Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2018 i Windows Help & Advice

Remember those halcyon days when your PC positively screamed with speed? Well in this issue we’re going to show you how to bring that wonderful feeling back – not only by showing you how to perform a complete Windows reinstall (starting on page 50) but also by sharing 50 tips that make using your PC easier, faster and more fun – head to page 11 now to find out more. Turn to our Explore section on page 23 and you’ll discover even more ways to do more with your PC. We’ll explain how you can manage user accounts; take charge of the Windows update process; and how you can beef up your PC’s security by using one of the best anti-virus programs around. We’ll even show you how to make…

So I don’t need a PC? That’s sort of the point. By standalone VR we mean a VR experience entirely contained within a headset. No wires, no slotting your phone in, no nonsense – everything you need in one single device. It’s a growing market, and the major players – and some less major ones – are all on board with headsets leveraging smartphone technology and existing libraries of VR-compatible mobile games. For example? The clever cookies at Facebook-owned Oculus have a low-end headset on the way, the Oculus Go, which ups the lens technology from its PC-connected headset and sneaks in at around £200, but it’s relatively simple in terms of technology, tracking only your head movements. Its main competitors, which cost a little more, have opted for a…

www.freem.ne.jp/win/game/12060 A disclaimer, first of all: this obscure little freeware game is Japanese, and as such you’ll need to fumble your way through a little Japanese text to get started. Once you do, though, you’re in for a treat. As the eponymous TobiFOX (a nimble anthropomorphic fox soldier, naturally) you’ll platform and shoot your way through a host of ingeniously designed single-screen levels, each one requiring as much puzzle solving as they do skill, on your way to rescuing your captured comrades. It won’t be easy, and if you’re squeamish about a little pixelated blood this might not be for you, but it’s challenging and fair enough to drag you back for more even after countless failures – be sure to take advantage of Easy mode’s infinite lives while you’re…

1 Send Later Thunderbird’s built-in Send Later feature has one major flaw: you must remember to manually send the email after it’s been moved to the Outbox. This free add-on eliminates that problem by enabling you to specify exactly when to send the email. 2 quickFilters The biggest problem with filters is setting them up in the first place. quickFilters makes it easy to create mail filters by leaping into action when you manually move a message to offer you a simple step-by-step wizard that will help deal with similar messages in future. 3 Mail Merge This powerful extension does what it says on the tin – it makes it easy to send bulk messages to contacts without losing that personal touch. Once installed, a new Mail Merge option appears…

Packed with informative tutorials Every issue, we guarantee to pack the magazine with great tutorials teaching you all the best things you can do with your PC. Each article features step-by-step instructions to make learning new skills fast and enjoyable. Get more from your favourite websites We all have our list of favourite sites but often we miss out on great features because they’re difficult to use or hidden from sight. We’ll show you how to do more online, for a more satisfying web life. Customise Windows to work your way We all know how to do the basics but getting the most from Windows isn’t always easy. Our dedication to the operating system means you get the very best tips and tricks for all versions of Windows. Discover new…

Your guide Nicholas Odantzis says… “We’re going to show you how to boost the standard security built into Windows with AVG AntiVirus Free, so you can keep your PC protected against viruses” At a glance Skill level… Anyone can do it Straightforward Tricky in parts Suitable for… Windows 10 Windows 8.1 Windows 7 NICK’S BEST TIP! To perform a scan without opening AVG AntiVirus Free, right-click the Taskbar icon and click Scan Computer. Looking for some additional virus protection for your PC? Then look no further – AVG AntiVirus Free is the perfect addition to any machine running the standard anti-virus protection that’s included with Windows. There’s nothing particularly wrong with the standard Windows security, but it’s certainly wise to get backup to increase the level of protection. As its…

Your guide Ian Evenden says… “The Fall Creators Update enables you to view, edit and annotate PDFs in your web browser – no third-party apps required” At a glance Skill level… Anyone can do it Straightforward Tricky in parts Suitable for… Windows 10 Windows 8.1 Windows 7 IAN’S BEST TIP! Double-click an area of text inside a PDF to open a small drop-down menu giving you a variety of options. Reading PDFs on your PC sounds pretty basic – all you do is install Adobe Reader, and then just open every PDF file you get in that app. Well it doesn’t have to be like that. You don’t need to install a third-party app, you can use one that came with your PC. Microsoft Edge’s PDF reading capabilities got a…

Your guide Nate Drake says… “Discover how to use the Ghostery browser extension and protect your privacy when surfing online” At a glance Skill level… Anyone can do it Straightforward Tricky in parts Suitable for… Windows 10 Windows 8.1 Windows 7 BLOCK ALL This stops cookies from tracking you and is enabled by default. Do this and Ghostery will update its tracker database. PURPLE BOX Open Ghostery’s box at any time by clicking the ellipsis (…) in Microsoft Edge and then on Ghostery App. RESTRICT SITE Blocks all trackers and is enabled by default. Only use this if you’ve previously trusted the site or paused blocking. PAUSE GHOSTERY Click to temporarily disable blocking of tracking cookies across all websites. Use only if pages are loading incorrectly. MAP THESE TRACKERS Requires…

Q What output ’s the the simplest filenames way inside to a folder to a text file? Lynda Franklin Cat’s solution You could use the ‘dir’ command via the Command Prompt, but a much more user-friendly and configurable solution lies with Karen’s Directory Printer, which you can download and install from www.karenware.com/powertools/ptdirprn – read on to find out how to use it. 1 Select target folder Once you’ve installed Karen Directory Printer, type ‘directory’ into the search box and click Directory Printer to launch the program. Switch to the ‘Save to Disk’ tab and use the ‘Select a Folder’ box to choose the folder you wish to output to text. 2 Configure settings – part 1 Use ‘Save Options’ to choose whether to include folder and/or file information, along with…

You can trust our reviews Our reviewers are 100 per cent independent, with years of experience in the world of computing. Our rigorous testing procedures mean that only genuine, high-quality products are awarded high star ratings. If you see an item of hardware bearing a high score, you can be confident that it is an excellent product. We choose the best products Thousands of new PC products are released every year and choosing between them can be an impossible task. Our experts select only the best hardware and software to feature in this magazine. Even better, our star rating system makes it simple to find the best products, giving you a fast, trustworthy guide. How we review Our expert reviewers guarantee to test every piece of hardware rigorously and thoroughly,…

Coding isn’t an easy thing but, as with any learned skill, the Internet is a fantastic resource. The first trick is learning where to start – and there are no good answers. There are a host of programming languages that are suited to beginners, but no one ‘start here’ language. The good news is that many languages work in a very similar way, so transitioning between them later on won’t be too difficult if you have the basics down. GET CODING We’d recommend, though, that you start your journey by pointing your web browser at www.codeacademy.com. It’s free to sign up – the company makes its money from more professional level tutorials – and you can start coding immediately, with clear examples that run right in your browser. Your first…

Facebook is in the news again for all the wrong reasons, following a Channel 4 story which revealed that Cambridge Analytica – a London-based data mining firm – misused information from as many as 50 million Facebook users, apparently using that data to influence the result of the most recent US election. When discovered, Facebook suspended Cambridge Analytica’s accounts – but by the time it shut the door, the horse had already bolted. DATA MINING The most worrying aspect of this scandal is the way the data was obtained in the first place. To give one known example: in 2015, University of Cambridge professor Aleksandr Kogan created a Facebook app, which promised to predict aspects of users’ personalities. Over 270,000 people signed up to the app, giving Kogan not just…

1 First steps Download and install FastStone Photo Resizer (www.faststone.org/FSResizerDetail.htm). Launch the tool and first select the images you wish to convert or edit, switching folders as necessary. Once done, choose your output file format and folder. 2 Rename files Tick ‘Use Advanced Options’ and click Advanced Options to resize your images, change their colour depth, rotate, crop, place watermarks, change their light levels and more. Tick ‘Rename’ to change the filenames using characters like ‘#’ for sequential numbers. 3 Preview images and convert Click the magnifying glass icon next to the Convert button to view a preview of each image, and how its attributes will change. Make further changes if necessary, then click Convert to convert, rename and edit your image files.…

Your guide Alex Cox says… “Your PC will be safer, your files will stay private, and your kids will be under control. Perfect!” At a glance Skill level… Anyone can do it Straightforward Tricky in parts Suitable for… Windows 10 Windows 8.1 Windows 7 ALL THE OPTIONS When managing multiple accounts, go through each of the tabs to make sure that every little thing is covered. ACCOUNT TYPES You can set access levels for accounts, giving users more or less control over your PC. You can also block them, too. FAMILY MEMBERS Adding family members links them to your Microsoft account, enabling you to manage them online. LOCAL ACCOUNTS If you don’t want users attached to your Microsoft account, add them here. Add a guest account for visitors. ONLINE MANAGEMENT…

Your guide Ian Evenden says… “Pretend your camera is much better than it is with some image editing tricks” At a glance Skill level… Anyone can do it Straightforward Tricky in parts Suitable for… Windows 10 Windows 8.1 Windows 7 SELECTION TOOLS Use these to select pixels in your image, so they are the only ones which are affected by any edits you make. FILTER MENU With a filter you can warp, blur and generally muck about with an image or selection to creative effect. SELECTION OPTIONS Lets you choose how you make a selection. You can add or subtract from a selection here too. THE UNDO BUTTON Pressing [Ctrl] + [Z] on your keyboard will undo your most recent change. Or you can simply click the big button here.…

Your guide Cat Ellis says… “Put together a great-looking video that’s ready to upload to YouTube or Facebook” At a glance Skill level… Anyone can do it Straightforward Tricky in parts Suitable for… Windows 10 Windows 8.1 Windows 7 TRACKS Your timeline can contain both video and audio, enabling you to build up your home movie project in layers. PLAYLIST Click this to see a list of photo, video and audio files you’ve imported. Files here can be added to the timeline. TIMELINE This is where you assemble your home movie, piecing together photos, videos and audio, and trimming them. FILTERS These are special effects – both visual and audio – which you can apply to the objects in your video’s timeline. PREVIEW To see how your video will look…

You can accuse the games industry of many things – and people do, just look on the Internet – but never of staying the same. It’s an entertainment medium in constant flux, at once refining popular ideas and embracing bleeding-edge technology that might facilitate new ones. You wouldn’t always know it by the ultra-safe parade of triple-A games that flaunt their stuff at the big shows every year, focus-grouped to within an inch of their lives, but it’s true nonetheless. Last year’s biggest game was a mod based on a mod, which turned into an Early Access phenomenon. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds was as non-traditional a path to stardom as it gets, and 2018 promises more surprise hits, more genre-changers, and even some brave and ambitious titles from the big triple-A studios.…

Just starting your Windows journey? Confused by the changes Microsoft has made to the Fall Creators Update? Maybe you want to learn something new about Windows 10. Well, this is the section for you! There’s not enough space to tell you absolutely everything you need to know here, but Windows Help & Advice always has your back. On page 70 we’ll show you how to master the desktop, customise application icons and take control of notifications; and on page 72 we’ll explain how you can customise the Start menu from changing the default colours to managing your Live tiles.…

It might look a little absurd, but Light’s L16 camera has some solid thinking behind it. Tap the shutter on this compact device and it takes a picture with ten or more of its lenses, each of which has a unique focal depth, perspective, and zoom level. Those individual frames are then stitched together into a huge resulting image, perfect for impressive landscape shots. It doesn’t come cheap – the L16 comes in at a painful £1,850 – but it’s definitely an exciting concept.…

1 Which of the following is not a programming language? A C B C# C C flat Major 2 Which of these acronyms does not apply to a music format? A MIDI B MAXI C MP3 3 Which of these is not a Windows version? A Windows 95 B Windows 2000 C Windows 2084 4 Which of the following is not a major international search engine? A Baidu B Searchor C DuckDuckGo 5 Which of these shortcuts is not a way to switch apps? A [Alt] + [F4] B [Alt] + [Tab] C [Win] + [Tab] 6 Which of these people is not a member of the Microsoft board? A Bill Gates B Mark Zuckerberg C Steve Ballmer…

1 Index your files If you store any items outside of your user folders, add them to the Windows index: click inside the search box in the top-right corner of a File Explorer window and choose Advanced Options > ‘Changed indexed locations’ on the Search tab. Click ‘Modify’, then locate and tick the file or folder(s) to add. 2 Filter results Type your search terms, then use the following filters to fine-tune the results: ‘type:’ (filetype); ‘kind:’ (type of file, such as document or image); ‘date:’ (date or date range); ‘size:’ (file size); and – if supported – ‘tag:’ (tags). 3 Find items using exact phrases The search box also supports all standard Boolean operators, so enclose exact phrases inside double quotation marks, precede unwanted terms with a dash (-)…

In this month’s Explore section you’ll find some fantastic ways to make the most of your PC – whether it’s editing home movies using Shotcut (page 40), or creating a clever ‘bokeh’ effect in your favourite photos (page 32). We also show you how make the most of new features in Microsoft Edge that enable you to view, edit and annotate PDFs without having to rely on a dedicated app – you’ll be surprised by how much you can do. Turn to page 38 to find out more. And on page 36, we’ve lined up some nifty Cortana commands, too.…

At a glance Skill level… Anyone can do it Straightforward Tricky in parts Suitable for… Windows 10 Windows 8.1 Windows 7 WAITING UPDATES Here you’ll see any updates that are ready to be installed. Extra information about any updates is also included here. INSTALL NOW If you have updates ready to be installed, and you’re ready for them to be applied, click here to install them right away. SET ACTIVE HOURS Click here to set the times when you’re using your PC and don’t want Windows to install updates and restart itself. ADVANCED Click here for more Windows 10 update options, including the ability to delay or even pause updates for a time. GET MORE HELP If you have any problems or queries, click here to be taken to a…

Your guide Ian Evenden says… “Make using Windows 10 easier than ever, and get a little assistance along the way” At a glance Skill level… Anyone can do it Straightforward Tricky in parts Suitable for… Windows 10 Windows 8.1 Windows 7 IAN’S BEST TIP! To make ‘Hey Cortana!’ work , you must enable it in Settings > Cortana > Talk to Cortana > Hey Cortana . For some users, especially those used to versions of Windows previous to 10, Cortana is a bit of a non-event. Why would you want to use an AI assistant to do something you could very well do yourself? These people have probably never experienced the joy of using an Amazon Echo to switch the lights on and off, and the two things are very…

At a glance Skill level… Anyone can do it Straightforward Tricky in parts Suitable for… Windows 10 Windows 8.1 Windows 7 START HERE File History’s setup is split between the Control Panel and Windows’ Settings. We suggest you begin with the latter. MORE OPTIONS Click here if you want to back up more than the default set of folders once File History is up and running. FULL BACKUP The System Image Backup section lets you make a copy of your entire drive, handy in the case of dire emergencies. EXTRA CONTROL The File History section of Control Panel gives you access to extra settings – check the tabs on the left. TAKE A BREAK While it’s unlikely to slow down your PC, it’s possible to disable File History. Be sure…

Windows’ Taskbar is an incredibly useful thing. Located at the bottom of the Windows desktop, it can give you quick and easy access to all your favourite apps, offers at-a-glance updates on your system’s status, and even enables you to see the latest notifications in the Action Centre. But if you’d like the Taskbar to do more or just want to change the way it looks, our step-by-step guide right here should help……

If you’ve read our ‘50 ways to speed up your PC’ feature on page 11, you’ll know there’s a lot you can do to make using your PC easier and more productive, but on page 88 we’re taking a slightly different tack. We’ve lined up four of the best PC optimisation apps to help keep your Windows machine running smoothly and sweetly, so why not give them a try? And while you’re here check out our latest reviews, kicking off with the Dell Latitude 5290 on page 76. And on page 82, find out why Gigabyte’s latest Aero 15 laptop is just too good for gamers.…

£350 | $400 www.yitechnology.com When it comes to 360-degree cameras, 4K just isn’t enough – since 360-degree videos are stretched as far as the eye can see, more pixels mean much better images, which is why this ultra-compact camera comes with 5.7K resolution at 30 frames per second. It also shoots 16MP stills, has a host of manual controls, and streams in 4K to YouTube. So can the Yi Technology 360 VR, which costs around £350 ($400) match the talents of the GoPro Fusion, Insta 360 One and Samsung Gear 360? Features Let’s not pretend that a 5.7K resolution is going to produce pin-sharp 360-degree images. It’s not, but the Yi Technology 360 VR is the only 360-degree camera that offers such a high resolution – even the pricier GoPro…

1 Iolo System Mechanic www.iolo.com/ Iolo System Mechanic is a brilliant free PC optimisation tool that removes junk files and unwanted apps, blocks bloatware and unwanted auto-run settings, clears out RAM and wipes various logs, browser histories and caches. Not only does this free up key system resources, Iolo System Mechanic also eliminates traces of your web browsing activity to protect your privacy. Its PC optimisation toolkit really does make a difference; whenever we’ve tested System Mechanic we’ve found a significant speed improvement, especially at startup. The free edition is excellent, but the two premium versions – System Mechanic (£49.95) and System Mechanic Pro (£69.95) – are well worth considering if you find yourself using it regularly. The genuine performance boost we saw after running System Mechanic makes it our…