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A subscriber lost his Win7 product key and wonders what will happen if his free Win10 upgrade fails to properly activate, especially now that the old, manual “get a replacement key” methods no longer work! Surprisingly, the original product key might still exist in several unusual locations, even after the upgrade — but digging it…

Microsoft’s OneDrive service can be excellent, but it also can be frustratingly hard to use to its fullest, impeded by documentation that’s sparse, scattered, and incomplete. For example, OneDrive has three very different ways of handling your files, but only one — and it’s not the default — leaves behind a permanent, fully normal, local copy on…

Sometimes, well-intentioned repairs can actually make things worse than before. That’s what happened to a reader who was trying to correct a Windows login error but ended up with a completely unbootable PC! Is it possible for him to get Windows running again with its already installed software still intact and working? Or is a…

A recent column on OneDrive problems brought a ton of email from readers asking for help with overcoming OneDrive’s poor documentation, weak user interface, and other limitations. The largest group of questions was about using symlinks to allow OneDrive to automatically sync and process files or folders without having to first move and fit them all into the local C:\…\OneDrive\ folder….

RAID — Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks — is an old technology that offers few real benefits on today’s standard PCs — but man, does it have drawbacks! Today’s first reader-submitted letter illustrates the case. A system problem rendered essentially all the user’s data inaccessible and unrecoverable, across the entire RAID array! Plus: Quick feedback on…

OneDrive’s poor documentation and weak user interface can cause endless frustration. Some important OneDrive procedures are left unexplained; others literally cannot be accomplished from the desktop and can be done only via the Web interface — but again, with nary a word of guidance. If you previously tried OneDrive but found it opaque and hard…

If you’ve upgraded your PC from Win7, Win8, or early Win10 versions, it may still be using a thoroughly obsolete and nearly useless level of encryption for file sharing! Plus: More on “stuttering mice” and a potentially dangerous charger-cord fire hazard! Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.13.0 (2021-04-12). Also in this issue: MICROSOFT: How to…

Touchscreens are ubiquitous and usually reliable, but when one malfunctions, even simple pointing and clicking can become an exercise in extreme frustration. Here are the likely causes of touchscreen miscalibration, and several easy ways to get things working properly again. Plus: How to protect yourself from Windows’ dangerous, semi-secret back door! Read the full story in…

This week’s top reader-submitted questions cover quite a spread of topics, starting with some unexpected lithium-ion battery behavior. Then we examine the reasons for a reader’s deep misgivings about the safety and reliability of cloud-storage services, and we’ll wrap up with a super-simple, three-click solution for a notebook PC whose unplugged performance is simply too…

This week’s top reader-submitted questions cover quite a spread of topics, starting with some unexpected lithium-ion battery behavior. Then we examine the reasons for a reader’s deep misgivings about the safety and reliability of cloud-storage services, and we’ll wrap up with a super-simple, three-click solution for a notebook PC whose unplugged performance is simply too…