One of the biggest complaints I hear from customers is how their computers go into sleep mode at the most inconvenient times. It happens mostly with laptop computers that are stationary and are using the ac power charger. The best way to deal with this issue is to change the power options inside of Windows. Here is how to create a custom power plan inside of Windows 8 / Windows 8.1.

Right out of the box, Windows does a pretty good job of matching its' power options to the hardware inside of your computer. But for some of us, those settings won't work. I don't like my system to go to sleep or hibernate. One of the biggest problems I have encountered is having my computer go to sleep as I'm charging my smartphone via USB port. When the system goes to sleep, so does the USB port. I have disabled hibernation entirely on my system. I have the display turn off after a certain amount of time.

How to create a custom power plan inside of Windows 8 / 8.1

1. Go to the Control Panel and left-click on Hardware and Sound.

2. Left-click on Power Options.

3. In the left-side column, select Create a power plan.

4. Select an existing plan to start with; give it a name and left-click on Next.

5. Make any changes to you may want for the display and when the computer goes to sleep, then left-click on Create.

6. Now you should see your power plan set as default. To change the advanced power settings, left-click on the Change plan settings on the right side of your power plan name.

7. Left-click on Change advanced power settings.

8. On the Advanced settings dialog box that appears, left-click on Change settings that are currently unavailable. Now you can modify every aspect of the power settings for your computer.

Keeping your computer secure has always been challenging. It seems like every week there is another exploit making the rounds. Nobody can predict what kind of attack hackers will use next. But you can protect your computer from the most common actions and techniques used with the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit 5.1 (EMET).

The main screen inside of EMET 5.1

What is EMET? It monitors selected programs (Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office programs, etc.) for known attack actions and techniques. When one of the several pseudo mitigation technologies is triggered, EMET can block or even terminate the program in question. It will also validate digitally signed SSL certificates inside of Internet Explorer. Here's is the current list of mitigations EMET currently looks for.

• Structured Exception Handler Overwrite Protection (SEHOP)
• Data Execution Prevention (DEP)
• Heapspray allocation
• Null page allocation
• Mandatory Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR)
• Export Address Table Access Filtering (EAF)
• Export Address Table Access Filtering Plus (EAF+)
• Bottom-up randomization
• Return Oriented Programming (ROP)
• Attack Surface Reduction (ASR)

The about screen inside of EMET 5.1

EMET 5.1 includes the following improvements:

• Attack Surface Reduction (ASR) has been updated to limit the attack surface of applications and reduce attacks.
• Export Address Table Filtering Plus (EAF+) has been updated to improve and extend the current EAF mitigation.
• 64-bit ROP mitigations have been improved to anticipate future exploitation techniques.
• Several security, compatibility and performance improvements.
  

EMET can also be customized via the registry (see EMET manual for instructions). Here are a few of the items that can be modified:

• Enable unsafe configurations.
• Configuring custom message for user reporting.
• Configuring certificate trust feature for third party browsers.
• Configuring local telemetry for troubleshooting
• Configuring EMET Agent icon visibility.

Here's a quote from Microsoft's website:

The Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) helps raise the bar against attackers gaining access to computer systems. EMET anticipates the most common actions and techniques adversaries might use in compromising a computer, and helps protect by diverting, terminating, blocking, and invalidating those actions and techniques. EMET helps protect your computer systems even before new and undiscovered threats are formally addressed by security updates and antimalware software. EMET benefits enterprises and all computer users by helping to protect against security threats and breaches that can disrupt businesses and daily lives.

EMET should never monitor anti-malware and intrusion prevention or detection software, debuggers, software that handles digital rights management (DRM) technologies or software that uses anti-debugging, obfuscation, or hooking technologies.

External storage devices like flash drives or hard drives are so convenient for carrying data between computers. Just plug and play, as they say. But did you know it's not the same for when you unplug your drives? Here's how to safely remove external drives from your Windows computer.

Recently I was at a customer's location repairing her computer and needed some files from one of my USB flash drives. When I was done, I went through the process of ejecting the USB drive from her computer. She was surprised that I didn't just pull the flash drive out. You can, most of the time, unplug a USB device like a mouse or printer without having to do anything to your Windows-based computer. It's only when you have a storage device, like a flash drive or external hard drive, that you have to take an extra step to remove the device safely.

What is write caching?

By default, Windows enables write caching on storage devices for better performance, whether internal or external. Write caching allows programs to write to the device and continue without waiting for the data to be written. By properly ejecting a storage device, you ensure that the cache is getting written to the device before you disconnect it.

How to safely remove external drives

1. Left-click on the Safely Remove Hardware icon on the Taskbar.
   
2. Left-click on the device you want to disconnect.
   

or

1. Open File Explorer (Windows logo key + E).
2. Under This PC / Computer, right-click the drive you want to disconnect and select Eject.

Windows will display a notification when it's safe to disconnect the drive.

Doing computer repair, I see a lot of different issues. But there is one problem I see over and over again, start-up corruption. This most commonly occurs when the computer is not turned off properly. And it appears that laptops are more prone to this issue than desktops are. So here's how to properly shutdown your Windows-based computer.

Logic dictates that if you use a button to turn on a device, you should also use it to turn it off (button on / button off). You use a button to turn on and off your TV, audio/video components, and smartphone. But this is not necessarily the case when it comes to your computer. It is always recommended that you allow the operating system to close down all applications and turn the computer off itself.

Using the Start menu / Start screen to shut down Windows

This may seem like a no-brainer, but you would be amazed at how many people don't use this method. It's mainly laptop users who instinctively reach for the power button. But if you don't watch how long you hold the power button down, you could perform a hard shut down. It's simpler and recommended to use the shut down button on the Start menu / Start screen.

Windows Vista

Start button > Power button > Shut down

Windows 7

Start button > Shut down

Windows 8

1. Start screen > Sign out

2. Sign in screen > Power button > Shut down

Windows 8.1

Start screen > Power button > Shut down

Or

Power users menu (Windows logo key + X) > Shut down or sign out > Shut down

Windows 10

Start button > Power button > Shut down

Or

Power users menu (Windows logo key + X) > Shut down or sign out > Shut down

Using the power button on the computer to shut down Windows

This method is acceptable for turning off your computer, as it performs the same command as the shut down button on the Start menu / Start screen. But you have to check and make sure that the power options inside the operating system are configured to shut down the system when the power button is pressed.

Power button options inside of Windows 8.1 / Windows 10

The power button can be configured to put the system into sleep or hibernate. And if your system loses power while it's asleep, you will get an error when you restart it. This happens quite often with laptops when they are not using the ac adapter the battery runs out.

Using the power button on the computer to force it to shut down

How do you turn off your computer when it freezes up and doesn't have a reset button? This is where the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) specification comes into play. This spec has been built into every computer for well over a decade now. It mandates that when the power button is held down for 10 seconds or more, the system performs a hard shut down, turning off power to all components. This will most likely cause an error upon restart.

Your computer has two types of memory, Random Access Memory (RAM) and Virtual Memory. All programs use RAM, but when there isn't enough RAM for the program you're trying to run, Windows temporarily moves information that would usually be stored in RAM to a file on your hard disk called a Paging File. The amount of data temporarily stored in a paging file is also referred to as virtual memory. Using virtual memory, in other words, moving information to and from the paging file, frees up enough RAM for programs to run correctly.

The more RAM your computer has, the faster your programs will generally run. If a lack of RAM is slowing your computer, you might be tempted to increase virtual memory to compensate. However, your computer can read data from RAM much more quickly than from a hard disk, so adding RAM is a better solution.

If you receive error messages that warn of low virtual memory, you need to either add more RAM or increase your paging file size to run the program on your computer. Windows usually manages this automatically, but you can manually change the virtual memory size if the default size isn't large enough for your needs.

There is a formula for calculating the correct pagefile size. The Minimum pagefile size is one and a half (1.5) x the amount of memory. The Maximum pagefile size is three (3) x the minimum pagefile size. Let's say you have 2 Gb (2,048 Mb) of memory. The minimum pagefile size would be 1.5 x 2,048 = 3,072 Mb and the maximum pagefile size would be 3 x 3,072 = 9,216 Mb.

How to change the pagefile size in Windows 8

1. Open the System Properties, press the Windows logo key + Pause, or use the Power User menu (Windows logo key + X) and select System.
   
2. If you are going to use the formula above to configure your pagefile, note the amount of installed memory under the System category.
   
3. In the left pane, click Advanced system settings. If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
4. On the Advanced tab under Performance, click Settings.
   
5. Click the Advanced tab and then under Virtual memory, click Change.
   
6. Clear the Automatically manage paging file size for all drives checkbox.
   
7. Under Drive [Volume Label], click the drive that contains the paging file you want to change.
8. Click Custom size, type a new size in megabytes in the Initial size (MB) and Maximum size (MB) box, click Set, and then click OK.

Note: Increases in size usually don't require a restart for the changes to take effect, but if you decrease the size, you'll need to restart your computer. It is recommended that you don't disable or delete the paging file.