Software

Eric's HP laptop is now suddenly freezing up after booting up. Leo suspects it isn't a hardware issue, but something is choking the boot up after the BIOS gets loaded. It's choking late in the process of loading Windows 7. Try rebooting into Safe Mode. Tap the f8 key repeatedly until safe mode loads up. This will load up the minimum configuration. Try Safe Mode with Networking and see if it works. If it does, that could point to a bad driver that's causing the issue. And that's an easy thing to fix.

Joe has Windows 10 and it says he needs a key. He's seen one at "MercoSoft" that's cheaper. Why is that? Leo says he suspects that "MercoSoft" isn't really legit and might be selling the same key over and over again. Or they're an OEM key. And you can bet it won't work. It's also technically a violation of Windows terms of service. So avoid that.

John is getting a warning that his version of Windows 10 is nearing its end of service and he needs to update to the latest version. But when he tries that, it then says his PC isn't supported for the latest version. So now what does he do? Leo says that is the most annoying issue, where Microsoft infers that users have to buy a new computer because Windows 10 will stop be supported for the hardware. It's a very hostile way to act towards users.

Jack is going to be moving to the Philippines soon, and he wants to know if Linux will be able to share the same computer with separate logins. Leo says that Linux actually invented the concept of a multi-user computer with individual accounts. So they've been doing that long before Microsoft did.

Can Linux run Microsoft Office? Linux can also run Microsoft Office by using an app called WINE, but Leo says it's much easier to use the online version of Office. It's pretty much the same.