A1 Computer Repair

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windows upgrade

Windows 11 Update, how to upgrade your computer

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How we update Windows 10 to Windows 11. There are a couple of methods but this is the method we use for all Windows upgrades here in our shop.

How to update to Windows 11
How to update to Windows 11

How to update to Windows 11

You will need a good internet connection and a bank 8GB USB drive or larger. If you are upgrading a laptop, make sure it is plugged in and not running on battery only.

Download Windows 11 and select Create Windows 11 Installation Media

Plug your blank USB into your computer and then click on the Windows 11 installer and select create a USB installer. This will take a while, just follow the instruction, they are self-explanatory.

In the shop, we perform a full tuneup and a full backup prior to updating to Windows 11 but since you probably will not have the equipment for that you need to at least uninstall old programs you no longer use and optimize your hard drives, and backup your computer.

Now to perform your Windows 11 update, after creating your backup, reboot your computer and plug in your Windows 11 installer USB. Click on the setup.exe like the image below.

Windows 11 USB installer
Windows 11 USB Installer

Now just follow the USB installer directions and your Windows 10 computer will be updated to Windows 11.

Is the Windows 10 Upgrade Right for You?

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As you might have seen down in your system tray, the area by your clock… a little Windows 8 looking icon. If you click on it, it’s a Windows 10 upgrade window asking you to register to be on the list for the upgrade on July 29th or after.

Windows 10 Upgrade

If you register, it will be downloaded to your computer when it’s released. If and when you chose to install it is up to you. If you chose to install it, please read my notes below as upgrading can change your computer completely and you need to know what can happen.

If you have Windows 7 and are completely happy with how your system runs right now, there is no need to do a windows 10 upgrade and you can ignore this message. Which is recommended for business computers.

Technicians are already preparing for what can happen to your computer, before and after the windows 10 upgrade.

Possible Windows 10 Upgrade Issues

Here is a list of issues to be ready for.

  • The upgrade, as with any software upgrade could not install correctly and leave your computer in a state of not functioning. Meaning, that you cannot log in, cannot boot to Windows, or view your monitor (graphic issues from drivers malfunctioning, etc.). As we do not know what can happen, we recommend you be prepared for the worse.
  • The upgrade might install just fine but leave you with no programs or any of your current settings.
  • The upgrade might install just fine and you might have all of your programs and settings, but your drivers for your printers, webcams, scanners, etc. might not work.
  • The upgrade might install correctly and everything seems to work, but some of your critical business software might not work correctly.
  • Before doing any upgrade, have all of your installation disks ready in case you need to reinstall programs.
  • Be sure to have all of your online software subscriptions and passwords ready in case you need to reinstall them.

Tips from Techs

  • Do not download and install the windows 10 upgrade on the very first day you have it available.
  • We recommend waiting it out until the bugs are figured out.

If you own a business, you should have the following done on your computer prior to any upgrades:

  • Full system image of your computer (this will allow a full restore to before the upgrade, including operating system, programs, setting,s and data). If the Windows 10 upgrade goes bad or you dislike it, you can go back in time.
  • If you don’t opt for full system image, at least have a good backup of your current data before any upgrade. There is no promise that an upgrade will keep your data!

If you are a home user, we still recommend the full system image, but due to cost… many home users just want their data backed up. But considering how many home users have custom software for their music, videos, and games, it’s worth a full system image.

If you feel you need help, please contact us at A1 Computer Repair at (530) 903-8838. We can help you remotely set up a software program to do a full system image. You will need an external hard drive for this installation.

This article was reprinted with permission from Call That Girl Tech Support & Office 365 Consulting.

Why Is My Computer SO Slow to Start Up?

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“Why is my computer SO slow to start up?” It happens to most of us–you go to start work on an urgent email, or finish that document you really need to print, or finally edit that photo of the kids–and five minutes later after you started your system, the computer STILL isn’t ready!

It’s extremely frustrating, but there are things that can help. The first culprit that we usually see impeding start-up time is malware infection. These insidious bits of software do everything they can to take over processing priority, and you’ll especially notice the performance hit at start-up.

Another common culprit is simply too many (legitimate) programs stampeding to load at a start-up, unbeknownst to you. These are the programs that load in the system tray by default, and 90% of them–especially non-Microsoft processes–don’t really need to load at start-up, though they set themselves to do that. Finally, one of the more common culprits is low RAM.

Many computers ship with the bare minimum needed to run Windows (this keeps the price enticingly low at the store), but does not exactly make them perform well on a daily basis in practice. It is fairly inexpensive to upgrade the RAM in your system.

That said, if you REALLY want to speed things up, you can choose to switch out your hard drive for the newest variety, an SSD hard drive. These hard drives have no moving parts and are super-fast. We have these installed in almost all our computers at home.

On our big rig, this change alone changed the boot time from almost seven minutes to less than 30 seconds. They are smaller and somewhat more expensive than traditional drives, but if these trade-offs are worth it to you, the speed you will enjoy is quite nice.

So if your computer is slower than molasses on a cold day, We can fix this! Just let us know.

Office 365 Small Businesses Plans Now Available

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Microsoft today announced a raft of new Office 365 plans for smaller businesses that will eventually supplant its extant offerings.

Office 365 Small Businesses Plans Now Available

The company is lowering the price of its most expensive smaller business offering — from $15 per seat per month to $12.50 — and raising the employee cap in some cases to 300 from 25. Microsoft has preserved a $5 per seat per month Office 365 option that includes its cloud products,  but not desktop versions of Office proper.

The moves are customer-friendly because we are in a period of intense competition. Microsoft wants to bring people in from the cold of their past multi-year software buying cycles, while also shepherding smaller companies and businesses into its fold by selling them Office as a service at moderate price points.

Google, Apple, Dropbox, and Box want that same action. Far more than a trillion dollars in market cap is fighting for the right to store your files and help you edit them. Those firms would very much prefer if Office 365 were a flop.

Here are the new plans, via Microsoft:

Office 365 Business – The full Office applications – Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Publisher, with 1TB of OneDrive for Business cloud storage to access, edit and share your documents across your Windows PC, Mac, iPad, Windows tablet and smartphone.

Office 365 Business Essentials – The core cloud services for running your business – business-class email and calendaring, Office Online, online meetings, IM, video conferencing, cloud storage and file sharing, and much more.

Office 365 Business Premium – Get everything from both the Office 365 Business and Business Essentials plans.

The new options will go live on October 1.

Office 365 is becoming Microsoft’s Amazon Prime: A solution you pay for yearly that contains a kitchen-sink-like quantity of this and that. Microsoft, like Amazon, isn’t afraid of mixing in a slurry of services. If only Office 365 were as aptly named as Prime

via New Microsoft Office 365 Plans For Small Businesses.

End Of Free Windows 7 Support Coming Soon

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Microsoft is warning customers that the end is soon coming for free Windows 7 support. Microsoft will end free mainstream support for Windows 7 on January 13, 2015.

End Of Free Windows 7 Support Coming Soon

This covers all versions of Windows 7, Mary Jo Foley points out.

The end of support generally means no more updated features or performance improvements, unless you are covered by extra “extended support.”

UPDATED: Microsoft has promised to provide security patches even after it ends mainstream support, through 2020. What is ending is design changes, warranty claims, and no-charge incident support.

This move will mostly affect consumers. Businesses that pay for extended support for Windows 7, as most of them do, will get all updates for another five years, until January 14, 2020.

That’s important because many businesses are right now in the process of upgrading their old Windows XP PCs, but they’re moving to Windows 7, not Windows 8.

There’s some speculation that, given the popularity of Windows 7, Microsoft might change its mind as the date nears and continue to support it a bit longer as it did for Windows XP. All told, Microsoft supported XP for about 13 years.

That kind of extension doesn’t seem likely at this point. Remember, Windows 8 basically includes a full version of Windows 7, called Desktop mode. With Windows 8.1, it’s possible to run a Windows 8 machine in Desktop mode and almost avoid the new-and-confusing Windows 8 part of the OS.

And Microsoft really needs to nudge consumers into buying Windows 8 machines. More Windows 8 machines mean more developers will want to write software for Windows 8, which will make more people want to buy it.

By the way, Microsoft also set the end-of-life of mainstream support for Windows 8 (including the latest version, Windows 8.1), for January 9, 2018.

This is another hint that Microsoft should have its next version of Windows ready in 2015, code-named “Threshold” (sometimes referred to as Windows 9).

If Microsoft plays its cards right, Windows 9 will be to the unloved Windows 8 what Windows 7 was to Vista, which InfoWorld ranked No. 2 on its list of the 25 biggest tech flops (also PCWorld’s “Biggest Tech Disappointment” of 2007.)

Here’s the chart from Microsoft’s Lifecycle Support page.

Eset Tool to Create a Bootable Antivirus Rescue key

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ESET SysRescue Live Creator is a handy tool for creating a bootable antivirus rescue CD or USB key.

Create a Bootable Antivirus Rescue CD or USB key

There’s no shortage of competition in this area, of course, but Live Creator has one or two useful touches that you might appreciate.

This starts with the download itself. There’s no bulky ISO here, just a single 8.8MB executable that is ready to run whenever you like.

The program opens with a simple wizard, asking if you’d like to create a bootable CD or USB key. Conveniently, there’s also an option to use a previously downloaded ISO image. (We wondered if this could work with any ISO, as a general way to create bootable USB’s, but sadly not. It’s strictly ESET-only.)

ESET SysRescue Live Creator then downloads its bootable image (a 324MB ISO), and prepares your CD or USB immediately afterward. In another thoughtful touch, you’re given an option to create another CD/ USB or save the ISO for reuse later.

Booting ESET’s rescue environment reveals more welcome extras in tools to check your RAM and system drive for defects. Hardware issues can cause odd malware-like problems, so it’s worth trying these if you can’t find anything else.

The ESET SysRescue tool is the real star here, of course, and it has more options than some similar tools. You’re able to download the latest virus signatures and check your system with various scan types. The core antivirus engine gets mixed results with the independent labs — AVTEST’s April results found it had an above-average 100 percent detection rate for known threats, a below-par 93 percent for zero-day attacks — but there’s more than enough power here to be useful.

When it’s all done, you can keep the USB key around for reuse later. But if you need it for something else, ESET SysRescue Live Creator is also able to wipe the drive in seconds. Just connect the drive, start the program again and click “Erase existing SysRescue USB”: another useful feature that you won’t always find elsewhere.

Article Originally from: http://betanews.com