Tech Talk at ShieldsGroup

For a long time, I didn’t use OneDrive. I had a pretty big Dropbox, so I saw no value in it. So I somehow deactivated it — so that it didn’t even appear in my system tray. It was as though it had been uninstalled. How could I reinstall it?

However, when I had a recent technical difficulty with Dropbox, and saw how slow their support was, I realized I should have a backup cloud system in place.

But it appeared that OneDrive wasn’t working on my Windows 10 machine. I wanted to reinstall it, but it turns out you can’t. It’s part of Windows 10, so there’s no install / uninstall option.

And running OneDrive from the Search Bar on Windows didn’t help.

Finally, I solved it.

OneDrive came up and asked for my credentials and let me choose where to install the OneDrive folder.

Solved!

“My Lenovo Yoga doesn’t change its orientation or switch to tablet mode anymore! It stopped working like it used to! Windows broke it!” -Everybody

IF YOU’VE UPGRADED TO WINDOWS 10, the Lenovo Transition Application probably stopped working right. At best, Lenovo Transitions became glitchy, not changing the orientation when in the tablet mode or the tent mode. And when you closed the lid, it often didn’t wake up when reopened. So Lenovo Transitions was replaced with something called Lenovo Mode Control.

If you search around, you’ll find the new Mode Control Application from Lenovo. When you download and install the Mode Control Application, it will automatically remove the Transition Application.

However, when you install it, many users say the Mode Control Application causes their Yoga Pro 2 to slow down in the tent or tablet mode — so much so, that it becomes unusable.

This was my experience.

The solution is to open the Device Manager and update the DPTF drivers. DPTF stands for Dynamic Platform Thermal Framework.

It’s Intel’s way of keeping your unit from overheating, while allowing it to run as fast as possible.

I found these drivers under the System Devices Intel section on my unit.

Updating them relocated them within the Device Manager.

Just right-click each one and select update. Let it update from the internet.

Some users report that they had to update them twice. This was the case with one of the three on my system. It updated and then I rebooted and checked again, and it updated once more.

When I finished, it worked like a charm.

That got me to thinking, I wonder what other drivers need to be updated. So I went through my device manager, item by item, and probably made ten more updates.

If this helped you, the best way to say thanks is to share this post! THANKS!

Over the past few months, some volunteers at the church have told me that the computer they use is running slowly. Finally, one said that it would no longer print. When I looked at it, it said the hard drive was failing and it could not access the internet.

In about eight hours time, I took well over 1,000 pieces of malware off it.

The scariest part is that the malware included a DNS hijacker that, when you try to go to a website, would take you somewhere else. It might take you to a ad-laden version of that site or to a web page specifically designed to steal user information.

I removed about 10 items — things I could see in the “Add Remove Programs” section of the control panel.

I then ran some tools on the machine:

1. Norton was already installed and active. It had allowed all these to reside on the machine, unattended.
2. Malwarebytes took over 1,000 off the machine.
3. Lavasoft’s, Adaware found a couple that Malwarebytes missed.
4. In the end I installed Avast. It found a couple more and removed them.

I had to manually edit the registry to get rid of Snap.Do.

After this thorough cleaning, I replaced the failing hard drive with a SSD drive, using a drive clone application.

Most of these items were installed by people who fell for the trap of downloading coupon printers. That’s an old ploy that still gets people. If there is a legitimate coupon available, you can just print it from the website. NEVER download a coupon printer, unless you want to slow your computer, possibly disable it (as in this case), and risk having your username and password stolen.

If you have entered your own username and password in a machine that has coupon apps on it (as did this one), I would suggest changing your passwords.

If you’re looking for someone to spend the time cleaning your machine, as I did the one at church, I suggest contacting Uptown Computer in Curwensville. Ask for Terri.