Microsoft is finishing work on Windows 10’s next update, which will probably be named the “Spring Creators Update” and was codenamed “Redstone 4”. This is Windows 10 version “1803”, and it will launch sometime in April 2018.
Everything New in Windows 10’s Spring Creators Update, Available April 2018
Microsoft is finishing work on Windows 10’s next update, which will probably be named the “Spring Creators Update” and was codenamed “Redstone 4”. This is Windows 10 version “1803”, and it will launch sometime in April 2018.
Notifications can be distracting, but Windows 10 has a one-click switch that disables all of them. You can also disable notifications for individual apps, or hide the many other notifications that appear throughout Windows.
The Xbox One can broadcast your gameplay on Microsoft’s own Mixer service, but it also lets you broadcast on Twitch. Twitch streaming just requires some quick setup the first time you do it.
Your iPhone or iPad normally uses the DNS servers provided by whatever Wi-Fi network you use. But you can set a custom DNS server and use Google Public DNS, OpenDNS, or any other DNS server you prefer.
The Windows Subsystem for Linux, introduced in the Anniversary Update, became a stable feature in the Fall Creators Update. You can now run Ubuntu and openSUSE on Windows, with Fedora and more Linux distributions coming soon.
You don’t have to wait at home to sign for a package—even if you have a package on the way that requires a signature. UPS and FedEx both allow you to sign for many packages online, and the US Postal Service also allows you to authorize deliveries that might not occur if you weren’t there in person.
Windows 10 now allows you to install multiple Linux environments, starting with the Fall Creators Update. If you have multiple Linux environments, you can set your default and switch between them.
You might get a quicker browsing experience by changing the DNS servers your devices use to look up internet names. Chromebooks let you set a custom DNS server for a wireless network. Here’s how.
Android updates are a still a point of contention among die-hard fans, because most manufacturers don’t keep updated with the latest offerings from Google. But just because your phone isn’t getting full OS updates doesn’t mean it’s totally out of date.
The latest version of Windows 10 is the Fall Creators Update—version “1709”—and was released in September 2017. Microsoft releases new major updates every six months.
Google and Microsoft want pairing a Bluetooth device with an Android or Windows PC to be as easy as pairing AirPods with an iPhone. This feature is already available, but only on a few devices so far.
Modern smartphones and other devices, from the iPhone 8 and iPhone X to the Samsung Galaxy S8, advertise support for “Bluetooth 5.0” on their specifications list. Here’s what’s new in the latest and greatest version of Bluetooth.
Many websites have leaked passwords. Attackers can download databases of usernames and passwords and use them to “hack” your accounts. This is why you shouldn’t reuse passwords for important websites, because a leak by one site can give attackers everything they need to sign into other accounts.
The United States Postal Service, UPS, and FedEx all offer online dashboards where you can see exactly what packages (and letters, in the case of the US Postal Service) are scheduled to arrive at your address. They’ll even email and send you text message notifications so you can stay on top of things.
Valve’s Steam Link is a sleek, easy way to stream games from your PC to a TV elsewhere in your home. You connect the Steam Link to your PC via HDMI, connect a controller, and play. It uses Steam In-Home Streaming, which you can use with any PC, but the Steam Link offers a cheap, optimized streaming receiver you can connect to your TV.
If you’re a gamer (or just a PC user) with NVIDIA graphics, NVIDIA’s drivers are probably wasting gigabytes of storage on your hard drive. NVIDIA leaves old installer files buried on your hard drive until you get annoyed and manually delete them…if you even realize you need to.
Mozilla Firefox is an open source project, so anyone can take its code, modify it, and release a new browser. That’s what Waterfox, Pale Moon, and Basilisk are—alternative browsers based on the Firefox code. But we recommend against using any of them.
If you’ve installed NVIDIA’s GeForce Experience software, you’ll see quite a few NVIDIA processes running in the background on your PC. We counted ten separate processes in our Windows Task Manager. But what do they all do?
Everyone’s talking about the internet and whether, or how, it should be regulated. But not enough people know how the internet actually works—or what exactly the internet is.
Your internet service provider offers its own DNS servers, which help you turn websites like www.howtogeek.com into their respective IP addresses. Your devices use those by default, but you can set your own preferred DNS servers for a bit of improved speed.
PC gamers have to set a myriad of graphics options to balance performance with graphics quality. If you don’t want to tweak them by hand, NVIDIA, AMD, and even Intel provide tools that will do it for you.
On 64-bit versions of Windows, you have two separate Program Files folders. But it doesn’t end there. You also have two separate system directories where DLL libraries and executables are stored: System32 and SysWOW64. Despite the names, System32 is full of 64-bit files and SysWOW64 is full of 32-bit files. So what gives?
I’m getting sick of Windows 10’s auto-installing apps. Apps like Facebook are now showing up out of nowhere, and even displaying notifications begging for me to use them. I didn’t install the Facebook app, I didn’t give it permission to show notifications, and I’ve never even used it. So why is it bugging me?
Everyone should use a password manager, and third-party password managers like LastPass, 1Password, or Dashlane work better on an iPhone or iPad than you might think. You can directly autofill passwords on websites and apps using a share sheet action. It’s just hidden by default.
There are many reasons your Internet connection might appear slow. It could be a problem with your modem or router, Wi-Fi signal, signal strength on your cable line, devices on your network saturating your bandwidth, or even a slow DNS server. These troubleshooting steps will help you pin down the cause.
