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As SOP, how often should you reboot a Windows 10 system?

This was an interesting read. But it doesn’t address my main problem with computer applications. I am incredibly lazy and do not like flicking between apps, or drilling down into Outlook, between mailboxes, calendars and Tasks. Along with this is the integration with my Pixel.

Since I would like to add tasks to my calendar so I can easily see them on all devices, I long ago gave up on Tasks and now ToDo. Since I am retired, I have a more constrained list. I now create a task by creating an all day event on my calendar. In the event, I can assign dates (and if recurring) and categories. Each category has a unique color so I can easily see if something is a task or appointment. As I complete tasks, I delete them. Since most of mine are recurring (eg paying bills), I can delete the occurrence as the task is completed. Oh, and I can drag them around the calendar if I need to change dates.

(On Outlook on my PC, since there is no unified inbox, my two other email accounts forward to the Outlook Inbox, and delete the original. I have an IMAP to each on Outlook so I can keep an eye on them and send emails using the account the email came from. And since the original deletes, it doesn’t affect the unified inbox on Android.)

PS I enjoy your info on Office 365… I have eliminated Copilot from all my ribbons, but I am utterly frustrated by the cursor on OneNote. The update to add the checkbox to deselect Copilot, as in Word, cannot come too soon… AND the summarize box in Outlook.

And for a special treat, the Microsoft 365 Copilot app screen magically appeared on start up (now turned off). They are really pushing it.

 

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Charlie

I opened MS Word the other day to work on translating some letters my son received from his bank (he just moved to Paris and his French is evolving). Much to my surprise there was a bizarre line about using copilot and a strange cursor. Immediate panic and distaste… a quick search on the internet did reveal the same article you shared. Whew! I quickly turned it off in Word, and removed it from all the ribbons in all my MS apps. I am looking forward to turning it off in the rest.

Unfortunately, we are stuck with M365 Copilot on our Android devices apparently? (And fortunately, M365 hasn’t updated on my FireMax, and it is one of the apps that won’t sideload using Google Play I installed.) And also there is the annoying M365 Copilot replacing the Microsoft 365 icon in my Start Menu. So ultimately we will see the branding but for now at least we can turn it off in the individual apps.

What is this rush to embrace AI?

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Charlie

I have been running Windows Disk Cleanup, but this is better AND

Actually you can click yes on the install .NET core and it takes you to the MS download site!

I meant to mention: my regular auto-renew date was 11/24, so I may have gotten two months since it was near my auto-renew date, or because a Super Beaver Moon was coming.

 

However, I followed a hint in the discussion with your previous article on MS365. I turned off the auto renew… I was actually offered two months free to turn it back on. Not bad for a few minutes reading.

Any hints on where I can find a way to extend my subscription to MS365 Family. So far I haven’t found more than one year at current pricing.

In Edge Version 126.0.2592.87  (Windows 10 Home)

Microsoft Edge > Settings > Sidebar > App and notification settings > App specific settings > Copilot

I have a setting “Show Copilot” and I have toggled it off.

So no Copilot on my Edge.

I have Windows 10 Pro on my laptop. I can fire that up later today and check.

I know it has been mentioned before but get an IRS PIN and e-file. And you also get your refund within a week. LOL my son filed using the new IRS filing system and had his refund within an hour of filing.

I am very frustrated that banks and insurers use USPS for certain notifications. And a new credit card always comes via USPS. Informed delivery is helpful. If I know something is coming I can check in the morning to see what mail is coming and then keep an eye out for the delivery vehicle.

I always mail the one or two checks I send out a year in the post office.

I will put in another plug for KMyMoney. It is actively supported (you can open a bug fix ticket) and will soon be putting out additional enhancements. The reporting is extremely flexible. And it is free.

https://kmymoney.org/

On Quicken to KMyMoney.

I don’t use it for investments since that is all online and just easier to do a monthly update. I also enter all my own transactions, but I do know KMyMoney has the capability to do so.

The latest release version is from 2022. But they will be doing a new release in the next few months including a number of enhancements.

My only issue is you cannot hide payees. But I have developed prefixes for sorting.

Finally, it took a day of messing around to import since I had many years of transactions/accounts. But the only real issue is the qif format does not handle transfers well which was all I could get from Quicken at the time.

The help file is extensive and the forum is great.

https://docs.kde.org/stable5/en/kmymoney/kmymoney/index.html

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John

Same issues, but dumped Quicken years ago. I finally settled on KMyMoney (KDE). It is free and has provided excellent support and updates over the years. They respond to bug fix requests and have a development pipeline. I will do an update once a year or so just to check if there are any new features worth the update. Since I do not use the online or investment features, I haven’t actually kept the update since 2022. (Apparently the online features are the ones that keep changing.)

I use online banking but I am a firm believer in manual reconciliations. The bank does make mistakes.

KMyMoney does basic accounting very well and reports can be configured to your heart’s content. For the few things it doesn’t do well, I have built workarounds. Free with active support makes up for a lot.

 

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John

Since I was in tech for much of my career this seems simple enough to me. But I tried to explain this to my spouse and she ran from the room screaming. And I think my best friend sort of fell asleep on the phone. So I thought I would post this here and maybe someone would enjoy the trip. Here is the full version:

For years my university provided me a university supported gmail account which I have used for personal email. Recently, they had to tighten security, so they limited the storage on the account as well as removing access to the calendar and other Google account features.
I also have another email account through Yahoo that I use for shopping and accounts. I also used this email address for the first time I logged on Live many years ago.
With university gmail I could use POP to access Yahoo and it would route to my Inbox. (Forwarding from Yahoo requires an annual subscription.)
Fortunately, I have a family Microsoft 365 account so I thought it would be easy to set up Outlook 365 so I could access the desktop version at home and the web version when traveling or on my phone.
I initially set up Outlook using the Yahoo alias. At that point the Outlook 365 sets up Exchange account using the Yahoo address but creating an underlying “email” address. Long story short, I found this creates a host of issues and especially will corrupt the Exchange files. This gets especially complicated adding in the additional email accounts. And it causes log in issues on your Microsoft account on your Android.
Long story short, I found this corruption issue was resolved by creating a Outlook.com email address which I also added as an alias for my Microsoft account. This also resolved the log in issues on my Android.
That being said, I was able to set up Outlook using the outlook.com address and use IMAP to access the other account. However, using IMAP creates an additional Inbox for each account. And guess what, you cannot see those inboxes using the web or Android versions of Outlook. One other side issue is Outlook allows you to send an email on “behalf” of another account but most servers bounce those emails.
Since I generally use my home desktop I can send emails using those accounts via IMAP. When we traveling I can access those accounts via the web to send email. But this still didn’t resolve the Outlook web version being unable to access the IMAP accounts.
So the workaround was to forward those accounts to my outlook.com address so all incoming mail shows in the outlook inbox.
Both Yahoo and Gmail will put all forwarded messages in the trash so it is just a matter of either manually clearing the trash (and sent folders) or setting outlook to clear those folders on a schedule. I stick with manual so I can go through the sent folders and file any sent messages I want to save in my outlook.com folders.
However, this led to my taking a deeper dive into calendar events. Since I am retired I use my calendar for tracking appointments and for todos. I like my todos and appointments on one calendar. So now I use all day events for my to do lists (with appropriate categories). If recurring, I delete the single event as it is completed.
Appointments vs meetings are a problem. Outlook 365 and outlook.com handle them differently.
In Outlook 365, an appointment is created with yourself as required. In outlook.com the appointment is created with you as a meeting organizer (as viewable in list form in Outlook 365). This is okay, except if you change a outlook.com appointment in Outlook 365 it changes it to a meeting. To fix this you have to delete yourself in Outlook 365 as required, cancel the meeting and save. Creating a new appointment in Outlook 365 also has its issues with outlook.com. The good news is Android Outlook follows the same rules as outlook.com.

This whole transition from Gmail to Outlook has been a challenge. I finally elected to go in whole hog using Outlook 365/Exchange.

Using Outlook with Outlook.com can be a challenge. So I have set up my gmail and yahoo addresses using POP in Outlook so I can send/receive so 90% it all works with my desktop.

To get this to work with Outlook.com (or Outlook on Android), you need to resort to forwarding your accounts so the email shows up. This is useful for when we are traveling. (If I need to reply I need to go back into the gmail/yahoo accounts to send with the appropriate email address.) Plus there are a few rules I need to set up to handle the POP accounts to avoid duplication with the forwarded email.

Good news is the calendar in the desktop and Outlook.com sync.

In the end, it is good to have everything on Exchange so your data is protected.

Of course the Google apps on my new Pixel do not like that I use Outlook, so p*ss off Google.

What happens if your system does not have a recovery partition? (Yes I have a recovery disk I update monthly.)