Software

Chris wants to know if he uses the professional version of Microsoft 365 at home, can his company see what he does? Leo says only if you use the corporate One Drive. Courts have upheld that if you use company resources, they have every right to look at your data without warning. So they can spy on you. So it's always best to keep your personal and business stuff separate. So it's wise to use a personal version of Office, just to be sure. Or go with Google Docs or an open source office like Libre Office.

Jerry helps seniors update to Windows 10, but he runs into trouble when he goes to multiple computers. Leo says as long as they have a serial number, they should be able to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10. It will authenticate the computer based on the serial number. Jerry says to go to this link to download and update - https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=799445.

Charlie has a Microsoft Surface Pro 6 and got a notice this week for the Windows 1903 update. But he found an issue with it after it updated. It won't restart. It just spins. He tried several solutions online, and it didn't work. Leo says to try Windows +R to go into restore mode. If there's no important data on the machine, Leo recommends going to another computer and download the Windows Media Creation tool. Create a USB key and reinstall to the surface. He may need to go into the BIOS to get it to boot to the USB key. But reinstalling Windows is the solution.

Chris is having trouble loading his Windows profile as he logs into his Windows 7 computer. He worries he's been hacked. Leo says that more likely, it's a flakey hard drive that's preventing the data from being read. Windows 7 is now over 10 years old and if he hasn't changed that hard drive in that amount of time, it's likely a bad hard drive. Boot into safe mode and see if the profile can load. If he can, then he may just have a corrupt profile. In all likelihood though, it's a bad hard drive that's about to die. But Chris has another problem.