• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

Windows 10

Phil,

I have Firefox set to 120% for most of my commonly used sites. BHF is OK at 100% unless someone inadvertently posts in microscopic type! I just wish that some webpage designers paid as much attention to colour combinations. I also hate the way that scroll bars almost disappear until you hover over them, otherwise I am still coping quite well.

Maurice :-)
 
fat finger trouble. nothing worse than trying to use a mobile keyboard with sausage fingers.:)
 
Last edited:
sospiri said:
Phil,

I don't use Edge, except involuntarily if I double click on a PDF file. Then rather than use the Firefox default, it throws it into Edge. Likewise with graphics files, it keeps ignoring my default of Irfanview. That is one of my Windows 10 annoyances. No matter how many times I reset the defaults, it keeps changing them back again despite the fact that both filetypes run perfectly well if opened by my chosen programs.

Re: your post #1083, I don't run a mobile phone, much to the annoyance of my banks, both here and in the UK. When I did have a mobile phone, it was only a cheap basic model with pay-as-you-go and because I make very few phone calls, the money was snaffled before it had run out. Mobile signals in the village are very poor anyway - the phone masts are standing on Mt Stavros, but we have Mt Driros standing between us and the masts! So landline is really the only viable option.

One good thing is that our provider phoned the other day to tell us the speed would go up to 48 Mbps in about 8 days. Of course, I will believe that when I see it & will keep you posted on this alleged progress! :)

Maurice :cool:
Click to expand...
t's the same here, I am in a dip, mountains all around....no mobile. sig. bt will not let anyone else use the network, so at the moment i am stuck with p/office.broadband. no way am i going to pay all that dosh for fiber.
 
Smudger said:
Pete, i`m with you when it comes to handwriting. When i was a nipper i won 2/6p in a handwriting composition, & now my handwriting is so bad it would make a Doctors writing look good. Very limited need for handwriting these days & if i make any mistakes on forum postings then i have Grammarly to put them right, ( You must activate it )
Click to expand...
thanks smudge. is it secure?
 
This is off topic but may help. I've got arthritis in my fingers and it's difficult to type on a tablet so I bought a "dabber" stylus from Poundland. It's like a felt tip pen but the end is soft and rubbery. My brother uses one too with his Smartphone.
rosie.
 
Had the first BSOD I've seen in two years this morning running Win 10 on my Dell Laptop.

I forced a restart after which the Task Bar had moved from it's usual place at the screen bottom to the side and all the desktop shortcuts had moved.

Looking at the Event Log and Reliability Indicator it seems Dell decided to quietly update a driver at the same time as a 'quiet' Win10 background update was loading.

I can do something about Dell Support Assistance and Updates ... it's all been deleted.
I can't do anything about Win 10 'quiet' updates.

Full virus and adware scans have been run .... :)
 
oldMohawk said:
Had the first BSOD I've seen in two years this morning running Win 10 on my Dell Laptop.

I forced a restart after which the Task Bar had moved from it's usual place at the screen bottom to the side and all the desktop shortcuts had moved.

Looking at the Event Log and Reliability Indicator it seems Dell decided to quietly update a driver at the same time as a 'quiet' Win10 background update was loading.

I can do something about Dell Support Assistance and Updates ... it's all been deleted.
I can't do anything about Win 10 'quiet' updates.

Full virus and adware scans have been run .... :)
Click to expand...
om. i had probs the weekend my pc kept restarting.and saying updating windows
 
I just let mine do its thing, I haven't had any problems for years now, it just works.

I don't have any anti virus other than that built into Windows 10, I run Malwarebytes once a month to double check but it never finds anything.
 
My desktop power supply failed two days ago, so I am using my laptop now until a new power supply arrives. I initially tried all the obvious things that might have caused my pc to not work such as:
is it still switched on? both wall socket (with surge unit) and on the back of the tower. A tick for both. Then I noted that a small red light on the front of the tower flashed momentarily, meaning power was getting to the tower. The cooling fans were not operating so that suggested the power supply. A simple and low priced job to replace. Hopefully my diagnosis is correct! :eek:
 
I only use the built-in Win10 security and a weekly scan with Malwarebytes.
Win 10 Reliability Monitor just reports
12/‎02/‎2020 7:59 AM
A problem caused Windows Explorer to stop interacting with Windows.
Faulting Application Path: C:\Windows\explorer.exe
Seems an electron went the wrong way in my laptop at 7.59am .... just a blip :cool:
 
I have a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) and it works fine so the power cuts don't affect me...………….so far.
I bought a batch of 3 of them in a bankruptcy auction kept one and Ebayed the rest.
 
Eric Gibson said:
I have a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) and it works fine so the power cuts don't affect me...………….so far.
I bought a batch of 3 of them in a bankruptcy auction kept one and Ebayed the rest.
Click to expand...
i have one too.great tools.it runs my radios as well
 
Way back about fifteen years ago I vaguely remember using something called Zonealarm which seemed to be a firewall or antivirus app. Today I received an email offering a 'Valentines Day' special.

I don't need whatever it is they do these days so was about to click the 'unsubscribe' button when a mouse-hover showed it went to somewhere called checkpoint.com.

They might be ok but decided to just mark their emails as spam ... :cool:
 
oldMohawk said:
Way back about fifteen years ago I vaguely remember using something called Zonealarm which seemed to be a firewall or antivirus app. Today I received an email offering a 'Valentines Day' special.

I don't need whatever it is they do these days so was about to click the 'unsubscribe' button when a mouse-hover showed it went to somewhere called checkpoint.com.

They might be ok but decided to just mark their emails as spam ... :cool:
Click to expand...
From the ZoneAlarm website:

"ZoneAlarm is the consumer brand of Check Point Software Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: CHKP). With nearly 100 million downloads, ZoneAlarm protects PCs from viruses, spyware, hackers and identity theft. The award-winning Internet security product line is installed in consumer and small business PCs and mobile phones worldwide, protecting them from cyber threats".
 
Spargone said:
From the ZoneAlarm website:

"ZoneAlarm is the consumer brand of Check Point Software Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: CHKP). With nearly 100 million downloads, ZoneAlarm protects PCs from viruses, spyware, hackers and identity theft. The award-winning Internet security product line is installed in consumer and small business PCs and mobile phones worldwide, protecting them from cyber threats".
Click to expand...
Thanks for the information ...
I think I'll stay with the built-in Windows Security which seems to do everything Check Point offers to do.
:)
 
Thankfully Windows 10 is mostly free, (out of the box), of all those 'sounds' of earlier versions, like the fanfare when starting up.

However there is one residual sound that really irritates and which remains even after I had a go at trying to get rid of it, (I probably failed because I don't know what MS calls it).

When I power up the laptop I eventually get a pretty scene with today's date displayed. Prod the keyboard and if I am lucky up pops a sign-in box and if I fill that in OK I'm in business.

Suppose I'm a bit impatient and start prodding before 'Bill Gates' is ready, ('BBG' is an expression long used in this house when Microsoft fails to deliver!). Well nothing much happens, Win10 eventually wakes up and all is normal.

But suppose I don't wait for Win10, or rather I do but I go off and do something else, like putting on the kettle. Win10 has had plenty of time to get its act together, Now when I give it a prod - "DING!" Why? Its like Win10 is having a huff, "You woke me up, but then you went away. I could have had another five minutes in bed if I knew you were going to make a cup of tea".

Does anyone know what this alarm is called?

A totally unrelated 'sounds' story: A long time ago I was administrator for an office with several networked Unix 'boxes'. One of their neat features was that anyone in the know could run a process on any box from any other box. I had a nice little sound of a horse neighing which I caused to play quietly at a box at the other end of the office. Then I ran it again a little louder and so on. Alongside our office was a playing field. After a few minutes of this the guy sitting at far box got up and started looking anxiously out of the window. He asked his neighbour at the next desk if he could hear this distressed horse too. When the pair of them were looking out of the window I wacked the volume full-up so it was quite apparent now where the sound was really coming from. My 'victim' was then remarkably quick thinking as he turned to look in my direction and shouted, "You ba**ard!" Oh, the joys of networks!
 
I use Win10 Settings Sound Control Panel to set system sounds for events and other things.
Sound1.jpg
I suppose we all use our Windows devices differently.

With my Dell 5770 laptop I open the lid press the start button then show my finger print and Windows 10 is ready to go, no sounds, no fuss. I just timed it ... 20 secs.

This happens because I never shut it down. When I want to stop the laptop I simply close the lid. The laptop then 'hibernates' which means it save everything I was doing to the SSD/HDD and then switches off the screen and powers off. Open the lid show finger print and continue where I left off.

About once a week I shut the laptop down and then I have to save anything I was doing. From a shut down it starts as mentioned above but takes slightly longer.

With my Acer desktop computer I do power down so with start up it has to load drivers etc and it slightly slower about 40 secs. It just wants a 4 digit pin number to prove it's me. I can hibernate it which makes it a few seconds quicker starting up.

I use a Microsoft account so get full sync. My 'home network' is a 32Gb flash drive plugged into the router.

I also use an Apple iPad which you have to use exactly as Apple wants you to. Put my finger on the button, it reads my finger print to prove it's me, and is on in 5 secs. It sleeps when I'm not using it and syncs with my Win 10 devices.
All my email account auto forward to it and 'dings' to let me know.

But we all use them differently ... even using different internet browsers ... :cool:
 
Last edited:
>>>Does anyone know what this alarm is called?

You MAY be able to turn it off as follows:

Right click on the Windows icon in the bottom left and select Settings

From the Settings window select the System icon in the top left

From the System page select Sound on the left

On the Sound page scroll down to the bottom of the page

Select Advanced Sound Options.

You are on the "App Volume device preferences" page

In the bottom left drag the "System sounds" slider to the very left so it shows a "zero" sign.

I have done this and get no system sounds from Windows
 
I find it far easier to use the old control panel - Windows Key + R and type control.exe. Select sound and then the Sounds tab. You could save the existing scheme if you want then change it to No Sounds. This will tell you whether or not it's a windows bleep. If it still does it, it's most likely a BIOS signal - a single short bleep means everything's OK, but this usually occurs after the POST startup. However every system is different!
 
Guilbert53, no doubt that should work but then there might be sounds that I should want to hear.

The particular event that I would like to stop is especially annoying because in many ways I have been 'good' to Win10, i.e. I have given it plenty of time to carry out its actions and my reward is Windows petulance!

If I knew what Win10 calls this bit of spite then I am sure the sounds control panel would let me kill it off.

Jukebox, I don't think it is a BIOS sound. The laptop has properly booted up, Windows has put up its starting screen and (I imagine, as I am now in the kitchen), put up the empty field awaiting a password. If a password doesn't get typed in after a while that field is taken away. Returning to the laptop and seeing the start up screen, but with no password box, and hitting any key causes Windows to 'ding' as if I'm doing something wrong! But all I am guilty of is not logging on when first given the chance. This makes the laptop the master and me the slave!
 
Last edited:
With the settings shown in the pic in post#1117 the system default sounds can be set to 'No Sounds'.
Click the down arrow by Windows Default text and the 'no sounds' option appears. Then apply it.
I just tried it and the media sounds youtube etc still play. There is a little speaker icon on my task bar which allows volume to be adjusted anytime.
I like a few default sounds such as 'low battery warning' etc ... :)
 
oldMohawk said:
Thanks for the information ...
I think I'll stay with the built-in Windows Security which seems to do everything Check Point offers to do.
:)
Click to expand...
oldMohawk, I stayed with Windows security for a long time (still have it), eventually I got slammed and had to put something else on. Some newer attacks are very suttle and while Windows is good I have found it not to be enough. Just be cautious!
 
Richarddye said:
oldMohawk, I stayed with Windows security for a long time (still have it), eventually I got slammed and had to put something else on. Some newer attacks are very suttle and while Windows is good I have found it not to be enough. Just be cautious!
Click to expand...
Hi Richard, I think we ourselves have to be the main virus and scam preventers.

Links are the most dangerous items because they don't always point to where we think they are pointing to. A mouse-hover over them shows where they point to.

I've also used an iPad for several years and never seen any unwanted stuff on it.

As an aside I always use a wireless mouse with my laptop ... can't stand track pads ... :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top