Comments by "MikaelKKarlsson" (@MikaelKKarlsson) on "Ask Leo!" channel.

  1. Great guide. With the way that Windows nags the user to start doing this and with the intentional vagueness, it has effectively become a trap for millions of users who think they have to start paying for a service. While also making file recovery harder in emergencies.
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  2. Just make sure you're not using a phone with Apple Intelligence or similar system wide feature. Or everything you send and receive can be considered an open book.
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  3. Like others have written, the system is likely to be fine for regular use for a long time. Some application vendors like Adobe might be fairly quick to stop supporting customers trying to install their applications on Windows 10, but most will keep on working like nothing happened for years. One big question for many could be the Steam game store client. Steam ended their support for Windows 8.1 about one year after Microsoft ended their support for Windows 8.1, but in this case it's also important to note that only a low percentage of machines were running Windows 8 by then. So far Windows 10 still makes up about 40% of the Steam customer base, which makes a huge difference.
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  4. Installed Zorin on my 1,5 year old laptop earlier this year, and was positively surprised that it found all the hardware. Tried it for a while as a regular user would and never had to touch the command line interface. A first for my experience with Linux. As a 99% Windows user I was very impressed. Reinstalled Windows on the same laptop. - Had to download the WiFi driver... (Now running Windows, Zorin, and testing other Linux flavors on a third partition.)
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  5. It's funny how people complain about Bill when he left the company(operatively) about two decades ago. Reminds me a little bit of McAfee. (RIP you crazy diamond)
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  6. My primary personal advice, never ever reply.
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  7. My favorite first backup tip is for the user to take a moment to figure out what files are really important. It can be much less than one might guess, and fit on a relatively inexpensive thumb drive. (then make it two) I have a lot of files myself and enjoy photography now and then. But only a low percentage of it all is actually that important.
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  8. It was many years ago, but I dropped Dropbox when they promised not to give access to your files to third parties but were doing so. Now One Drive system integration has just been horrible so I could never use that either. I'm sure Dropbox is superior in practice.
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  9. To improve the lifespan of todays Li-Po and Li-Ion batteries, avoid primarily having it discharge completely if you can avoid it. Some laptops come with the optional functionality to also keep the charge from ever reaching 100, which is also not ideal. Without that function built in though, it's not really a practical goal to aim for by manually unplugging the charger. Just avoid the complete discharge situation. If you're putting away a device, storing it with a charge around 50-60% would be a good target. Never actually "excercise" modern batteries.
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  10. I have 788 days left on my subscription, and am not worried for my own self as a very average citizen without any ties to anything really. I've been giving most major security companies a shot but often returned to Kaspersky after a year or two. And ironically the free edition of Kaspersky is one of the only free alternatives I would consider. As a general advice to consumers looking for something else than Kaspersky I would suggest Bitdefender, preferably the paid version. Now if I were working in a government organisation, or a major public service company, then that would be a totally different assessment to be made. In such a sitiation I probably wouldn't want to put my faith in any similar software to be frank, but lock down the systems so thoroughly that the average user couldn't run anything that is not already whitelisted. And yes if the operating system is Windows then by all means let Microsoft Defender do its thing. It's not like they couldn't potentially push bad code onto you whether you use Defender or not...
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  11. Trying Zorin OS on my laptop that came with Windows 11. Other than having to turn off "secure boot" in the BIOS, everything just worked after installation. Haven't even had to touch the command terminal for anything so far.
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  12. I didn't plan to but by the looks of it I'll stay on 10 for my main computer until '25. While 11 does well enough on my laptop, there's nothing in it that I find to be an improvement. And under the hood 10 and 11 are almost identical. Let's see if Windows 12 becomes something more than a "Windows 10.2". ;-)
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  13. Yes but no. Be concerned for future changes, but hardly any system available right now can even try the Recall feature out.
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  14. I'm afraid that your destiny is to make a yearly video covering how to safely and completely get rid of Onedrive after having been fully caught in its web. Because Microsoft will never improve. 😢
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  15.  @azuremanman1418  keep blocking, never respond.
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  16. - It's a trap!
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  17. I can imagine a scenario where doing precisely what the customer asked for could lead to this result. It is of course in the interest of an experienced service shop to help people beyond what they may initially request, but that could also necessitate a bill that the customer perhaps already expressed a clear disinterest in. Doing extra work for free makes for a short lived business. Backup indeed, it's usually quick and inexpensive. Many just have to be hit with a minor disaster before they take it seriously.
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  18. So that software companies can keep track of your computer better. Well not yet but soon, as companies like Adobe are interested using it to secure their software from your grubby mits after you paid for it.
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  19. It's also so much faster to "make ready" for a basic user to start using the system. With Windows 11 there's so much to clean up and adjust so that the user isn't hindered by things getting in their way.
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  20. (I read books, and I know things.) - I look up information, and learn something new almost every day.
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  21. Block/ignore at the first sign, don't analyse or try to figure out a "solution" that involves the other party. Any response is likely to feed the behavior in the long term, even if you get it to quiet down for now.
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  22. There is certainly no hurry. People have been freaking out for almost half a year already, for no real reason.
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  23. Yeah at least the typical desktop computer is definitely best to turn off.
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  24. That CPU is unlucky to be on precisely the wrong side of the official support divider. I'd stick with Windows 10 for two more years on that machine, and if it's still running well enough you could always try the method mentioned in the video. It's also likely that Windows 12 or something similarly named will also be out by then.
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  25. Twitter has never been more fun. Will ride it into the sunset. Like most people I never needed it in the first place. Sad for the staff though, but they knew it was coming with the new "leadership".
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  26. Have used Autoruns thousands of times from back when it first came out some fifteen years ago. Helped old systems speed up a bit and thwarted lots of malware. Just don't go disabling things by mere chance.😊
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  27. I meet/assist "senior" computer users almost daily, and am often amazed at how clear and genuinely interested some remain at 80 and beyond. Well above the ability and curiosity of many others in their 40's. Never grow bored.
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  28. If memory runs out and there's no paging file available, software can start to misbehave. With 12 GB of RAM i normally wouldn't change this setting. Agreeing with Leo here, that most systems should stay with the default settings.
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  29. Yeah it's only 5GB nowadays. Google gives 15GB of space, shared between their different services like docs or mail.
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  30. It has become more common for systems to not have a recovery image anymore, partly because of the restore functionality built into Windows. Which works very differently.
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  31. Some motherboards have a dedicated TPM conector. But most CPU's that don't already have TPM 2.0 included are likely too old for other reasons, according to Microsoft.
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  32. I wish the operating systems came with a few instructional guides like this one. I see so many regular users who struggle with the basics, making it hard to instruct them on more complicated topics. I also have a feeling that even people working on UX design at Microsoft don't always know all of this.
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  33. Kaspersky could have done differently, but weren't obligated to do anything under the circumstances.
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  34. It can be complicated, but I wish a lot of people would stop regarding wireless as anything mysterious or borderline magical. At its core the technology is not that different than what we used for Television broadcasts some seventy years ago. Iteratively developed many times over and with both new abilities and limitations, yet not esentially anything completely new.
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  35. In some cases the pre-installed Windows can include drivers and other software that is necessary for some extra features, that the particular machine comes with, to function as intended. Such drivers might have to be looked up and installed manually after a regular Windows installation.
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  36. Reinstalling a machine can be a good idea in so many cases, so when in doubt... Just a friendly note to people who for whatever reason end up helping someone in this kind of situation. Keep it simple and state that all you will do is cleaning out the system with a fresh install. Don't wage in on the likelihood of the system being compromised unless you are really sure. Chances are (and to my experience quite high) that the problem is imagined, perhaps out of ignorance or a general feeling of insecurity(which is a perfectly valid reason to be careful), but possibly made up as a way to reinforce their belief of self importance. At worst they might be looking for you to reinforce their imagined situation, or even use you against a third party. Be clear of the limits of what you are going to do; do just that, then hand the system over to them in as default state as possible.
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  37. CCleaner is a good reminder of how applications that are allowed to update themselves can be a security problem. They once served virus code to users that way when their update system was briefly compromised. (which Microsoft Defender didn't catch either, of course)
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  38. Windows 11 becomes less disappointing the more you get used to the disappointment. (or you could install Windows 10, it's "fine")
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  39. And if you like myself and millions of other PC users are mostly running Windows because you have to, try Windows 10 even if your computer came with Windows 11. It's a less user-hostile environment and is likely to remain the nicer choice even a full year from now.
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  40. Tip: If you are forced to use some old equipment from the ISP like a cable modem/router that no longer recieves security updates; you can limit the risk by turning off its Wi-Fi (if any) and install your own router or access point after it. (don't connect anything else to the first modem) At least make sure not to leave any outdated (by years) router's Wi-Fi running.
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  41. Have tried a handful of different major VPN services over the last several years, and Proton VPN was my most recent pick because of the nice application. That it was possible to try for free with the same app certainly helped, especially since the paid service is a bit more pricey than others. For comparison NordVPN performance was also great, but its software expects to be turned on all the time. Which is not necessarily the way one might want to use a VPN.
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  42. For most consumer laptops it is often not too complicated to replace the battery, and guides can often be found on websites or even here on youtube. Availability and the cost of a new battery depends a lot on the model though, as with any kind of spare parts.
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  43. Then again nothing lower than USB3 is sold today when it comes to external harddrives. 😉
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  44. The BIOS boot settings always decide the boot order.
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  45. The USB Power Delivery(PD 3.0 and newer) standard is a godsend, but there's always the transition period until everything you have is compatible. And it still makes sense for low power devices to stick with ye-olde 5V 0.5A standard, as the components are inexpensive and relatively rugged.
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  46. People just aren't used to thinking in any scientific manner. Then again to my experience, quite often they're only looking for reassurance; preferably good news even if they understand that it's not realistically so.
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  47. As a business user I'd consider them, but as a home user it's a given pass. It's also naturally okay for a software company to make this kind of pivot, like perhaps after all their customer base was already mostly business.
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  48. Have had huge problems with false positives using web Outlook at work, with even replies to ongoing mail threads being flagged as junk out of the blue. I've never encountered that kind of misfiring behavior before and it's been like that for at least six months. I'd have left the service if it was up to me.
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  49. - But I never had a password. My "favorite".
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  50. Can also save some battery consumption on the mobile devices, when they don't have to wait for the occasional burst of data to come through. Also a great result from such a small out of the way extender with that RE220. It can often be easy to end up with bulky solutions, something one defintely don't want when camping.
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