Transferring Contacts between Android phones

We recently attended a trouble call, where the customer had bought a new Android phone and had correctly joined it to her Google account. She complained that many of her old phone contacts had not populated the contact list on her new phone. Understandably, she was very worried that she had lost many of her …

Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2016 and Office 365 clashing

We recently attended a trouble call, where the customer could not run a new installation of Microsoft Office 365 successfully. She had recently uninstalled an older business version of Office, called “Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2016”, that had been retired as the company had gone out of business. However, when she tried to run Microsoft …

Synchronising S Planner calendars between Android phones

We were recently called to a customer’s home who operates an events organising business, to solve the problem about why a calendar event that she had created in the “S Planner” calendar on one of her Android phones, was not synchronising to her other phone; or showing up on her computer Google calendar, which is …

Gmail creation date

When you create a new Gmail account, you will be sent a congratulatory email from Google confirming that your account has been successfully set up. It is vital that you do not delete this email. Please record the exact date and time that this email was sent to you and if possible, forward this welcome …

Ctrl z safety net

We have a customer that tells us that when she is writing a long email using the Windows 10 mail app, all of a sudden the text disappears. This has happened on a few occasions and upsets her unnecessarily since she is elderly and all of her hard work that has taken a great deal …

Updating Windows 10 on a notebook with small storage drive

In a previous blog post, I detailed how to upgrade to Windows 10 from a previous OS (Operating System) on a notebook with a small storage drive. This procedure required the use of an external USB drive of at least 16GB. In a new development, I was given another notebook that needed a Windows 10 …

“Task Host id stopping background tasks (Microsoft \ Windows \ Plug and Play \ Device Install Reboot required)”

We received a call from a customer complaining that their laptop wouldn’t reboot/shut down properly. He got the message. “Task Host id stopping background tasks (Microsoft \ Windows \ Plug and Play \ Device Install Reboot required)” He also experienced the trackpad/mouse behaving intermittently. He would left click something and it wouldn’t open. Rather than …

How to delete a single auto-complete entry in Microsoft Edge

I recently attended a trouble call where the customer was complaining that there were multiple auto-complete username entries in the various web forms using Microsoft Edge. She explained that she wanted to delete these obsolete entries. Previously, she had managed to delete ALL of the auto-complete entries but that was overkill. If you need to …

How to create a URL desktop shortcut using Microsoft Edge

An Internet address is known as a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) and you will be familiar with the ubiquitous “http:\\www.computrain.co.za” format of a URL. The URL is what you type into the address bar at top of your Internet website browser. If you are dealing with a secure website such as your bank, you will …

Windows 10 update failure

This morning, I received a panic call from a customer that had overnight, attempted to upgrade their laptop to the latest version of Windows 10. They told me that after they awoke, they discovered that their laptop was only showing a spinning circle at the bottom of the screen. First thing in this situation is …

Scareware

A couple of days ago I visited an innocuous website that had been hacked, albeit unbeknownst to me, by Internet cyber criminals. As soon as the website opened, I was greeted by both a webpage and Windows messenger message. The crooks had also activated my computer voice to read an ominous computer voice telling me that …

Upgrading a Windows 10 notebook with low storage space

I recently attended an interesting trouble call, about an upgrade problem of Windows 10. The customer had a Lenovo notebook with only a 32GB hard drive installed. This in itself, is not problem. However, after having the Windows 10 OS and a few other programmes installed, the hard drive has only 5GB of space left! …

Printer Wi-Fi Direct causing interference

Today we attended a customer that was having trouble connecting her new laptop wirelessly to her printer. The wireless setup was continuously failing because the software installation gave an error that it could not find the printer on the network. The client also complained that the Wi-Fi speed was varying wildly and was unreliable. Suspecting …

HP laptop restarting loop after Windows 10 upgrade

This morning I got a call from a customer who had tried to do an overnight online in-place upgrade from Windows 64bit OEM 7 Pro to Windows 10. They have a HP laptop i7/8GB RAM and when they checked their “confuser” this morning they discovered that it was stuck in a worrying restart loop! First …

How to share a post on facebook when there is no share button

Sometimes on facebook, you will see posts on your timeline which you would like to share. Unfortunately you see that there is no “share” button available that you can click on. This is caused by the writer of the post choosing to only share their post with “friends except” or that you are reading a …

Multi-task during a PowerPoint presentation

Whilst giving a PowerPoint presentation, have you ever needed to do some research on your computer or the Internet at the same time because you were asked a question but not wanted the delegates to view what you are doing? If projecting your presentation, the following method will allow your audience delegates to carry on …

Adding Beneficiarys as Online banking payees

We had a customer that reported that they were not able to make online payments to a certain payee using their Internet Online banking service. The payee also used the same bank as our customer. Upon visiting the customer’s home, we discovered that the payee had mistakenly given our customer their ATM card number and not their …

How to clone a HDD to SSD using EaseUS Todo Backup

As your computer’s HDD (Hard Disk Drive) ages, it is prudent to avail yourself of new storage technologies such as the SSD (Solid State Drive). You will notice a huge speed and permformance improvement when you swap to a SSD. As an example, our media server now boots up in half the time! To start …

Optical Mouse Problems

We received a call from a couple of customers saying that they were having problems with their Optical Mouse. One mouse was a wireless mouse that had stopped working and the other was a USB (Universal Serial Bus) cabled Optical mouse that was “acting weird”. Optical mice have replaced the old roller ball mice and rely …

Installing OS with two HDDs causes backup disk imaging problem

We were recently called to a customer’s home whom was having problems using the “create disk image” backup utility of their Windows 7 computer. When the utility looked for drives to backup the image to, the second internal HDD (Hard Disk Drive) was not shown under the “Where do you want to save the backup?” …

Laptop sleep mode warning

I’ve noticed lately,  that a lot of customer’s laptops that have come into the repair shop, are understandably using the default manufacturer’s setting to go to “sleep” after a certain amount of time. Unfortunately, the laptop is not smart enough to know that something crucial is being done such as installing a programme or doing an …

One of the files containing the system’s Registry data had to be recovered by use of log or alternate copy. The recovery was successful

  We had a customer call us about her laptop that had been ravaged by a virus. It had left certain important features of her Windows 7 Operating System, such as the “System Restore” function being inoperable. System Restore is a “safety net” which can get you out of a sticky situation should the need arise. …

We use and highly recommend ARM.it!

Comp-U-Train uses and highly recommends the ICT services of ARM.it here in Johannesburg, South Africa. ARM.it offers excellent value for money Internet data packages, as a bolt-on to your Telkom Internet service. Telkom provides and maintains the hardline infrastructure, that carries the Internet data signal to and from your home. An analogy is to think …

Google AdSense ads not showing

For some reason, the Google AdSense ads that normally appear on our website stopped being displayed. Please understand that every day that the ads don’t show, means less ad revenue being generated which affects our bottom line. It was therefore of paramount importance that I fix the issue. After following all of the troubleshooting procedures …

Cannot print from Internet Explorer

Yesterday we attended a customer’s home who was complaining about not being able to print from Internet Explorer 11 using Windows 7. Every time that they attempted to print, they were presented with an error saying “There was an internal error, and Internet Explorer is unable to print this document”. They could print from other …

Export Word document contacts table to Outlook 2013

Do you have a Microsoft Word document containing a table with contacts that you want to export to your Microsoft Outlook 2013 contacts? Open your Word document and click anywhere in the table and you will see “Table Tools” appear above the ribbon Click Layout on the far right of the ribbon. (Note, not “Page Layout”) Next, …

USB drive needs to be formatted

If you plug in your USB drive and get an error message that the disk is not formatted, don’t press the “Format disk” button! Don’t do it otherwise you’ll overwrite the FAT data or the data itself (depending on how you did the formatting). Instead, click Cancel. Take note of the drive letter of the …

HP laptop Wi-fi not working!

If you’re not able to connect to the Internet using the Wi-Fi connection on your HP laptop, despite the Wi-Fi light being on after pressing the fn+keyboard key, go into the “Windows Mobility Center” in Control Panel and make sure that the Wi-Fi connection is enabled there!      

Protect your computer with anti-malware software!

Here at Comp-U-Train, we can’t stress the importance of installing anti-malware software on your PC. The term “Malware” is a portmanteau of “Malicious Software” and includes virus’; Trojans and keyloggers. The latest type of malware to attack is called “Ransomware” and is so named because it holds the victim to ransom. As an example, below is …

Samsung Kies software hangs backing up Apps

If you’re having problems backing up your Samsung S4 apps when using the Samsung Kies software because the programme keeps hanging at that point, try clearing the app cache for each app. You can access this by clicking each app in the “Applications manager” and pressing the “Clear cache” button. Don’t press the “Clear data” …

Pivot Tables

Pivot Tables These are confusing to most people. I would like to clear up this confusion and give you some tips on creating a simple, user-friendly Pivot Table. These tables allow us to organise large amounts of data into a table that we can then Filter as well as many other features. First of all …

Can’t update Internet Explorer v6 to v8 in XP SP3

Today we had a curious tech support call from a customer. As Microsoft will soon be discontinuing all support for the XP OS (Operating System) from April 8th, 2014, they wanted to upgrade the Internet Explorer browser version 6 to version 8 which is the most secure. Unfortunately, every time they tried to install v8, …

XP computer BSOD with fssfltr_tdi.sys error

Yesterday we received a trouble-call from an anxious customer telling us that they could not boot their XPHome computer as it was stuck in a boot-loop. It was continually showing a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) and then rebooting. Upon arrival at the customer’s home, we witnessed the same action. On inspection of the BSOD, …

Windows update KB2804579 fails to install

If you are unable to install Windows Update 2804579 then please read the following: Try the easiest thing first by typing “msconfig” (without quotes) at the start>run “open” field. Choose the middle selection “Diagnostic Startup” and press the OK button. Now try downloading the update. If the update still fails, then please follow this procedure” …

Internet Explorer 8 running slow

If anyone is using Microsoft XP with Internet Explorer 8 and experiencing slow window scrolling together with hard drive thrashing (hard drive light staying on); especially when viewing javascrpt rich websites like FB, then Google has a free plug-in. This is a replacement javascript engine which speeds up the webpage rendering significantly. It’s called “Google …

Microsoft services needed to run Wi-Fi

As part of computer troubleshooting, if you need to know which Microsoft “Services” are required to run a Wi-Fi connection, please enable the following Services: DHCP Client Event Log Network Connections Plug n Play Remote Call Procedure Wireless Zero Configuration These Services can be accessed by typing “msconfig” (without quotes) at the start>run prompt and choosing …

Find WordPress page ID number

If you need to see the page ID number and are using Internet Explorer, turn on the “Status Bar” from the View>Toolbars pull-down menu. Now log in to your WordPress admin page and view your “pages”. Then position your cursor over each page’s name and the page ID will be shown in the page’s slug …

Play Flash “.flv” files in Windows Media Player

If you want a quick and dirty way to play Adobe’s Flash “.flv” files that you’ve downloaded from the web, simply rename the extension from .flv to .wmv When you now double-click this same file you’ll be able to watch it in Windows Media Player!

Windows 7 Show Desktop

Windows XP had a very useful icon in the “Quick Launch” Toolbar that let you quickly show the desktop rather than being faced with the chore of closing/minimising open windows. Windows 7 has the same feature but it located at the bottom right hand corner of your screen. To show the desktop click on the horizontal …

Add XP network icon data lights to Windows 7

Are you using Windows 7 and miss the XP or Vista network icon data lights that were in the bottom right hand corner system tray? These lights would flash to show you when you were uploading or downloading something. If so, you can download a free app which will restore this functionality from here: http://www.itsamples.com/network-activity-indicator.html …

ADSL speed slow and no dial tone

We stopped by a customer’s home recently who was complaining that their ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) broadband connection was slow and unreliable. When visiting webpages, they would receive a time-out message. They also complained that they intermittently had no dial-tone when picking up the telephone handset. This also resulted in people who were calling the …

“Java” icon missing from Control Panel

We received a call yesterday from a customer saying that the “Java” icon was missing in the Control Panel of their XP computer. The customer told us that this problem seemed to happen after upgrading the version of Java that was on their computer. We concluded that there was a corruption that happened during the …

When was my computer born?

If you want to find out when your Windows computer was “born”, open a “DOS” (Disc Operating System) box by typing cmd in the start/Run field or in Windows 7 at the start search field. A black box will appear and next to the flashing cursor, type the below text exactly and press the Enter key:   systeminfo|find …

How to disable Acer Empowering Technology toolbar

We had a customer who called us complaining that their new Acer laptop would show the “Acer Empowering Technology” toolbar on the desktop every time they booted their computer. They didn’t like the way the toolbar cluttered up their desktop and were not happy that Acer had not asked for permission  to show this toolbar nor offered …

BBC.co.uk videos shows black flash screen

We recently had an interesting problem that had us scratching our heads. A customer of ours has not been able to watch any streaming videos shown on the BBC.co.uk website on their Windows XP computer using Internet Explorer version 8. When they click on a video link they are presented with a black screen. There is also …

Windows Service Packs

According to Microsoft, a SP (Service Pack) is a “Windows update, often combining previously released updates, that helps make Windows more reliable. Service packs, can include security and performance improvements and support for new types of hardware”. Microsoft finishes by advising “Make sure you install the latest service pack to help keep Windows up to date.” …

What is a file extension?

We received an urgent call from a client who had been sent an image from a friend but they were not able to view the photograph. The customer told us that the image file was a white icon with a name and when they double clicked it an error message appeared asking what programme should …

What is a computer driver?

I have often been asked the question “what is a computer driver”? Computer hardware companies sell physical hardware for your computer which needs to be talked to by your computer’s OS (Operating System). The computer OS could be Windows XP; Vista or Windows 7. Together with your new hardware, the company will release a piece of …

Missing programs from add/remove programs

We just had a customer who was missing programs from add/remove programs. The customer had wanted to remove a particular anti-virus programme but couldn’t find the programme listed under the “Add or Remove programmes” tool in Control Panel. For some reason the entry had been removed. There was also no uninstaller for the Programme listed under the …

Backing up your computer files

“Backup, backup, backup!” is a mantra that I preach often as now, more often than not, precious computer files such as photographs; documents; videos or songs are stored on a computer hard drive and not periodically “backed up”. Because of digital photography, we have all gotten lazy and rely on our computers to store these valuable milestones, …

What does boot up your computer mean

Have you ever wondered why turning on your computer has coined the phrase “Boot Up” or what does boot up your computer mean? The explanation goes back to the days when folks wore boots as their normal foot attire and people remarked  to “pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” Bootstraps were the loops at the back of …

Improve your TV sound

My husband and I decided to buy a new LED backlit television for Christmas to replace our aging CRT TV. Unfortunately the sound quality of our new 32″ panel was poor in comparison to our old TV. In order to try to improve the sound quality, we did research on the new “Soundbars” that have …

Deleting Vista’s Windows Mail “Autofill” entries

Recently, we had a client who complained that when he typed a friend’s name into the “To” field of a new email, he saw entries for his friend’s old email address appear as well as the current correct email address. Even though he had deleted the obsolete address information from the contact list the deleted …

Disk or Disc?

Which terminology is correct: Hard “Disk” Drive (HDD) or Hard “Disc” Drive? Is it a compact “disk” or “disc”? The answer is that if light is used to read the data, then the correct word is “disc” as in Compact Disc or Digital Versatile/Video Disc (DVD). Your hard disk doesn’t use light to read the …

Phishing email

In the last few days, we have received two emails at Comp-U-Train purporting to be from ABSA bank. This email rang our alarm bells immediately as firstly we don’t bank with ABSA and secondly we recognised it as a typical “Phishing” email This email is a typical Phishing hoax and is a way to try to …