so it has to
try all the devices that are connected to it.
Router – A router is used to transfer data between different networks
since a switch can only send data to devices on the same network.
There are special switches called “layer 3 switches” that can act like
routers though, and by different networks I mean networks that are
addressed differently for the purpose of segmenting traffic, such as
your home network and the Internet. That’s why you need a router in
between them so they can communicate. Routers usually connect to
switches, which then connect to your network devices.
Firewall – I discussed firewalls in Chapter 14, but to review, these
devices are used to allow or deny certain types of traffic or services
from getting into or out of your network.
Network card – All devices that communicate on a network,
including computers, servers, printers, network attached storage, etc.,
will have at least one network card that allows a connection to the
network to be made.
Cables – Unless you are going wireless, you will need some type of
cabling to connect your network devices to each other or to switches
and routers. Most network cables in use today are Ethernet and fiber
optic cables. Ethernet cables use copper wiring to transfer the data
signals while fiber optic uses glass, and is much faster and can travel
greater distances.
Speeds
Not all network devices are created the same. There are a variety of
performance variables when it comes to how fast these devices can transfer
data, and just like with anything else, the faster you go, the more it costs.
Speed ratings are applied to the devices themselves as well as the cabling
used to connect these devices. I went over the speeds of the most commonly
used Ethernet cables in Chapter 12, but let’s list them again so you don’t have
to go back and find them!
Category 5e – 1Gbps
Category 6a – 10Gbps
Fiber optic cabling is generally just as fast or faster than Ethernet, and also
has the advantage of being able to travel greater distances without losing
signal strength, which is known as attenuation. Ethernet cables need to have
their signals repeated with a switch or other device to allow the data to travel
past their allocated limit. There are two main types of fiber optic cables in use
today: multimode fiber is generally used for shorter distances, such as inside
your datacenter or inside your building, while single mode fiber is more
commonly used to connect separate locations, such as buildings across a
campus or across town.
Network cards, switches, and routers also have speed ratings, and they can go
from as low as 100Mbps (megabits per second) and up to 40Gbps (gigabits
per second), with 100Gbps now starting to be implemented. 1Gbps is fairly
common for home network devices, and 1 and 10Gbps are often used in the
corporate office.
LAN vs. WAN

If you have done any reading or training on networking, you most likely have
heard the terms LAN and WAN. LAN stands for local area network and
WAN stands for wide area network. There is another less commonly used
term called MAN that stands for metropolitan area network.
LANs are used to describe the network contained within your building. Keep
in mind that your building can be quite large, and even several floors, and the
network will still be considered a LAN. This is because it’s considered a local
network since it’s located all within one physical location.
A WAN is used to describe a network that spans one or more remote
location, such as a building across town or even in another state. These
networks often use public networking services from the phone company or
cable providers to connect the remote sites together. The speeds will not be as
fast as with a LAN, but with today’s broadband performance it can feel as if
the networks are located at the same location.
IP Addresses
One of the most important concepts to wrap your head around when it comes
to computer networking is understanding IP (Internet Protocol) addressing.
Every device on an Ethernet network has an IP address, and some devices
even have more than one. This includes wireless devices on your network as
well.
One commonly used analogy is to compare IP addresses to street addresses

and the postal system. Your house has a street address that is used to tell the
postman where to deliver your mail. You can think of your street as a
network segment, with each house having its own unique address. If two
houses on your street had the same address, you can see how that would
cause problems with mail delivery. But if you think about it, there are
duplicate addresses in different cities. For example, there might be a house
with an address of 123 Maple St. in one city, and then another house with the
same 123 Maple St. address in a different city. IP addresses work the same
way, as in there can be two devices with the same IP address in two totally
unrelated networks.
IPv4 addresses are 32 bit addresses while IPv6 addresses are 128 bits. Right
now IPv4 addresses are still the king, but we are out of publicly available
addresses. In the near future we will eventually switch to IPv6 addressing,
which offers so many addresses that it will be a long time before we run out,
if ever. It is said that with IPv6, every device on the planet can have its own
unique IP address.
IPv4 addresses are displayed in 4 octets separated by periods. An example of

a commonly used private IPv4 address would be 192.168.1.15. Part of this
number is used for the hosts\devices, and the other part is used for the
network. Subnet masks determine which part is used for the host and which
part is used for the network. An example of a common subnet mask is
255.255.255.0. Subnetting is beyond the scope of this book, but it is
something you should learn a little about to at least get the basic
understanding of how it works.
To check the IP address on your computer, you can open a command prompt
by typing cmd from the run box or Cortana search box, then type ipconfig
and press enter and it will show you similar information (figure 16.2). Notice
that it will show you the IPv6 address of your computer as well, assuming
you have it enabled.
Figure 16.2
As you can see, it shows you your subnet mask as well as both the IPv4 and
IPv6 addresses. It will list this information for each network adapter you have
installed in your computer.
You might have noticed another IP address listed for the default gateway.
The default gateway is the IP address that is used to send information out of
your local network to the next available connected network. This address is
often a router interface used to route data to other networks that are
connected to that router. For most home situations, the default gateway
address is for your wireless router or modem itself, and is used to connect
you to the Internet itself. If you don’t have a default gateway configured, you
won’t be able to get out of your local network segment or out to the Internet.
There is much more to IP addresses than what I covered, and there are
actually entire books written on the subject. If you plan on being a network
specialist, you will need to master how they work and how to configure them
so you can create multiple connected network segments.
MAC Addresses
If you thought that an IP address was the only address your computer used to
communicate on a network and on the Internet, then you would be mistaken.
All network hardware has a permanent burned-in address assigned to them
called a MAC (media access control) address, also known as a hardware
address. These addresses are unique to the particular device, and once the
address is used, it is not used again for another device. It consists of a 48 bit,
six pair set of hexadecimal numbers. The first half of the MAC address
identifies the manufacturer of the device (such as Cisco, Netgear, etc.) and
the second half is assigned by the manufacturer itself. An example of a MAC
address would be 0A:82:B1:00:C0:2E and it can be written in other ways
such as with dashes or periods instead of colons between each pair of hex
numbers.
MAC addresses are used by Ethernet networks to send data from device to
device. They work in a similar fashion to IP addresses, where IP addresses
are used to send data from one network device to another and MAC addresses
are used to assure the data gets to the right device on the network.
To find your MAC address simply open a command prompt, but rather than
typing in ipconfig shown in figure 16.2, add the /all switch to it so it reads
ipconfig /all as shown in figure 16.3. Then find the appropriate network
adapter (if you have more than one) and look for the line that says “Physical
Address”.
Figure 16.3
Another use for MAC addresses is by software that needs to license itself to a
particular computer. By associating the license with the MAC address, the
software publisher can make sure the software is only used on the computer it
is meant to be used on. In Windows there is a way you can change your MAC
address, so if you ever needed to install the software on a different computer
you could do that by matching the MAC address on the new computer to the
original computer. This only changes it in Windows though, and doesn’t
change it on the network card itself.
TCP\IP Protocol Suite

When it comes to expanding your networking knowledge, you will have to
familiarize yourself with various protocols so that when you come across
them you know what they are used for and how to troubleshoot them. Think
of protocols as rules that devices use to communicate on a network. Each
protocol has its own unique function and is used for specific types of network
communication.
The TCP\IP protocol suite consists of various protocols, such as HTTP, DNS,
and FTP. Next, I will go over some of the more common and important
protocols that you should know about, and let you know what they are used
for.
ARP – The Address Resolution Protocol is used to map an IP address

to a MAC address. This comes in handy for network troubleshooting
because you can look at the ARP table to see what devices have been
communicating with what other devices on the network.
DNS – The Domain Naming Service protocol is used to translate
hostnames (or computer names) into IP addresses. So, when you
connect to a computer on the network by name, such as FileServer1,
DNS will translate the name FileServer1 into its IP address so
communication can take place over the network. The same goes for
website addresses. When you type in something like
onlinecomputertips.com into a browser, DNS will translate it to its IP
address, such as 50.62.101.145.
FTP – The File Transfer Protocol is used to transfer files from one
computer to another over the network or over the internet. You can use
an FTP client on your computer to connect to an FTP server to
download or upload files. Most of the time you need an account on the
FTP server to do so, unless it’s set to anonymous access, in which case
you won’t.
TCP – The Transmission Control Protocol is used to provide reliable
delivery of data between hosts on a TCP/IP network. It is used by
applications that require high reliability and is also connection
oriented, which means that a connection has to be established between
the devices before data is sent. If any data is lost during transmission,
then it is resent to assure successful delivery.
UDP – The User Datagram Protocol is similar to TCP, but the main
difference is that it doesn’t use the same error checking procedures,
which makes packet delivery faster since there is less overhead to deal
with. However, there is no guarantee of successful packet delivery
because if any packets are lost, the receiving device will not ask for
them again. It is typically used for less critical data transfer.
DHCP – Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol is used to assign
various network parameters to a computer or other network device.
Some of these parameters include its IP address, default gateway, and
DNS server. If a computer is configured to use DHCP, it will put out a
request at startup asking for an IP address and other configuration
settings from a DHCP server. Once it gets these settings it will keep
them for a predetermined amount of time set by the server called a
lease, and then it will have to renew this lease to keep that
information. If there is no DHCP server available, then the computer
will not get an IP address and will not be able to communicate over the
network unless these settings are manually configured (statically
assigned).
Networking Ports
A port is a 16 bit number that is used to identify services and applications.
This is done by opening one of these ports to listen for requests from other
devices that want to make a connection. If the port on the destination
computer is not listening or not enabled, then there can be no connection
made to that port by the source computer.
Ports are associated with IP addresses, so when a connection needs to be

made, the computer uses the IP address and port number for its request to
make sure it gets to the right destination and is accessing the right application
or service.
There are many common port numbers, with many of them being reserved for
specific services and others being available to use freely as needed. The
following list shows some of the more commonly used port numbers and
their associated service. You will probably recognize the protocols I
mentioned in the last section on this list.
DNS (Domain Name System) – TCP\UDP port 53

SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) – TCP port 25
FTP (File Transfer Protocol) – TCP ports 20 and 21
DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) – UDP ports 67 and
68
HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) – TCP port 80
HTTPS (Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol) – TCP port 443
NTP (Network Time Protocol) – UDP port 123
POP (Post Office Protocol) – TCP port 110
IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) – TCP port 143
SNMP (Simple Network Management) TCP\UDP ports 161 and 162
What’s Next?
Now that you have read through this book and taken your computer skills to
the next level, you might be wondering what you should do next. Well, that
depends on where you want to go. Are you happy with what you have
learned, or do you want to further your knowledge or maybe get into a career
in the IT (information technology) field?
If you do want to expand your knowledge, you should look at subject-specific

books such as networking, storage, Windows, etc. Focus on one subject at a
time, then apply what you have learned to the next subject.
There are many great video resources as well, such as Pluralsight or CBT
Nuggets, which offer online subscriptions to training videos of every type
imaginable. YouTube is also a great source for training videos if you know
what to search for.
Once you have increased your knowledge a bit and want to get into the
money-making side of computers, think about getting yourself some
certifications on a couple of different subjects. For the basic computer repair
area you can go for the CompTIA A+ certification. For basic networking, you
can take their Network+ exam, and for servers they offer a Server+ exam. If
you want a general type certification you can go for their IT Fundamentals
certification. CompTIA used to have an exam for storage certification called
Storage+, but that has since been retired. However, you can still take the
SNIA Certified Storage Professional (SCSP) exam, which covers the same
material.
If networking is more your thing, then think about some of the Cisco
certifications. The most basic one you can take is the CCENT, and then you
can consider moving your way up to the CCNA to prove you have what it
takes to do the job. High level Cisco techs can make a lot of money, so if you
enjoy working on switches and routers, this may be the path to take.
Of course, Microsoft offers a variety of certifications for various

technologies. The most common certifications are for their server and domain
platforms such as the MCSE (Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert) and
MCSA (Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate) certifications. They also
offer lower level certifications such as the MTP (Microsoft Technology
Associate) and MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional) certifications for
subjects such as Windows 10.
Keep in mind that in the real world experience matters more than
certification. If you have a piece of paper saying you know something but
you can’t do it on the job, then it doesn’t really help you out. Don’t expect to
start out at a high level, because it will take several years of practice to work
your way up to the higher paying jobs.
If you are content in being a standalone power user that knows more than
your friends, then just keep on reading up on the technologies you want to
learn, and you will soon become your friends and families go-to computer
person, which may or may not be something you want!
You should also check out our website at www.onlinecomputertips.com, as

well as follow us on Facebook at
https://www.facebook.com/OnlineComputerTips/ to find more
information on all kinds of computer topics.
Thanks for reading Computers Made Easy: From Dummy to Geek. You
can also check out the other books in the Made Easy series for additional
computer related information and training.
About the Author
James Bernstein has been working with various companies in the IT field
since 2000, managing technologies such as SAN and NAS storage, VMware,
backups, Windows Servers, Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, Networking,
Microsoft Office, Exchange, and more.
He has obtained certifications from Microsoft, VMware, CompTIA,

ShoreTel, and SNIA, and continues to strive to learn new technologies to
further his knowledge on a variety of subjects.
He is also the founder of the website onlinecomputertips.com, which offers

its readers valuable information on topics such as Windows, networking,
hardware, software, and troubleshooting. Jim writes much of the content
himself and adds new content on a regular basis. The site was started in 2005
and is still going strong today.

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by James Bernstein

Copyright © 2018 by James Bernstein. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

Printed in the United States of America

For more information on reproducing sections of this book or sales of this

Chapter 1 – What is a Computer?

Chapter 2 – Computer Peripherals

Chapter 3 – Microsoft Windows

Chapter 6 – The Internet

Chapter 9 – Antivirus and Antispyware Software

Chapter 10 – Avoiding Scams

Chapter 11 – Error Messages, Crashes, & Troubleshooting

Chapter 12 – Wi-Fi and Internet Troubleshooting

Chapter 15 – Cloud Storage

Chapter 16 – Basic Networking

About the Author

The main component of a computer is called a motherboard, and this is pretty

Hard Drive Troubleshooting

To most computer users, when I use the term “operating system” I am

One important thing to check on when buying a monitor is the connection

Mouse and Keyboard

Mouse and Keyboard Troubleshooting

Windows for Workgroups 3.1

Windows for Workgroups 3.11

Windows 98 Second Edition

Windows XP Home Edition

Windows Vista comes in a variety of editions, including Home Basic, Home

Windows 7 comes in many editions, including Starter, Home Premium,

Finding your Version of Windows

What Version of Windows Should you be Running?

The desktop is customizable, and you can add whatever shortcuts to

Windows Start Menu and Taskbar

And here is an example of a Windows 10 Start menu (figure 3.7).

If you go to the Windows 10 settings and click on Personalization and then

One important thing to remember with Windows 10 is that Microsoft is

Changing the Date and Time

Changing Window Sizes

CTRL+C - Copy a file or text.

User Accounts and Passwords

As mentioned earlier, there is another way to manage user accounts in

User Account Troubleshooting

Windows File Management

Changing File and Folder Views

File and Folder Permissions

I discussed how to go about setting up simple sharing earlier in this chapter,

Speaking of the advanced settings, if you ever encounter a problem where

Another way to go about troubleshooting permissions is to make sure that the

Moving, Copying, Renaming and Deleting Files

Manipulating file locations is very common because you have so many

Shortcuts vs. Actual Files

Searching for Files and Folders

Creating a New Folder or File

Default Windows Folders

Windows Control Panel

Network and Sharing Center – Allows for configuration of network

Sound – Used to configure Windows sounds as well as recording and

Windows 10 Settings App

Network & Internet

Time & language

Update and security

Most Windows software is backward compatible, meaning it will run on

Installing and Uninstalling Software

To uninstall a particular piece of software simply click on the software in the