Newsletter Archives

• Let your PC start the new year right!

  Posted on January 6, 2025 at 00:15 CST by Ben Myers

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  BEN’S WORKSHOP

  

  By Ben Myers

  Service your Windows PC thoroughly to get a big-time payoff in the coming year.

  First, ask the question “How healthy is my hardware?” before considering what to do with any software. This reflects best practice, and it is exactly what happens here when a computer shows up at my shop in need of attention.

  Messing around with the software on a computer with unhappy hardware can only worsen troubleshooting, analysis, and remediation. More importantly, it can change the content of a solid-state drive or hard drive in unpleasant ways.

  Along the way, I’ll provide some guidelines for selecting or upgrading a system for using Windows 11, or even Windows 10 during its final year of unqualified support.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (22.01.0, 2025-01-06).

  Ben's Workshop Backups, Drive maintenance, Hardware, Networking, Newsletters, PC maintenance, Security, Software

• Let your PC start the new year right!

  Posted on January 1, 2024 at 02:44 CST by Ben Myers • Comment in the Forums

  

  ISSUE 21.01 • 2024-01-01

  BEN’S WORKSHOP

  

  By Ben Myers

  Taking the time now to service your Windows PC thoroughly can pay off big time in the coming year.

  Happy New Year! Whether you’re planning to move to Windows 11 or continue with Windows 10, here is what you can do to make sure that your PC starts the year right.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.01.0, 2024-01-01).

  Ben's Workshop Backups, Drive maintenance, Hardware, Networking, Newsletters, PC maintenance, Security

• Let your PC start the new year right!

  Posted on January 2, 2023 at 02:45 CST by Ben Myers • Comment in the Forums

  

  ISSUE 20.01 • 2023-01-02

  HARDWARE

  

  By Ben Myers

  Taking a little time now to check and proactively service your Windows PC thoroughly can pay off big time in the coming year.

  Whether you’re planning to move to Windows 11 or stick with Windows 10, this easy-to-follow annual checkup is the preventive medicine that can help ensure that your PC begins 2023 in the best shape possible.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.01.0, 2023-01-02).

  Hardware Backups, Drive maintenance, Hardware, Networking, Newsletters, PC maintenance, Security

• Four solutions to four computing problems

  Posted on October 25, 2020 at 21:10 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  LANGALIST

  By Fred Langa

  AskWoody subscribers are an eclectic bunch, as evidenced by this quartet of interesting — and exceptionally wide-ranging! — reader-submitted questions.

  This week’s topics include using a command-line trick to reveal a PC’s digital license, preserving system data through a UEFI/BIOS reset, managing a PC with dual SSD/HDD drives, and calculating a system’s total power draw. Wow! Let’s dive into them.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.42.0 (2020-10-26).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, LangaList AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Drive maintenance, Power draw, UEFI reset, Windows digital license

• Hard drive runs almost continually

  Posted on March 16, 2020 at 01:15 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  

  LANGALIST

  By Fred Langa

  An AskWoody Plus subscriber’s new PC is bogging down from hard-drive saturation … but why?

  A little spelunking with Task Manager will usually identify the problem.

  Plus: Another reason for “PC screen continually goes dark”

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.11.0 (2020-03-16).

  LangaList AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Drive maintenance, PC troubleshooting, Task Manager