Windows Help and Advice 141 (Sampler) by Future PLC

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WIPE IT!

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| March 2017

26/09/2017 13:04 06/01/201726/08/2015 3:09 pm 5:14 pm

Welcome It’s amazing how quickly your PC can get junked up with all kinds of detritus – duplicate files, unwanted or unused apps and, of course, there’s the ever-present threat of malware. On page 11, we show you how to clean up your PC by getting rid of viruses and ransomware; wipe potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) and save gigabytes of storage space by getting rid of multiple copies of files, such as photos. We even explain how you can keep your PC clutter-free and safe in future

– and show you how to reinstall Windows 10 from scratch, just in case you want to perform a complete do-over. On page 52 we’ll also show you how to stream almost anything from your PC; and on page 60 how you can fix common Windows 10 annoyances. Don’t forget our Explore section too – it’s packed with step-bystep guides to help you do more with your PC. It all starts on page 25. Enjoy the issue,

Rob Mead-Green Editor

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FEATURES 11 Wipe it!

Get rid of malware, unwanted apps and duplicate files for a leaner, faster PC

52 Stream everything

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Solve the frustrating oversights and annoyances in Microsoft’s latest OS

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“If you’re looking for better ways to use your home computer, then this is the place to start. We’ll show you all the tips and tricks the experts use and more!” 26 Tell a story using Sway

41 Gives Windows a new look

29 Sort out your music collection 44 Convert a PDF into a text with the brilliant MusicBee document you can edit and save 32 How to install Minecraft and make it run well on your PC

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34 Discover and master the hidden features of Windows 10

46 Back up to Google Drive 48 How to prevent screen-time eyestrain with the f.lux app

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| November 2017

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WIPE IT! 11 How to get rid of malware, unwanted apps and duplicate files for a faster, leaner and meaner PC

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60 It’s Microsoft’s best OS yet, but it isn’t without its annoyances – here we show you how to resolve them

UPGRADE 77 Our expert reviews 78 Dell XPS 15 80 Asus Transformer Pro T304 82 Cujo smart firewall 84 Sony MDR-1000X 86 Acer Swift 3 88 Best free VPN clients

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| November 2017

fascinating facts

Discover Keep your data safe

Data safety ma de sim ple

The Knowledge…

Never lose a document or favourite photo again We all know backups are important. It’s time to automatically copy your critical files online, for free creative housekeeping on your end to Things can, and do, go wrong. Hard split up your files into categories is all it drives fail, computers go up in smoke, takes to make the most of the and with them go the things you need cumulative total. and love. Family photos, financial If you need something more, and if documents, all gone – unless you’re security is a priority, Mega (www.mega. clever. Backing up files to an external nz) is a great choice. You get a 50GB drive is certainly one way of ensuring storage limit for free, and your files are they’re safe, but going one stage encrypted as they’re uploaded, further and having your files also wend meaning nobody can read their their way to a cloud service, with all the contents but you – even if the service security of protected server rooms and were to suffer a their own dedicated and invisible Creative housekeeping is data breach. Use Megasync app, backups, is a all it takes to make the the and you can even no-brainer. Many companies most of online storage synchronise local folders on your PC. offer some kind of Bear in mind that this kind of system cloud backup for free. Microsoft’s is not always infallible. Some cloud OneDrive, for example, offers free 5GB services have gone offline while others of free storage (down from the 15GB it – such as CrashPlan – have changed previously offered), a free Dropbox their user policies so their cloud backup account gets you 2GB, Google Drive service is no longer available to home offers you 15GB, and so on. Each of users. The key is to ensure you keep these – if you install their relevant app multiple copies of every file in several – can automatically synchronise files different places; with that assurance, you put in a folder on your PC into their your data will be safe. respective online storage space; a bit of

X appeal Apple’s fanciest iPhone yet Some have accused Apple of following rather than leading in recent years, and there’s certainly some truth in that – its new iPhone X (pronounced ‘ten’) doesn’t do anything that scattered competitors in the Android world haven’t been doing for some time. But it’s certainly a bold release, both in the way engineers have changed up the iPhone design and in the way the company is asking an astonishing £999 for the pleasure of using it. Here’s what it’s best at…

No home button The edge-to-edge display means there’s no room – you’ll use swipes instead.

Wireless charging Pop your iPhone on the charging pad (sold separately) and juice up.

Face ID The iPhone X ditches Apple’s Touch ID in favour of sophisticated face recognition tech.

Mixed Reality What’s this, then? It’s Microsoft’s take on Virtual Reality (VR). Strap on an appropriate headset and it blends the real world with your Windows desktop (and a bunch of special apps which take advantage of the technology) for what Microsoft calls ‘immersive experiences that you will love’. That probably depends on your stomach. So it’s HoloLens? Yes and no. HoloLens was the first step on the mixed reality road, and Microsoft’s debut in the field. It’s now farmed the relevant protocols and design ideologies out to a host of interested third parties, which means a stack of new headsets are due towards the end of this year, with more coming at the beginning of 2018. Like what? The Lenovo Explorer will probably be the first. Available as a headset-only package for $350 (£259) or with a pair of motion controllers for $450 (£333), it significantly undercuts even the recently-reduced pricing of VR alternatives, such as the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. Dell, Acer and Asus are also on board with their own mixed reality hardware. Perfect for gaming, then? We’re not entirely sure. While Microsoft is talking up compatibility with ‘Steam content’, that’s not a statement that proper games will work – this is Mixed Reality, rather than proper VR. There’s the promise of Halo ‘experiences’ from developer 343 Industries but, again, that doesn’t explicitly mean games. Then what’s the point? Microsoft is building Mixed Reality tech into the next major revision of Windows 10. Eventually you’ll be able to do everything you can do on a desktop with a headset strapped on, and the budget price – and super-simple setup – should mean the technology has a good chance of spreading more widely than the current VR crop. As long as it’s supported, Mixed Reality could take over.

November 2017 |

Ev eryon e’s tal king about

The rise of fake news

Anyone can write anything online. Can you really trust all the stories that you read on the internet?

he recent US election, and the Twitter protestations of the eventual winner, brought an alarming trend to public attention: fake news. The term generally refers to highly biased articles, often entirely fabricated or filled with falsehoods. We’re not talking about parody or humour; fake news is more insidious, generated in order to sway public opinion one way or the other, and designed in such a way that the articles will rise to the top of social networks, such as Facebook. It’s a problem. You might have been influenced by fake news without even knowing it. But it’s a problem that the internet’s biggest names are working to stamp out, although it won’t be easy.

face the facts Twitter, for example, is mulling over the idea of a ‘fake news’ button, which would enable eagle-eyed users to tag tweets or links that push false articles, but this method could easily swing in the wrong direction, with propaganda merchants using it to squash legitimate news stories. Google is actively identifying and banning sites which manage to slip fake news into

its search results, but this is a cat-andmouse game. No sooner does it manage to block one site than another pops up, and Google’s ever-changing page ranking algorithm is – while not easily tricked – far from infallible. Facebook, probably the biggest engine of fake news distribution, has banned many untrustworthy media outlets from its trending news sidebar, but it is powerless to stop people sharing potentially spurious articles with friends. So what can you do to combat fake news? First, treat everything you read online with a degree of scepticism, particularly if it comes from a website you’re not familiar with. Even content coming from legitimate news sources will have some degree of bias, the Guardian leaning left, the Mail leaning right, and even they can be sources of fake news occasionally. If you find something which seems suspicious and you can’t verify the truth behind it, there are several sites that are dedicated to investigating fake news and extracting the facts. Head to factcheck.org or snopes.org to see their latest anti-fake news updates and, once it’s launched later this year, check wikitribune.com.

Download this… Show Me The Way osmlab.github.io/show-me-the-way/ OpenStreetMap is a quite remarkable project, a democratised collection of maps, freely available for anyone to use or work with, created entirely by its users. But exactly how does a project of that magnitude come together? Show Me The Way shows you how. Head to the site and you can watch the most recent additions to OpenStreetMap – roads, paths, buildings, zones and more – added live, drawn over the top of satellite imagery. It’s fascinating not just to see how accurate OpenStreetMap is, but to take a tour around some of the more obscure locations in the world as they’re added to its vast database. And if you’d like to see – or even make use of – the maps, head to openstreetmap.org where you can browse locations, download selected areas, or if even sign up to be a map editor in your own right.

swell maps OpenStreetMap.org gives you free access to a huge cartography database.

uiz The 60-Secondm Q e sta rts no w! Pe ns at th e rea d y, yo u r ti

What does pressing [Alt] + [F4] do to the current window?

A Deletes an object B Renames an object C Duplicates an object

A Minimises it B Takes a screenshot C Closes it

What does pressing [F5] usually do?

A Refreshes the currently selected window B Restarts your PC C Records your screen

For what is [F2] usually a shortcut?

What action does pressing [Shift] + [F10] replicate? A Right-click B Power off C Eject

What does pressing [F11] do to most internet browsers? A Takes you back B Takes you forward C Enters fullscreen

In Microsoft Word, what does [F7] do?

A Checks spelling B Removes formatting C Summons Clippy

Answers 1C 2A 3B 4A 5C 6A

| November 2017

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10 November

Discover Facts & figures

Rob Mead-Green reveals a host of fascinating digital facts

2018 Possible launch date of Microsoft’s modular OS, codenamed ‘Andromeda’. The new operating system will enable Windows 10 features to be added or stripped away, depending on the device it’s running on. That should make Andromeda ideal for mobile devices and even wearables.

4,600MHz

Speed of Corsair’s new Vengeance IPX DDR4 memory, beating its previous 4,200MHz record. That gives the new RAM an equivalent PC processor speed of 4.6GHz – that’s faster than an Intel Core i7-7700K.

$30

Cost to the US Navy of the Xbox 360 controllers it’s starting to install on its Virginia class submarines. The controllers will be used on the submarines’ periscopes, replacing a $38,000 helicopter-style control stick that the US Navy uses now.

10M Distance a hacker would need to be away from your Bluetooth device to launch an undetected attack using an existing vulnerability called Blueborne. The vulnerability puts billions of Bluetooth-equipped devices potentially at risk. Updating your device’s OS should solve the problem.

2.7 million

Number of people initially affected by a malware-infected version of CCleaner, the free Windows system maintenance tool. Developer Piriform says the threat has now been negated, but if you’re using version 5.33 you should update the software straight away. November 2017 |

Incoming

The hottest new Windows hardware on the horizon

Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro Price ¥6,399, https://xiaomi-mi.com Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi finally dipped its toes in laptop waters last year with the spectacular Mi Notebook Air. Now it’s building on that success with the Mi Notebook Pro – a beautiful and ultra-thin laptop that packs some serious tech at the heart of its aluminium and glass design. The 15.6-inch Mi Notebook Pro comes with a latest generation quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM and a 256GB solid-state drive (SSD), as well as Nvidia GeForce MX150 graphics. It also features a precision trackpad with integrated fingerprint sensor, two USB-C and two USB 3.0 ports, plus an HDMI port. The only slight disappointment is its display, which is a 1080p Full HD model, although its bezels are suitably narrow. But then it’s hard to quibble when the laptop costs ¥6,399 (£731). Let’s hope Xiaomi launches it here.

| November 2017

Windows 10 Declutter your PC

WIPE IT! PC reeling from the effects of malware? Hard drive overloaded with unwanted programs and duplicate files? Discover how to rid your PC of the junk

espite your best efforts – and the occasional reinstall – Windows continues to accumulate junk files. Whether it’s simply cluttering up your hard drive with unused and unwanted programs or something more sinister, such as a malware infection or full-blown ransomware attack, the fact remains that your PC’s storage drive attracts detritus like a magnet. In this feature, we’ll show you how to fight back. We’ll open by making sure your PC is completely free from infection – even if you’re diligent about security, it never hurts to make sure you’re not harbouring some particularly sneaky piece of malware. Crucially, we’ll reveal tips and tools that can help you shift

most infections from your computer – including many ransomware variants that have your data or computer held hostage. We’ll then move on to less malicious – but still unwanted – PUPs (potentially unwanted programs) before focusing our attention on other forms of junk, including leftover files and duplicate photos. And having carried out all the rubbish, we’ll reveal what security tools you need in place to prevent further infection, along with some tips for reining in program installations going forward – and how to carry out a complete Windows reinstall if you need to. By the end of this feature you’ll have reclaimed gigabytes of hard drive space and banished unwanted programs. Your PC will be faster, cleaner and – critically – safer to use.

Check for malware

Make sure your PC is free of ransomware and other infections, and if it’s not, discover how to deal with them

tep one of the decluttering process is to make sure your PC is infection-free. Start by opening your anti-virus tool to search for malware infections such as worms, Trojans, rootkits and spyware. Make sure its definitions are up to date, then allow it to perform a full scan. If infections are found, follow the instructions to either quarantine or attempt removal of the malware – you’ll almost certainly be prompted to reboot when you’re done, in which case run a full scan again to verify the infection has gone. Some infections can be stubborn – if after two or three attempts the infection is still present, reboot into Safe mode. Those running Windows 7 should tap [F8] when the computer starts to boot; Windows 8.1 and 10 users need to navigate to Start > Settings > ‘Update & security’ > Recovery, then click ‘Restart now’. Under ‘Advanced start-up’, navigate to Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Start-up Settings. Click Restart and press [5] to select ‘Enable Safe Mode with Networking’. Once in Safe mode, try updating and running the scan again – most, but not all, malware should be sufficiently crippled in Safe mode to allow its complete removal. If the infection is still there, or you’re locked out of Safe mode, the step-by-step guide on the opposite page reveals further tools and tips to try.

Widen your scan

Even if your main anti-virus tool comes up clean, don’t assume you’re out of the woods. Let’s perform some additional scans with other tools to make sure. Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (www. malwarebytes.com) is our favourite security app for delivering a second opinion – it searches for a wider range of threats than most anti-malware tools,

The premium version of Malwarebytes offers real-time protection.

including potentially unwanted programs that may come with spyware or other privacy issues. You’ll need to download and install the free version, but once in place you can update it and run a full scan as with your main security tool – it’ll even run in Safe mode. If you want to go further, use the Emsisoft Emergency Kit – as featured in the step-by-step guide – to perform scans using two separate anti-virus engines. Other portable tools worth adding to your security toolkit include ClamWin Portable (install this through https://portableapps.com/) and VIPRE

“Most, if not all, malware should be sufficiently crippled in Safe mode to allow complete removal” Rescue Disk (see the step-by-step guide). Both may find and remove more stubborn infections. If you’re convinced you’ve been attacked by a rootkit, then open Malwarebytes and go to Settings > Protection to flick the ‘Scan for rootkits’ option to On.

Recover from ransomware

Tweaking.com’s Windows Repair tool can quickly undo damage left behind by malware.

encrypted data and so on), which may give you access to your data later if the criminals are caught and the private keys used to scramble your files are released. Next, perform scans with all the anti-malware tools at your disposal to dispatch the underlying infection. Only when it’s removed should you visit https://noransom.kaspersky.com/ to see if your infection is covered by one of the six free ransomware decryption tools on offer. Other vendors worth checking out include AVG (www.avg.com/en-gb/ ransomware-decryption-tools). If you find yourself locked out of your PC by

If you encounter ransomware, don’t panic. This is doubly true if you have a backup somewhere – whatever else happens, you can wipe your PC’s storage drive and reinstall Windows and live with a small loss of data. In cases where you’re locked out from your data, make a note of any demands (Bitcoin wallet address, file list of

| November 2017

ransomware, try Trend Micro’s free Ransomware Screen Unlocker Tool (http://bit.ly/trendransomware), which can be run in Safe mode or prepared on another PC if you can’t even get that far. After you’ve cleaned your PC, you may find certain functions haven’t been restored. Broken network connections can often be fixed with the help of NetAdapter Repair All In One (https:// sourceforge.net/projects/netadapter/). If Safe mode still won’t work, or you’re locked out of key parts of your system, then run the Windows Repair Tool (www.tweaking.com). Not only does it give your PC the once-over, it’ll reset Registry and file permissions, and perform other much-needed repairs.

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