Computer Era

windows

Upgrade now, otherwise you may loose the Windows 10 Free Upgrade

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windows 10 upgrade

You have only a couple of months left for the free upgrade of the Windows 10 operating system. After July 29th, 2016 Microsoft will charge retail price for the Windows 10 operating system.

Unlike Windows 8, Microsoft released Windows 10 as the free upgrade to the existing genuine Windows users those who are using Windows 7 or Windows 8 licensed versions.

Microsoft clearly mentioned that it will provide the free upgrade for the first year period only commencing from the release date. By 29th of July, the specified time will come in the end.

Microsoft is prompting the Windows users frequently about the Windows 10 upgrade. Those people who find it hard to adopt newer versions and people who have compatibility issues with their existing software or hardware simply ignoring the Windows 10 upgrade messages.

Whatever the reason, this is your last chance to upgrade to Windows 10 without paying any amount. If you still in a confusion whether to upgrade or not to the Windows 10 operating system, decide immediately. One year is more than enough for a decision.

3 Free Tools to Troubleshoot any problem in Windows

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PC users come across various issues such as connectivity problems, PC slowdown, virus infections, etc., frequently. Troubleshooting Windows computer is not an art, and just you need to have the sufficient knowledge on the issue and its countermeasures.

Here I will explain, various tools to troubleshoot your Windows computer without the help of hardware technicians.

Update Device drivers

device drivers

In my personal experience, I faced thousands of people who don’t have an idea on device drivers on any operating system. Device drivers play a crucial role as a communication bridge in between the hardware and the operating system.

Outdated or the poorly written device drivers lead to serious PC problems such as the blue screen of death. So time to time, check the hardware manufacturer’s website for the latest drivers for your hardware devices like display card, soundcard, printers, LAN card, etc., and update them by downloading the exact version intended for your model.

If you’re not sure where to search for the device drivers, “Driver Booster” is an excellent software which helps you in this regard.

While installing this software, untick other unnecessary applications which come bundled with this setup file. Otherwise, driver booster will install other unnecessary toolbars which will hijack the default search engine.

This software provides two tabs named outdated and up-to-date. The outdated tab contains a list of all the outdated device drivers exists on your computer. You can update each device driver by clicking the update button available in front of its name. On the other hand “up to date,” Tab lists all the device drivers which are in perfect condition.

Fix Win 10

fix windows

Sometimes, file corruption in the Windows operating system becomes the main reason for Windows malfunction. We can resolve the issue by replacing the corrupted files. In this context “Fix Win 10” analyses the core system files, and provides us the option to fix them instantly.

Before using this, it’s better idea to create a restore point of the current working condition. This application provides another section with the name “Troubleshooters”. I hope you already know the fact that Windows has inbuilt troubleshooter modules for various issues. Troubleshooters section in the Fix Win 10 program provides easy access to those modules.

Ultimate Windows Tweaker

tweak

This application doesn’t provide any direct troubleshooting options. Instead, it offers various functions to enable and disable certain Windows features. You can enable or disable all the available features in Windows Operating system at one place.

Here also it is a wise idea to create a restore point before making any change, otherwise, sometimes you may end with unwanted results.

Still using older versions? – Ransomware risk for your PCs

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ransomware

Are you still using older versions of various desktop softwares? If so, you may face ransomware attacks.

Cisco discovered hackers exploited vulnerabilities in older versions of Follett which is Library management software used by a number of libraries worldwide. This software uses JBoss Web servers. By using these hackers install backdoors in the targeting systems.

This is not limited to Follett. Most of the computer era still using outdated Windows and Linux applications in their systems.

There are plenty of security loopholes existed in those age old apps. For example, in India DTP operators still using Aldus Pagemaker 5 which is later taken over by Adobe. Aldus is no more, there are no security updates for that software. It doesn’t matter to PC users. This sort of security innocence leads to serious attacks like malware infections, ransomware etc.

Same applies to Adobe Photoshop 7. Adobe changed naming pattern in Photoshop after Photoshop 7. Photoshop is now a part of Creative Suite, which in in other words considered as CS. Begging from CS, CS1 now CS6 is the latest version in the market. But this also doesn’t matter to end users. Because of various compatibility issues they are continuing with Photoshop 7.

Attacks like ransomware doesn’t come through isolated apps mentioned above, those apps connects to internet on a regular basis are the main targets of ransomware attacks. But to bring lack of security awareness in to your notice I took Aldus Pagemaker and Photoshop examples.

What is Ransomware?

Ransomware is also a software which encrypts your hard disk data, and stores the private key to decrypt it on the remote server located at the hacker’s place. They demand premium amount to provide the private key to decrypt your valuable data. The amount they demand ranging from 100 USD to 5000 USD. For organizations which are huge financial support this may be affordable, but for individuals such a huge amount is not comfortable.

So try to upgrade to the latest versions of your regular softwares, otherwise you may become the victim for more security attacks.