Ramblings of an old Doc
DrJBHL's Articles In Personal Computing
March 4, 2024 by DrJBHL
Moment 5's now available for download. Neowin published a great guide at the external link above for W11 systems fulfilling MS's official requirements as well as those which don't. They also provided a link to explain M5's new features . When it comes to updates, I've learned to be shall we say...cautious. I'm not advocating "force updating" simply because I figure there will be many changes and "hiccups" before the mandatory update appears...and even then I tend to put things off a bit t...
February 17, 2024 by DrJBHL
For a deep dive into the expected changes to Windows 11, here's an excellent article sent to me by my trusty source Hankers of the Frozen North. Thanks, buddy. You've inspired me in many ways, and have been a great mentor. I expanded on your tip because of the appearance of subsequent additional important articles quoted here. The Windows 11's 24H2 Update will require hardware that supports POPCNT (SSE4.2 or SSE4a) . I remember predicting in a prior article regarding W12, just this kind ...
January 23, 2024 by DrJBHL
I wish I could say I'm surprised, but I can't. I don't know if it's true, but I expected this. Just like W11...which W12 will be, or 24H2, Hudson Valley or Next Valley...a rose by any other name.  New chip and RAM requirements. Apparently 16 GBs of RAM for your CoPilot, a new keyboard with a CoPilot key, Lunar Lake chips as Meteor Lake chips have too few operations per second for AI: "For reference, the current Intel Meteor Lake CPUs run at 34 TOPS, making them ineligible to power...
January 18, 2024 by DrJBHL
Hankers sent me a link...that's my "get busy, slacker" from the frozen north... It'd be well worth your while to check out the article, as this looks like the likely future 9since Panos Panay has departed) slated for September 2014 (grain of salt, here). Actually, Bowden's article at Windows Central was quite interesting and informative. "Unlike version 23H2 from last year, version 24H2 is expected to be a much larger OS update based on a new version of the Windows platform that brin...
September 9, 2023 by DrJBHL
Happy Saturday, all. I was checking out stuff to bore you with, and found the English translation an article which originally appeared in German on pcwelt.de (as you can tell from the screenshots which as jpegs or pngs weren't translated) with all these sundry proggies to help you when and if. After all, there's nothing like having the right hammer for that stubborn screw.     The article is well organized : TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Windows installation, updates, and...
August 28, 2023 by DrJBHL
Hi, folks. Meant to post this over the weekend, but other stuff came up and I forgot (hey, Giz made me a Charter Member of Club Al). So, here the tools are for your perusal:  https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-free-tools-fix-problem-windows-10/ Undoubtedly there are additional tools, and possibly better ones, but these are free and come recommended by MakeUseOf.com, a site that is pretty reliable, all in all. Feel free to add yours. There's also a link to antiviral/malware security sof...
June 30, 2023 by DrJBHL
  I saw this and thought I just have to write about it...then I looked up what Tom's hardware had to say. There's no question that this is a huge step forward, but it's specs are limited at the moment. Tom's hardware takes a more exacting look at this machine, and it's worth reading both the NoCamels (enthusiastic and less exacting) and the Tom's Hardware (realistic, if negative and a tad harsh) articles to get a balanced view. Specs: CPU Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 - Kryo ...
June 2, 2023 by DrJBHL
A spyware/malware module (Rilide -  designed to syphon off sensitive user data) has been inserted in several Android apps per the Tom's Guide article linked above.  These are the apps to remove if you have one or more: Noizz: video editor with music  - 100 million downloads Zapya - File Transfer, Share  - 100 million downloads vFly: video editor&video maker  - 50 million downloads MVBit - MV video status maker  - 50 million downloads Biugo - vid...
May 30, 2023 by DrJBHL
MS has made an announcement stating that AI (Windows Copilot) is to become part of their new OS, just like Edge and their Office apps (also to have their own AI assistants). You can read more at the article linked. I'm thinking maybe call it Clippy AI-nstein ? What could possibly go wrong?
May 19, 2023 by DrJBHL
For whatever reason, databases become corrupted. In Windows File Explorer, the thumbnails displayed are a convenient link to files you've been working on, recently. When the database becomes corrupted, these pictures display incorrectly. Hankers forwarded me the link to this article on Windows Central which describes 3 ways to fix the problem and recreate the information using the Disk Cleanup legacy tool and Command Prompt. Not going to scrape the article ( linked above ) which is...
May 18, 2023 by DrJBHL
Was cruising and saw this summary (on Neowin ) of what you can expect in W11's Moment 3. There appear to be some good changes, but as in the case of widgets, they don't go far enough: They sadly won't be enabled for use on the desktop.  There'll be more "Recommended for you" links stuck on the start menu, so get Stardock's Start11 , and remain the boss of your start menu. Head to the linked article for the article, and screenies...and have a good day, people!
May 3, 2023 by DrJBHL
Found a nifty, free utility which does just about everything paid utilities do, for free. It even has a light and dark theme. It's for use with W11.  I put together a composite of the available screens in the utility, below (numbered 1-6). As you can see, it offers quite a bit for a free utility, available in the Microsoft Store. I have to say, I'm impressed. You also have the possibility of changing the settings and offering feedback to the developer from inside each screen. &nb...
April 21, 2023 by DrJBHL
MS should never have changed W10's task bar in W11. The fact they did helped prevent me from transiting to W11 long before I did. The main reasons I did adopt W11 was WB11 and Start11. It's time to make my manners with a large "Thank you, Brad and Stardock!". Now, something more personal. It was this month, 21 years ago that I joined as a member. I've never regretted that decision. My life and desktop have never been ordinary since. Which brings me to the second reason for this post:...
April 14, 2023 by DrJBHL
The new Winamp is here as a customizable (on your machine) streaming webservice with video, audio, fanzone... which you can read about here:  https://www.ghacks.net/2023/04/12/the-new-winamp-player-will-launch-on-april-13-2023/ So, you create an account, and download the player which has a very cool flat black look, and then discover that "the new Winamp player does not support integrating a local music library or online library of audio files to an account...This leaves a very s...
April 11, 2023 by DrJBHL
Another reason to get Start11: M$ is planning to advertise on the W11 start menu...as if it weren't crappy enough as it is. Even if Start11 can't rid us of their adverts, we can switch to the W10 or W7 menus.  from windowslatest   This first appeared in the optional March update, but will be in the April or May update as non-optional. For now, there's a way to shut it down via an optional toggle to Settings > Personalization > Start, so you can easily disable...