Category Archives: Software Tips

Recover files from lost GPT disk NTFS partition [SOLVED] {FREE}

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Recently my Dell work laptop failed to resume after sleeping. It still recognized the internal 2.5″ SSD boot drive but it said it was not bootable. I believe the problem was caused by Windows 10. After removing the drive and connecting to another computer for diagnostics, I was able to determine that no partitions/GPT disk structure was being picked up by Windows. 🙁 Thankfully after trying a ton of recovery options, I was finally able to recover all my files

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Recover/copy a corrupt Quicken file [SOLVED]

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If you ever have a problem in Quicken where you cannot backup your QDF data file, and you cannot even copy your QDF data file, then you may want to try the following. This allowed me to save my mom’s Quicken data after nothing else worked (i.e. validate/repair did not work) and all the other solutions I found online did not work. This particular problem was caused by bad blocks on a failing SSD, but it could have just as

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Disable Windows 10 download on Windows 7 [SOLVED]

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Microsoft made the somewhat odious choice to automatically download the Windows 10 installer onto Windows 7 systems 🙁 If you are an IT person installing (or reinstalling) Windows 7 Pro onto desktop business systems, you probably do not want multi-gigabyte downloads going on without any user intervention. Likewise, a pesky “upgrade” icon in the taskbar is a nuisance at best. Thankfully, on a clean install of Windows 7 (Pro or otherwise) if you disable the following two updates you should be

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[SOLVED] Can’t pin folders to Quick Access (The parameter is incorrect.)

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IMPORTANT NOTE: some commenters reported that while the method described below DOES restore the ability to add new items to the quick access area, it also removed their existing (old) quick access folders/shortcuts. Therefore, they had to re-add those items. I recommend backing up or taking note of what folders/shortcuts you have BEFORE carrying out this tip. 👍👍 Question. I am trying to pin my Google Drive folder to the new “Quick access” list in Windows 10 but it fails

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Can’t be opened because it is from an unidentified developer mac

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If you are using Mac OSX El Capitan, Yosemite, Mavericks or similar, you may encounter the following error: This is of course a very sad message if you know the app is from a reputable source 🙁 Thankfully, there is an easy fix! Step 1. Go to Finder Step 2. Locate the application you are trying to open In my instance it is Finder -> Applications -> VLC Step 3. Hold down the command button while you right click (option

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Prevent iTunes from moving songs when adding to Music Library [SOLVED]

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iTunes exhibits a potentially problematic behavior when adding songs. Specifically, when you add songs to an iTunes music library. By default iTunes copies songs to the “iTunes Media folder. This can be rather wasteful as you can end up with a ton of space used by the duplicate media, potentially eating up a huge chunk of your SSD/HDD space. 🙁 Thankfully, this behavior can be adjusted easily. 🙂 Here is the spot to make the change: iTunes -> Preferences -> Advanced

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Get Windows Movie Maker for Windows 10

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Microsoft’s Windows Movie Maker is a surprisingly useful tool for simple video conversion and re-sizing. While it has not been updated for a number of years, it is still supported in Windows 10. Specifically, Microsoft recommends movie maker version “Windows Movie Maker 2012” for use on Win10. You can download that version directly from Microsoft: dl link NOTE: the online installer above seems to be fail periodically when the windows essentials catalog is down. If you get an error like this: Then you make

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