Shahul | Shield Management

How to configure the Windows 10 Email app

Windows 10 Email app has been one of the most liked apps that is added to the latest version of Windows. We have shown here on how to add a POP3 email account to this new mail app:

Open the email app from the start menu.
Click on the setting icon on the left side corner of the window and choose accounts from the pop up on the right side.
Now you shall see the list of accounts linked to the email app. In this case you will not have any. So click on Add account.
Choose the ‘Advanced Setup’ option as we are going to configure a POP3 based email account.
Now select the option which says ‘Internet Email’.
Now enter the account name and your name in the following screen. You will have to get these information from your mail service provider.
Now enter the username and password of your email account.
Choose the account type as POP3 and enter the incoming email server address which again should have been obtained from your service provider.
Check the require SSL boxes only if the incoming and outgoing mail needs authentication and then click on sign-in.

If your email is verified, then you are all set to go and use the email app to send and received your emails. However, in case you receive any errors after click on sign-in then you may need to verify the settings with your mail service provider or contact us for help.

How to convert your Android smart phone to a WiFi Hotspot?

Are you on a business trip and waiting on the Airport with a slow or no WiFi connection? The only option to check your emails and send files from your computer is getting Internet access to your computer from your Smart phone. Heard of WiFi Tethering? Here’s how you do it on your Android phone:

Tap the settings menu from the home screen.
Select the wireless and networks option.
Choose Tethering and portable hotspot.
Now tick the box besides portable WiFi Hotspot.
You shall tap on the Wifi settings to edit the name and password of the network.
Now tap on connect to get access to the 3G or 4G network from your smart phone to your computer.

Please note that continuous browsing or other programs running on the computer which may use the Internet shall use lot of data allowance and make your phone reach the data cap sooner than expected.

How to upgrade to Windows 10?

Now that you have heard of the new operating system from Microsoft and learned about the latest features and benefits of Windows 10, its time for an upgrade. There are a few things that you may need to keep in mind before you start the upgrade process:

Windows 10 upgrade is allowed only on computers that run Windows 7 or Windows 8.1
Windows 10 is free to upgrade for the next one year from now.
Do backup your data before the upgrade, as the process may require deletion and rewriting of few system files.
Make sure you have an active Internet connection and a 3GB+ USB drive to create a bootable flas drive.

Follow these steps to upgrade to Windows 10:

Download and Install the Windows 10 Media creation Tool from here.
Run the tool and select the option to upgrade the PC and click on next. (Note: Make sure you have the USB drive plugged in, if you have chosen to create an installation media.)
Choose the language and proper opertaing system version and click on next.
You can either run a clean installation which wipes out all data and installs a fresh copy of windows or an inplace installation.
Choose to allow Windows to download the required drivers.
Agree to the license agreement to initiate the installation.
You may skip to enter the license key if you are doing an upgrade from Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, whereas you are required to enter the key for a fresh install.

Now enjoy the features of the brand new Windows version. However, if you feel sick of it you have an option to roll back to Windows 8.1 within the first month of the upgrade.

How to ensure if your computer has a faulty RAM?

RAM or the memory is one of the most important hardware components of a computer which when turns faulty will immediately reflect on the performance of the computer. In case, your computer has only one memory chip, then in most cases the computer will not boot to the windows, but if your computer has more than one memory chip then it will be a bit tricky to find. Let’s try few things to check if your computer has a faulty memory installed.

Check if Windows is freezing once in a while and takes a lot of time to load applications.
Do you get the famous BSOD error (Blue Screen of Death) occurring without doing any hardware changes to the computer or installing any new drivers.
Does your system restarts very often without any warnings?
Does the computer takes a lot of time while you are trying to save any file?
Do you see strange colors appearing on the monitor once in while?
Do you read the beep codes which normally is a long beep while booting to Windows?

If you are experiencing one or more of any of the above mentioned factors then try to run a memory diagnostics. Windows has an inbuilt memory diagnostics tools which shall be accessed from the Administrative tools in the Control Panel. Once you have started the memory diagnostics, it will restart the computer and start running the test and report for any faulty memory issues. In case, you find any of the RAM to be faulty, try replacing them with a new one.

However, in case you have only one memory installed, try swapping the memory ports as the ports may also have gone faulty.

How to clean wipe your hard drive?

I understand, you may be wondering on what exactly a clean wipe means. While you delete a file from your computer it gets stored in the recycle bin for some time and when you empty the bin, it is gone. But have you ever thought if it is actually gone out of the computer? No! It just isn’t visible, but will be still available until it is over written. This can be good if in case you wish to recover any accidentally deleted data. But what if you do not want to take the risk of others recovering your data.

Here are few utilities which shall help you to clean wipe your data for free. These utilities allows you to clean wipe a specific file or specific partition or clean a complete drive or wipe free spaces from your computer.

CCleaner

As you know already, this tool does a lot of other jobs apart from wiping an entire disk or just the free space. You shall click on Tools, Drive Wiper and select either of the two options to clean wipe. However choosing to wipe the entire disk will keep the files on the C drive, but erase the rest. Click Here to download Ccleaner.

File Shredder

This tool is light and free and gives you a view of the Windows Explorer so you shall choose a specific file and clean it off the drive. It also helps you to clean any free space available in the disk. Click Here to download File Shredder.

Windows Recovery Environment

This utility is available with Windows 8.1 and allows you to erase data thoroughly while running the re-installation wizard.

In case your computer is equipped with a Solid State Drive (SSD) then you may also try to get a ssd secure erase utility from the manufacturer’s website and then clean wipe the drive.

How to take a complete hard drive snapshot?

In case you are afraid if your computer will crash suddenly and you will have to reinstall windows which will wipe away all your data, then data backup would be the first way to protect data. But that is not the only way! You know you could take a snap shot of your computer’s hard drive and use it to quickly get back to the same settings with all the programs and files without having to reinstall.

Make sure you have a USB pen drive, an external hard drive and an active Internet connection. Here is how to do it:

Download Clonezilla, which will help you to create an image of your system.
Download Tuxboot, which will mount the image taken to the USB pen drive.
Connect the USB pen drive to the computer and then format it to make it clean without any data in it.
Open Tuxboot and click on the bottom to choose ISO. Browse to find the clonezilla live.ISO file and mount it on the USB flash drive and hit ok.
Reboot the computer and enter the BIOS by pressing F2 or Del on your keyboard. Go to the boot section and choose to manually boot from the flash drive which will trigger the system to boot from the clonezilla.
Select the language on the clonezilla start option and press on start clone zilla liva.
While asking to choose a device to store the image file, select local disk and hit enter. This will return a pop up to connect the external device. Now plug in the external hard drive and then hit enter.
Clonezilla will now run a full system scan of all the hard drive connected to your computer and ask on where to save the image file. You may choose the name of the external hard drive and save it directly or create a directory to save the image files.
Now choose beginner mode and select save disk to start taking the snap shots.
Select the hard drive that you need to take the snap shot. In case, you have more than one partition, you may need to choose the option sdg for capturing the image of the entire disk.
Now the system will take a little while to complete the image capture based on the size of the hard drive.
Once done, your system images are ready in your hard drive to be restored on a different device.

How to fix an issue with the WiFi Connection?

WiFi Internet connection are the most convenient when they work but when not working will become the most frustrating thing ever. However most of the time WiFi issues can be sorted by steps as simple as restarting the computer. Here are a few steps that you could do easily to fix the issue:

Check if you have turned on the WiFi button on your laptop.
Shut down the computer and the WiFi router. Wait for a minute and then start the router first. Hold on for few more minutes and check to see if all the lights on the router is up and active. Now start the computer and turn on WiFi once you reach the desktop.
Check if any other laptop or smart phones are able to connect to the network, if yes then the issue is only with the laptop.
Check if the WiFi icon on the notification area is glowing green and says connected. Mostly it won’t. In both ways try disconnecting and connect to the right network with the proper password. (Remember the password is case sensitive.)
Turn off Windows firewall and other Anti virus software running on the computer and try connecting again.
Run windows diagnostics utility to fix any problems automatically.
Try connecting the laptop with a Ethernet cable. If the Internet is still not working, then it could be the router or the ISP. In case, its working try reinstalling the driver for the wireless adapter.

If none of these steps works out, then do call our support team for help.

How to fix a faulty Ethernet connection?

Most of us have the tendency to yell or call some one immediately when our Ethernet connection is not working. But that’s not so complicated, you could try out a few simple steps to fix your connection by yourself instead of waiting for someone to attend. These steps may not fix your computer at all times, however it will help you to find the exact cause of the issue.

If you are connected on a network check if the other computers on the network are able to connect to the Internet.

If yes, check the Ethernet cable and the network interface card on your computer. You shall try to swap the Ethernet cable and try connecting to the Internet. Sometimes even a simple restart could do the job. Else check if the Network Interface Card on the Device Manager has any issues. In case you have tried updating the driver for the NIC, try reverting back to the old version or try a system restore. But remember that a restore could take away any changes that you have done to the computer recently.
If none of the computers on the network works or in case its a stand alone computer, then check if the you receive an active data connection on your router or wireless modem. Normally the data lights glow in orange color and is blinking. If you are not seeing such activity, it could be a problem with your ISP. If that is working fine then try to restart your modem by pressing the power button on the rear side of the device.

If these steps takes you no where then give us a call and we will help you out with the Internet issue.

What to do if you computer does not boot?

Do not panic or go to the extent of quitting to work if your computer does not boot. The issue could be as simple that you could fix it all yourself, even if its not our team is there to help you out. But you can try these worthy steps before giving us a call:

Is the Display Working?

The first thing that you should see is that if your monitor displays anything or not. If its not, try out the steps below, else jump to step 2.

1. Check the Power Supply

It could be power socket or the power cable that is faulty. You could confirm that plugging a different device, may be a charger to check the socket. If its good, then check the cable. Try using a different cable from a different device to ensure its good. If all is good then check if your computer starts when you hit the power button. All computers will have a led indicators to confirm that. Also you could feel the fan running inside the computer. If you have not felt any of these, then it could be the SMPS which is faulty. Please be in touch with the support team.

3. Check for External Devices

An incompatible hardware driver sometimes may not allow you to boot to windows. But in this case, you shall see the monitor displaying the BIOS screen and the restarting without taking you to the Windows. Here, you shall try to remove all unwanted hardware items (including the Internet cable) from the computer and have only the basic devices like the mouse and the keyboard.

4. Boot to Safe Mode

Press F8 after the BIOS screen and check if you are able to boot to see the advanced boot options. Choose safe mode and then press enter. In case, you are now able to view the Windows screen, then it could be a recent hardware or software change that you made to the computer which is the reason for the boot failure. If that is the case run a system restore from the safe mode to revert back to the old settings when the computer was working fine.

If the issue still exists, then contact our support team to fix the issue for you.

How to fix a typically slow computer?

You might be annoyed when your new computer which was working great till yesterday suddenly started being more sluggish. Computers may slow down because of a recent program or driver that you have installed, virus or malware attack, etc. We have formulated few steps which will help you to overcome the slow speed issue:

Too Many startups

Computers loaded with too many startup items or services shall slow down the computer. As these items shall be running on the background would consume a lot of CPU power. Open up the task manager and check the processes that consume more space and try removing them. If the system is back to normal, try to find the related program and then try to remove the program from the computer. You may also open up start up utility by typing ‘msconfig’ on the run line and then disable unwanted startup items from the computer.

Roll Back

In case you have updated any new drivers to your computer for any of your hardware components, then it could be possibly the reason as it is incompatible with the computer. In this case right click the device in the device manager and then click on disable. Now check the performance of your computer, if it seems to be good, go to device properties and click on roll back driver to revert back to the previous version of the driver.

Revert Back

Most often it could be one of the recent changes that you have done to your computer, which could be the reason for the slow down. If you are aware of installing any new programs to your computer, you shall try uninstalling it from the control panel. In case, you do not know on what was the last change that you made, you then have an option to revert back to a previous date when your computer was working fine. But trying that shall remove all changes that are done to your computer recently and put back your computer to a day when it was working fine. If you are willing to try this out search for system restore and execute the program.

Virus or Malware Attack

The sudden slow down of a computer shall be due to a virus or malware attack. You shall open up the task manager and check for processes that are running on the background without a proper name or sometimes does not have a name at all. This could be a shortcut, but works most of the time. In case, you see any such malicious activity in the computer, then try out steps to find Malware attack and resolve it.

In case, none of these steps then feel free to email our support team for help.

Author Archives: Shahul