Windows

Harry is looking to upgrade from his 7 year old computer and is thinking of an all-in-one, perhaps from Dell or HP. He wants one with a big monitor. Leo says it depends on his budget, but under $900 would be good. Could he get an iMac for that? Leo says no, $1,299 is the floor. Anything under that is likely an old model. How about Lenovo? Leo says all three of them make excellent machines. Leo has been thrilled with HP since they spun off the computer division.

John wants to know if he can reactivate Windows after replacing the Motherboard. Leo says he probably can. He'll just have to contact Microsoft and tell them what he's had to replace, and they will understand and authenticate. If he replaced more than half the computer, they may take issue. But with just replacing the motherboard, he should be able to get it authenticated. Windows may reject him when he tries, but then he can just contact Microsoft.

Frank has been using the same password for years and now suddenly the password won't work on his Windows Surface. Could the hard drive be going out? Leo says that it's more likely a keyboard issue. He should check the CAPS lock, SCROLL lock and NUM lock to make sure they aren't enabled. Another thing to do is enable the feature that will allow him to see his password as he types it.

Jerry is a long time Mac user and he's going back to school for Aerospace engineering. Now he has to get a Windows machine. What's the best for him? Linux? Leo says he'll most likely need Windows. He should get recommendations from his teachers, but most of the stuff he'll need is on Windows. It's pretty solid and rather "Mac-ish." The biggest differences are relatively insignificant.

Don recently upgraded his Windows laptop to Windows 10 and he's regretting it. There's a popup keyboard that he can't get rid of. Leo says that the computer thinks it's a tablet and is in tablet mode. All he needs to do is go into his settings and disable tablet mode. He can disable it permanently, too.

Victor has an external drive which shows up as a drive, but Windows doesn't read it. Leo says to right click on the start button and select "Disk Management." It may be that the drive isn't formatted or partitioned properly.

Hugo got the Windows Anniversary update and he finds that the PC runs at 100% all the time and that it runs hotter. Leo says that has been a common problem for many users, and once you've upgraded to a new OS from an old OS, it may inherit some issues. Leo advises using Microsoft's Media Creation tool and backup his data, format his hard drive and reinstall Windows using the Windows Install he just created. That'll definitely fix it. He can think of it as Spring cleaning. There could also be some bugs in it that is causing some services to run even after he's closed a program out.

Kirk created an administrator password and has forgotten it. Leo says that if he created it with his Microsoft account, he can recover it. But if he didn't, then there are ways to crack a Windows 10 login. He can use OphCrack or ConBoot to get around it. Here's a few articles to can show him how:

Bernie has a laptop running Windows XP and use it to run software needed for his shop. He is worried because Microsoft has stopped supporting Windows XP and its respecting software. Leo says that XP isn't being updated either and if you have to be online, not having Windows Defender and Security Essentials is the least of your problems. There currently no new malware for Windows XP but the safest course of action would be to stay off line on that machine completely. The best option is to run Windows XP in Virtual Machine on a more recent laptop running newer versions of Windows.