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Warm Laptop on Legs Can Harm Skin

CHICAGO — Have you ever worked on your laptop computer with it sitting on your lap, heating up your legs? If so, you might want to rethink that habit.

Doing it a lot can lead to “toasted skin syndrome,” an unusual-looking mottled skin condition caused by long-term heat exposure, according to medical reports.

In one recent case, a 12-year-old boy developed a sponge-patterned skin discoloration on his left thigh after playing computer games a few hours every day for several months.

“He recognized that the laptop got hot on the left side; however, regardless of that, he did not change its position,” Swiss researchers reported in an article published Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Another case involved a Virginia law student who sought treatment for the mottled discoloration on her leg.

Dr. Kimberley Salkey, who treated the young woman, was stumped until she learned the student spent about six hours a day working with her computer propped on her lap. The temperature underneath registered 125 degrees.

That case, from 2007, is one of 10 laptop-related cases reported in medical journals in the past six years.

The condition also can be caused by overuse of heating pads and other heat sources that usually aren’t hot enough to cause burns. It’s generally harmless but can cause permanent skin darkening. In very rare cases, it can cause damage leading to skin cancers, said the Swiss researchers, Drs. Andreas Arnold and Peter Itin from University Hospital Basel. They do not cite any skin cancer cases linked to laptop use, but suggest, to be safe, placing a carrying case or other heat shield under the laptop if you have to hold it in your lap.

Salkey, an assistant dermatology professor at Eastern Virginia Medical School, said that under the microscope, the affected skin resembles skin damaged by long-term sun exposure.

Major manufacturers including Apple, Hewlett Packard and Dell warn in user manuals against placing laptops on laps or exposed skin for extended periods of time because of the risk for burns.

View full sizeAP Photo/HO via PediatricsA 12-year-old boy with evidence of “toasted skin syndrome” on his left leg caused by exposure to high temperatures while spending a great deal of time playing video games with a laptop resting on his legs.

A medical report several years ago found that men who used laptops on their laps had elevated scrotum temperatures. If prolonged, that kind of heat can decrease sperm production, which can potentially lead to infertility. Whether laptop use itself can cause that kind of harm hasn’t been confirmed.

In the past, “toasted skin syndrome” has occurred in workers whose jobs require being close to a heat source, including bakers and glass blowers, and, before central heating, in people who huddled near potbellied stoves to stay warm.

Dr. Anthony J. Mancini, dermatology chief at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, said he’d treated a boy who developed the condition from using a heating pad “hours at a time” to soothe a thigh injured in soccer. Mancini said he’d also seen a case caused by a hot water bottle.

He noted that chronic, prolonged skin inflammation can potentially increase chances for squamous cell skin cancer, which is more aggressive than the most common skin cancer. But Mancini said it’s unlikely computer use would lead to cancer since it’s so easy to avoid prolonged close skin contact with laptops.

To view the full article Click Here

Windows 10 Privacy Settings Guide

Where do you draw the line on personal privacy? The right options are different for everyone. This guide shows the privacy settings that will help you to create the right balance of privacy and convenience in Windows 10.

Over the past year, We’ve read countless “privacy guides” for Windows 10. Most are well-intentioned, but they invariably take a simplistic approach to privacy: Just turn off every switch in the Privacy section of the Settings app.

If you do that, you’re not understanding the privacy landscape, which encompasses far more than just those settings. You’re also missing some important additional steps.

Windows 10 is a mix of software and services. With every session, a Windows 10 device exchanges a great deal of information with Microsoft’s servers. That’s neither unusual nor alarming. Microsoft’s chief rivals, Google and Apple, are also blending services into their software, with the goal of making your life easier and making that software more reliable.

So are other tech companies that you don’t think of as software companies: Amazon, with the Echo. Tesla, with its self-updating, software-driven cars. Your thermostat and your home security system.

There’s something profoundly satisfying about a service that anticipates your every move, reminding you when to leave for an appointment to arrive on time, or to pick up flowers for your anniversary tomorrow. Your digital personal assistant, whether it’s Siri or Cortana or Alexa or Google, needs to be able to see your calendar and contacts to make that magic happen.

But when that sort of personal attention goes too far, it “crosses the creepy line,” to use a phrase that Eric Schmidt probably regrets uttering when he was Google’s CEO.

The thing about that line is that it’s drawn in a different place for everyone. There are people who are thrilled at the idea that their PC or mobile device is so familiar with their actions that it can anticipate what they’ll do next. I know others who would like to build a virtual Faraday cage around their computing hardware so that none of their personal details can escape.

Both of those viewpoints, and everything in between, are perfectly valid. That’s why the software and services we use are loaded with switches and dials designed to help you take control of their potential privacy impact.

In this post, We’ll walk you through the big privacy questions for Windows 10, with enough context to help you decide which settings are right for you.

Note that this guide assumes you are using Windows 10 on a personal PC or one in your small business. If you are in an enterprise setting, or if you are in a regulated industry, you should seek professional assistance to ensure that you’re meeting proper standards.

Let’s start with the part of your PC that has the biggest impact on your personal privacy.

THE NETWORK

No one knows more about your online identity than your Internet service provider. Every packet you send or receive from anywhere online goes through their servers. When you travel and connect to Wi-Fi networks that are under the control of others, the owners of those networks can see every connection you make and can intercept their contents.

Regardless of the platform you use, that’s why it’s important you use encrypted connections for any kind of sensitive communications. Using a virtual private network whenever possible is an excellent best practice.

Windows 10 does offer one obscure option that can help protect third parties from tracking your movements based on your connections to Wi-Fi networks. (Note that this feature requires support from your Wi-Fi adapter, so if you don’t see this option, the most likely explanation is that your hardware doesn’t support it.) Under Settings > Network & Internet > Wi-Fi, turn the Use random hardware addresses setting to On.

windowsprivacy02

That step keeps third parties from matching your Wi-Fi adapter’s hardware address with your personal information, making it more difficult to track your location.

THE BROWSER

Countless third-party ad networks and analytics companies use cookies and other tracking technology to record your movements around the web and to correlate your online activities with your offline identity.

The result is a digital fingerprint that can be extraordinarily detailed and, unfortunately, outside of your ability to change.

To limit the amount of information that those ad and analytics companies know about you from your web browsing, consider third-party anti-tracking software such as Abine’s Blur, which is available for every web browser except Microsoft Edge. (That lack of solid support for add-ons is one reason I can’t yet recommend Edge as a full-time browser for most Windows 10 users.)

Another privacy product worth considering is Ghostery, although some are suspicious of this browser extension because of its uncomfortably close ties to the online advertising industry.

Ad-blocking software can also provide some privacy protection as a side-effect of performing its basic function. Here, too, watch out for close ties between some ad-blocking add-ins and the third-party trackers they supposedly protect you from.

Note that none of these steps is unique to Windows 10. Anti-tracking software is typically a browser add-in and works with most popular browsers.

THE OPERATING SYSTEM

With those two big, platform-independent factors out of the way, we can now turn to Windows 10 itself. When you use a Windows 10 device, it is capable of sharing the following types of information with Microsoft’s servers:

Your location

Windows 10 can determine your location to help with actions like automatically setting your current time zone. It can also record a location history on a per-device basis. Go to Settings > Privacy > Location to control the following:

  • Location on/off?Use the master switch at the top of this page to disable all location features for all users of the current device.
  • Location service on/off?If location is on for Windows, you can still turn it off for your user account here.
  • General location?This allows you to set a city, zip code, or region so that apps can deliver relevant content.
  • Default location?Click Set default to open the Maps app and specify the location you want Windows to use when a more precise location is not available.
  • Location history?Click Clear to erase the saved history for a Windows 10 device.

If location is on, a list at the bottom of the Settings > Privacy > Location page allows you to disable access to that data on a per-app basis.

Your input

If you enable Cortana, Windows 10 uploads some info from your devices, such as your calendar, contacts, and location and browsing history, so that Cortana can make personalized recommendations. If you don’t want any accounts on your PC to use Cortana, follow the steps in this article to disable the feature completely: Turn off Cortana completely.

Windows 10 uses some feedback from the way you type, write, and speak to improve performance for you and as a way to improve the overall platform. This isn’t keystroke logging; rather, the operating system uses a very small amount of information. A separate feature uses your speech and writing history to make better suggestions in Windows and Cortana.

You can control this collection with two sets of controls:

Under Settings > Privacy > General, click Info about how I write and turn it off so that your typos aren’t used to improve things like the built-in spell checker.

Under Settings > Privacy > Speech, inking, & typing, under the Getting to know you heading, click Stop getting to know me to turn off personalization.

To clear previously saved information associated with your Microsoft account, click the first link under the Manage cloud info heading. That takes you to this Bing Personalization page, which includes this prominent button:

windows-privacy01

Click Clear to remove that saved information from the cloud.

Files and settings

When you sign in with a Microsoft account, you have the option to save files to the cloud using OneDrive. Windows 10 also syncs some settings to OneDrive, allowing you to have the same desktop background, saved passwords, and other personalized settings when you sign in with that account on multiple PCs.

If you use a local account, of course, none of your settings are synced. If you use a Microsoft account, you can turn off syncing completely or remove certain settings from the sync list by going to Settings > Accounts > Sync Your Settings.

OneDrive is an opt-in service. If you don’t sign in, it does nothing. You can’t save files to OneDrive accidentally, and no files are uploaded without your explicit permission, which you can revoke any time. To disable OneDrive for all users on your PC, follow these instructions: Shut down OneDrive completely.

Telemetry

Microsoft, like all modern software companies, uses feedback from its installed base to identify problems and improve performance. In Windows 10, this feedback mechanism produces diagnostics data (aka telemetry) that is uploaded to Microsoft at regular intervals. The data is anonymized and is not used to create a profile of you.

The default telemetry setting for all consumer and small business versions of Windows 10 is Full, which means that the uploaded data also includes details (also anonymized) about app usage. If you are concerned about possible inadvertent leakage of personal information, I recommend that you go to Settings > Privacy > Feedback & diagnostics and change the Diagnostic and usage data setting to Basic.

THE APPS

Although the number of subcategories under the Privacy heading in Settings seems daunting, most of them govern access to your information by Windows Store apps. That set of apps includes those that are preinstalled (Mail, Calendar, Groove Music, Photos, and so on) as well as those you acquire from the Store.

Most of the categories offer a single on-off switch at the top, which you can use to disable all access to that feature by all apps. If you leave the feature enabled, you can use a list of apps at the bottom of the page to enable or disable access on a per-app basis.

This capability works the same with the following categories: Camera, Microphone, Notifications, Account Info, Call History, and Radios. The Other Devices category lets apps automatically share and sync info with wireless devices that aren’t explicitly paired with your PC. Use the Background Apps category to specify which apps are allowed to work in the background.

If Location is enabled, you have the option to disable location access on a per-app basis and to disable Geofencing.

The Contacts, Calendar, Email, and Messaging categories allow you to control which apps can have access to these features. If you want to share content from an app using email or messaging, this option has to be on for that app. Note that Mail and Calendar, People, and Phone always have access to your contacts; Mail and Calendar are always allowed to access and send email and always have access to your calendar.

Finally, one horribly misunderstood setting is available under Settings > Privacy > General. Advertising ID controls whether Microsoft serves personalized ads to ad-supported apps. If you turn this option off, you still get ads, but they’re not personalized. In any case, your information is not shared with advertisers.

Have questions?

Get answers from Microsofts Cloud Solutions Partner!
Call us at: 856-745-9990 or visit: https://southjerseytechies.net/

South Jersey Techies, LL C is a full Managed Web and Technology Services Company providing IT Services, Website Design Services, Server Support, Network Consulting, Internet Phones, Cloud Solutions Provider and much more. Contact for More Information.

To read this article in its entirety click here.

Office 365 Activation: How to Fix

Imagine you are a customer of Microsoft’s Office 365 service, including a subscription to the Office desktop applications like Word, Excel and Outlook.

One day you click on the shortcut for Word, but instead of opening, it just shows a “Starting” splash screen which never progresses.

Being smart, you try to start Word in safe mode by holding down the Ctrl key, but the exact same thing happens.

Annoying, when you want to do your work. What is going on?

We took a look at a case like this. Two things you should do (after the usual reboot):

1. Look in the event viewer. Here, we found a clue that the issue is related to software activation, specifically Event 2011 “Office Subscription Licensing exception”:

2. For all things related to Office licensing, open a command prompt, go to (for example) C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16, and type:

cscript ospp.vbs /dstatus

In this case we got the following:

This told us that Windows thinks TWO product keys for Office are installed. One has expired, the other is fine.

The guilty party may (or may not) be the trial version of Office typically pre-installed with a new PC. Or it could be a consequence of changing your Office 365 subscription. Neither would be the fault of the user, who is fully licensed and has done nothing other than follow Microsoft’s normal procedures for installing Office 365.

Solution: we reinstalled Office from the Office 365 portal, and attempted to remove the dud product key with:

cscript ospp.vbs /unpkey:<Last five characters of product key>

as explained here. All is well for the moment.

Activation and subscription license checking is for the benefit of the vendor, not the user, and should never get in the way like this.

Further, cannot Microsoft find some way of informing the user when this happens, and not have Word simply hang on starting? How difficult is it to check for licensing and activation issues, and throw up a message?

Migrate Facebook Data to Google+

You may not be ready to ditch Facebook for good, but now that you’ve had a chance to kick the tires on Google+, you might be ready to make it your go-to social network. The problem: You’ve built up a lot of friends, photos, videos, and other data on Facebook over the years, and you don’t want to simply lose all that data. Here’s how to migrate it all from Facebook to Google+.

Photo remixed from an original by Shutterstock.

When Google+ came out, it’s success was very much up in the air (remember Google Buzz?). However, it seems a lot of people have already thrown themselves into Google+ full force—Facebook may have 750 million users, but Google+ has already crossed the 20 million user milestone in only 30 days. If you’re ready to give it a shot as your main network, here’s what you need to do.

Migrate Your Friends

A social network is nothing without a group of friends with whom to talk, so the first thing you’ll want to do is migrate your friends. Not everyone you know is going to be on Google+ yet, but it’s a good idea to make sure you don’t leave anybody out—and you can always send those other late adopters an invite to encourage them.

The easiest way to migrate your Facebook friends is to import them through a Yahoo email address. I know that sounds awful, but hear me out: While a few people have created browser extensions and other migration methods, Facebook shuts them down pretty quickly, since they don’t like non-partners pulling friend data. In addition, the non-Yahoo methods usually add your Facebook friends to Google Contacts, which you probably don’t want. You may not have a Yahoo account, but that’s what makes this method great—no need to fill up your main address book with Facebook junk. Plus, it really does only take a few minutes.

To do this, head to mail.yahoo.com and click the Create New Account button (if you already have a Yahoo or Flickr account, you can skip this step). Once you’ve created an account, sign in and head to the Contacts tab. Click on “Import Contacts” and choose the Facebook option. You should now see all your Facebook friends in your Yahoo address book.

Lastly, head to Google+ and go to the Circles tab. Click “Find and Invite” and click the Yahoo button. It’ll add all your Yahoo Contacts (or Facebook Friends, in this case), to the Find and Invite page and you can add your Facebook friends to your circles. I, for one, was shocked at how many of my friends were already using Google+ without me knowing.

Migrate Your Photos

Migrating your photos is ridiculously easy with the previously mentioned Move Your Photos Chrome extension. Install it, click on its icon in the extension bar, and log in to your Facebook account. Select the photos you want to transfer and click the upload button at the very bottom of the page. You’ll see the progress in the lower right-hand corner. Don’t log out while it works, just let it do its thing.

When it’s done, you’ll see those albums in Google+. By default, they won’t be public, and you can adjust each album’s privacy settings by going into them and clicking on the “Edit” link under “Visible To”.

If you don’t want to use Chrome, you can grab a similar extension for Firefox, but you have to transfer albums one by one. If you have Chrome installed, I recommend using the Chrome extension just this once because it’s much faster.

Migrate Your Videos

The only way to migrate your videos, unfortunately, is to download the entirety of your Facebook data and re-upload them. To do this, head to Account > Account Settings, and scroll down to “Download Your Information”. Hit the “learn more” link and hit he Download button. It will take awhile to gather your info, but you’ll receive an email when it’s done, and you can download a ZIP file full of your photos, videos, and profile information.

Strangely, when I did this, one of my two videos was missing from the “videos” folder in the ZIP file. However, I was still able to download that video from Facebook by installing the Video Download Helper extension for Firefox, navigating to the video you want to download, playing it, and clicking the arrow next to Download Helper’s icon in the add-on bar.

Once you’ve wrangled all the videos you want to move to Google+, you’ll just have to upload them one by one. Head into Google+, click on your profile, and go to “Videos”. Hit the “Upload New Videos” link and re-upload your videos to your Google+ profile.

Update and View Both Networks at Once

Now that all your data’s been migrated, you can enjoy using Google+ as your main social network. However, chances are you still have a few friends on Facebook you want to keep up with. The best way to do this is with the Start Google Plus extension for both Chrome and Firefox. Once you install it, you’ll see a Facebook and Twitter icon in the upper right-hand corner, which you can click on to connect your other accounts. Once your Facebook account’s been linked, every status update you make on Google+ will have the option of posting to Facebook as well, just by clicking on the Facebook icon. It’ll take with it any links, pictures, or other data that the status contains.

Start Google Plus will also plug your Facebook feed into your Google+ feed, so you don’t even need to check Facebook anymore. Just check your Google+ feed, and it’ll show you all of Facebook’s news feed as well, with links to comment if you so desire.

If you prefer to not use an extension, you can also update your status on both networks at once using Facebook’s “Upload via Email” feature. Just head to Facebook’s mobile page, copy your Upload via Email email address, and add it to its own “Facebook” circle on Google+. From now on, when you update your status on Google+, you can just include your Facebook circle to send that status to Facebook as well. This method isn’t perfect, however: it’ll only work with statuses of up to 50 characters, and it doesn’t work with photos. However, it does work over mobile, which is nice, and without any extensions.

It’s also worth mentioning the previously mentioned Google+Facebook extension. While it’s a much easier way to update both statuses at once, it’s been hit by a bit of controversy, which you can read more about over at our post and on this Reddit thread. The company has responded to accusations of malware injection, and it seems more accidental than something that was actually of malicious intent, but we still recommending you use this at your own risk. The “update by email” method is still the safest, but this is a possibility as well. With other extensions out there like Start Google Plus, there’s really no reason to take the risk.

There isn’t a foolproof, one-step way to migrate your data, but this should help make the process quite a bit easier for you Google+ fans out there. Got any of your own migration tips to share? Let us know in the comments.

You can contact Whitson Gordon, the author of this post, at whitson@lifehacker.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.

 

Install & Activate Windows 10 Easily

windowsproductkey

Summary

Microsoft recently announced the first major update to Windows 10 which includes numerous improvements for end users and businesses. One of the welcome improvements is the compliance check when qualifying for the Windows 10 upgrade. Previously, Windows 7, Windows 8.0 and Windows 8.1 users needed to have either of those versions Windows installed and activated in order to qualify for the free upgrade offer. For persons who needed to perform a clean install of Windows 10 from the outset, it was a two step process of first validating the machine through the upgrade routine, ensure the Windows 10 Upgrade was activated, then proceed to perform a Reset. With the latest November Update (1511), users no longer have to go through this process. In this article, we take a look at how to install and activate Windows 10 using your Windows 7 or Windows 8 product key.

Details

For the purposes of this article, We are using a Windows 7 license to perform clean install using Windows 10.

Please note: The copy of Windows 10 you download must correspond with the edition of Windows you are licensed for:

  • Windows 7 Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Windows 8.0 Core, Windows 8.1 Core must use a Windows 10 Home ISO
  • Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows 8.0 Pro, Windows 8.1 Pro must use a Windows 10 Pro ISO
  • If you are using Windows 7 Enterprise, Windows 8.0 Enterprise, Windows 8.1 Enterprise editions you won’t be able to use the free upgrade offer.

Review complete instructions how to download the Windows 10 ISO in the following article:

How to download official Windows 10 ISO files

Review instructions here how to start a clean install if you desire, if you want to perform an upgrade, clickhere.

Have your Windows 7 or 8/8.1 product key ready. If you purchased a retail license, you can find the product key within the product box. The Windows 7 product key is normally found on an orange sticker attached to a pamphlet inside the box. The Windows 8/8.1 product key is found on a small business size card. See examples below. Please note, you can also use your OEM product key too if Windows came preinstalled on your computer.

Retail:

retail

Windows 8/8.1

windows-8

If your computer came preinstalled with an OEM version of Windows 7, look for the Certificate of Authenticity sticker attached to the chassis of your computer. Normally this can be at the side or top of the system unit. For laptops, look at the bottom of the chassis or inside the battery or memory compartment. It looks like the following:

productkey

If you are running an OEM preinstalled Windows 8/8.1 license, Windows 10 setup should automatically detect the product key and install it automatically.

With Windows 8, Microsoft had changed from stickers that have the product key that the user has to type in when installing the operating system to new BIOS embedded product keys. The idea is that by eliminating the sticker, you eliminate one of the easier ways for nefarious users to get a legitimate product key. Eliminating the product key sticker also removes any worry that the sticker might get damaged while at the same time eliminating the long and irritating process of typing in various letters and numbers when installing the operating system.

If the user has to reinstall the operating system on a machine that came with Windows 8, the installation process automatically grabs the software product key from the motherboard BIOS with no input from the user. This means that those familiar Windows product key stickers will no longer appear on the Windows 8 computers.

If you have lost your Windows product key, Microsoft recommends you purchase a new one. 

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/where-find-windows-product-key#where-find-windows-product-key=windows-7

You might be lucky by contacting Microsoft Support who might be sympathetic to your situation:
http://support2.microsoft.com/kb/326246/en-us

Contact the Microsoft store:
US: http://www.store.microsoft.com/Help/Contact-Us
1-877-696-77861-877-696-7786 FREE
Canada: https://www.microsoftstore.ca/shop/en-CA/Contact-Us

Microsoft Support Contact Information:
http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/?ws=support

General Microsoft contact site: http://support.microsoft.com/contactus#tab0

If you are prompted to enter a product key during Windows 10 setup (November Update aka 1511) from within a running version of Windows, your Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1 product key will not work. Instead, you should activate your Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1 first, then re-run Windows 10 setup. You will not be prompted to enter a product key.

windows10productkey

During Setup: If you are prompted to enter a product key when you boot from the Windows 10 setup installation media, click the option ‘I don’t have a product key’. Select the appropriate edition you are licensed for.

Windows 7 Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Windows 8.0 Core, Windows 8.1 Core will install Windows 10 Home ISO

  • Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows 8.0 Pro, Windows 8.1 Pro will installWindows 10 Pro ISO

setup

  • Out of Box Experience, if you are prompted for a product key, Click Do this Later.Complete the installationReview instructions how to activateHow to troubleshoot Product Activation in Windows 10windowstroubleshootSuppose you decide to reinstall Windows 7 or Windows 8?You can reinstall or restore a system image of your previous version of Windows and continue using it, this will not affect the validity of the license.If you continue to experience problems entering your product key:

    Click Start > Settings (press Windows key + i) > Update & security > Activation then click Change product key

    windowsupdatekey

    OR

    Press Windows key + X

    Click Command Prompt (Admin)

    At the command prompt, type the following commands:

    slmgr.vbs -ipk xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx (allows you to replace the current product key with the specified)

    xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx – represents your product key

    Hit Enter on your keyboard

    Exit the command prompt

    Restart your computer

    Wait a while and it should activate, if not, give it a few days.

Have questions?

Get answers from Microsofts Cloud Solutions Partner!
Call us at: 856-745-9990 or visit: https://southjerseytechies.net/

South Jersey Techies, LL C is a full Managed Web and Technology Services Company providing IT Services, Website Design Services, Server Support, Network Consulting, Internet Phones, Cloud Solutions Provider and much more. Contact for More Information.

To read this article in its entirety click here.

Access Control Panel in Windows 10

Microsoft is phasing out the traditional Control Panel with the Windows 10 Creators Update, but with a few tweaks you can still access it. Mark Kaelin explains how.

Microsoft has been slowly and methodically rolling out the Windows 10 Creators Update to customers throughout 2017. If you are one of the lucky ones to receive the update already, you have likely noticed more than a few changes to how Windows 10 looks and works. Some of the changes are good, some are a little annoying.

One of the changes Microsoft implemented in the Windows 10 Creators Update that I don’t like is the removal of the traditional Control Panel from the Win+X menu—that’s the menu you see displayed when you right-click the Start button from the Desktop interface (Figure A). Microsoft is migrating the interface for configuring the operating system to the new Settings screen, but some of us, especially IT pros who have been doing this for a long time, prefer the old Control Panel interface.

Figure A

Fortunately, the old Control Panel is still available; it is just lurking in the background. We can bring it back to the forefront with a few clicks, tweaks, and tricks, and this tutorial will show you how they work.

First, what you can’t do

The commands for the Win+X menu are located in this file folder, as shown in Figure B:

C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local|Microsoft\Windows\WinX

Figure B

But you can’t just add a shortcut to the Control Panel executable to one of those Group folders and expect to see it show up in the Win+X menu. The special links within the Win+X menu system are protected with a special hash calculation, which greatly complicates any attempt to edit its contents.

To add the Control Panel back to the Win+X menu you will have to use a link with the hash already included. In general, that means acquiring a link from a version of Windows that is not the Creators Update. It is possible with the help of a third-party app, but it is complicated, convoluted, and not really necessary.

If you want to go through the process, you can check out this website for the details. But before you do, I have some simple solutions that might work better for you.

Now, what you can and should do

For those of us who want to keep things simple, here are a couple of ways to access the traditional Control Panel in Microsoft Windows 10 Creators Update.

1. Search for it

Figure C

If you just want to access the control panel occasionally and not add more icons to your desktop, the simplest way to access the Control Panel is by typing control panel in the Cortana search box. Control Panel should be the first entry in the search results (Figure C). You can left-click the link to start the app or right-click it and add the link to the Start Menu or to your Taskbar for easy future access.

Adding the Control Panel to the Start Menu is handy if you are using a touch screen interface. Adding it to the Taskbar works well if you find yourself accessing configuration settings on a regular basis.

2. Add to Desktop

Figure D

There are two ways to add the Control Panel to your Desktop. The first way is fairly obvious: Right-click an empty area on your Desktop and create a new shortcut that points to the Control Panel executable located here:

C:\Windows\System32

But you can also add the Control Panel icon to your Desktop through the Personalization screen. Right-click the Start button to open the Win+X menu and click the Settings menu item. Click the Personalization icon to open the next screen and drill down to the Themes screen. Scroll down until you see the Desktop Icon Settings item under the Related Settings area and click it. A dialog box will pop open and you can check the Control Panel radio button to add that link to your Desktop (Figure D). Click OK and the icon will be added as a primary system link on your Desktop.

Have questions?

Get answers from Microsofts Cloud Solutions Partner!
Call us at: 856-745-9990 or visit: https://southjerseytechies.net/

South Jersey Techies, LL C is a full Managed Web and Technology Services Company providing IT Services, Website Design Services, Server Support, Network Consulting, Internet Phones, Cloud Solutions Provider and much more. Contact for More Information.

To read this article in its entirety click here.

Access Office 365 Compliance Manager

As more consumers grow disenchanted with Apple, Microsoft has taken the opportunity to cash in on the growing popularity of Surface devices.

Microsoft claims that more people are switching to Surface devices from Macs than ever before. That’s a concept that would have been hard to picture when Microsoft first released the Microsoft Surface RT and Surface Pro in 2012 and 2013, respectively. The Surface RT suffered from a watered-down version of the new — and generally disliked — Windows 8 operating system and, while the Surface Pro featured the full desktop version, it came with hardware limitations and a high price tag.

In a sea of clam shell notebooks, all vying to be thinner and lighter than the last, the Surface clumsily debuted as a confusing mashup of a tablet and a laptop. And people didn’t like it. RT users complained of the limited functionality and never-ending bugs, while Surface Pro users were forced to pay a high price just to avoid Windows RT. In fact, the Surface RT did so poorly that Microsoft had to take a $900 million dollar write-down after drastically cutting the price of the device.

The backlash even made some question whether or not we were witnessing the end of Microsoft. It might seem dramatic now in 2016, but in 2013, people really missed the Start menu. Instead, Microsoft listened to consumers’ complaints to find a balance between the company’s vision and what consumers wanted. And it worked — Microsoft has regained credibility and popularity by creating new products that didn’t simply mimic or improve upon what was already out there.

Apple’s identity crisis

For a company once targeting modern, creative professionals, it’s hard to tell who Apple makes products for anymore. Apple’s devices now feel tailored to a low-tech crowd, or people who like new tech, but just aren’t that interested in specs. They want a reliable, easy-to-use device that just works. But where does that leave the original fan base of creative workers who need high-performance and cutting edge features? Apple hasn’t left this industry with many options — and at this point, you can get more for your money in graphics and performance on a Surface Book than a Macbook Pro. Plus, with the newly announced Microsoft Studio, there is finally a strong alternative to the iMac — with a touch display, no less.

Apple’s compromise is the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, which features a dynamic touch bar replacing the row of function keys on the keyboard. The display changes depending on settings and the app you’re using; it’s a cool feature, and certainly useful, but it’s a confusing message. If the iPad Pro is competing with hybrid notebooks like the Surface Pro 4, but Apple doesn’t think people want touch-displays on a notebook, then does that make the iPad Pro a giant iPad?

Microsoft is focused on touch-based input — in fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find even a mid-ranged PC that doesn’t at least offer the option of an upgrade to a touch display. The two companies have taken different stances, but in siding with touch, Microsoft has more to offer in each of its devices. If you want a notebook that can sometimes be a tablet, or a tablet that can sometimes be a notebook, you can purchase just one device instead of two.

Microsoft has focused on developing a family of Surface devices that can suit a wide range of users. It starts with the lower-end Surface 3, which is a great device for anyone who just wants a computer to surf the web and use basic apps. The Surface Pro 4 acts as a step up in size and hardware, with configurations for anyone from light users to those who need more performance. And now, with the Surface Book and Surface Studio, even those who need the highest end configurations for heavy-duty video or image editing have an option.

The Surface in pop culture

Remember when Windows users were the boring, out of touch, suit-wearing nerds in commercials, and a Mac user was the hipster CEO of a startup — that guy in 2006 who wore hoodies and scootered to all his meetings? That landscape has changed a lot since then, and now Microsoft is the one calling out Apple on selling outdated hardware and falling behind the curve.

Microsoft has clearly made a push to get the Surface in front of consumers anyway possible — CNN commentators used the devices in this year’s debates, but it was later discovered they were using them to hide their iPads. Hulu’s The Mindy Project also features Mindy Kaling’s character using a Surface Book, with one very obvious instance of product marketing, where she very purposefully ejects the display from the keyboard. And what New Englander can forget when the Surface Pro 4 made headlines after Patriot’s coach, Bill Belichick, became so frustrated with the technology that he spiked it onto the field.

These might not be the most positive representations of the brand, but the visibility of the device seems to be working. In places where it used to be a sea of aluminum notebooks, featuring the familiar, backlit Apple logo, we’re starting to see some diversity.

Just as it wasn’t the end of Microsoft in 2013, it’s now Apple’s chance to step out of the spotlight and make some changes. But there’s nothing like a little healthy competition to help spark new, creative designs and that’s exactly what motivated Microsoft to step back, refocus and come back strong.

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How do I open an additional mailbox?

Description

This FAQ describes the steps you have to follow to open a second mailbox in Outlook. Before following the procedure, be sure you have the sufficient rights to see the e-mails in the additional mailbox. The additional mailbox must exist on an exchange server where you have access to.

Solution

1. Start Outlook (icon on the system tray).

or  Start > All Programs > Microsoft Office > Microsoft Office Outlook 2007.

2. Open the properties of the “Microsoft Exchange Server” Service. Tools > Account Settings … (The “E-mail Accounts Wizard” pop-up window appears).

3. Select ‘Microsoft Exchange‘ and press ‘Change…‘

4. On the ‘Microsoft Exchange Server Settings‘ tab, select ‘More Settings …‘

5. On the ‘Microsoft Exchange Server‘, add the additional mailbox select the ‘Advanced‘ tab.

In the section ‘Mailboxes‘, select ‘Add‘ (The “Add mailbox” pop-up window appears).
Fill in (part of) the name of the user who’s mailbox you want to open.
(If more then one name exist, a ‘Check Name‘ window appears from which you can choose the correct name.

6. Once the correct name is found, the name is listed in the list ‘Open these additional mailboxes’.

7. Click ‘OK‘, ‘Next‘ and ‘Finish‘ to close all windows.

8. The additional mailbox can be accessed through the ‘Folder List’.

Enable ‘Folder List’ view through View > Navigation Pane (ALT+F1).

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