Random Tech Questions you want answered.

Check to make sure your apps are good with Win10 in their current versions. If not, you might have to reinstall them, and/or run them in compatibility mode. Do a full backup of application data, at least, before you run the upgrade. If you have any peripherals, make sure they don't need special considerations in Win10 (unlikely unless you've got some old ones).

Wink_and_the_Gun wrote:

So, my wife’s Samsung phone's browser seems to have been hijacked - every time she opens it, 4 to 6 tabs open on pages that all look the same. I’ve tried a couple malware-remover software, but they’re not detecting anything.

Any ideas?

I would just do a factory reset. If you have linked a google account and enabled all the backup features, as well as backed up your photos, then all the apps will be downloaded and restored immediately upon logging back into the google account. It even restores some stuff I wouldn't expect, like wi-fi & bluetooth connections and credentials. Just don't expect it to restore a 3rd party launcher settings. That, restoring pictures, and logging back into apps are the only drawbacks I can think of. But you also get a refreshed system, and a chance to evaluate if you really needed 3 weather apps.

Came in to the office this morning and found this... ad?... on the lock screen of my work laptop.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/fzrjurE.png)

I can't for the life of me figure out where it's coming from. It's not in my email inbox and it's not some kind of calendar event.

Edit: apparently it's google calendar that does this? It just automatically ads invitations from anyone, even messages that were filtered as spam?

Middcore wrote:

Came in to the office this morning and found this... ad?... on the lock screen of my work laptop.

I can't for the life of me figure out where it's coming from. It's not in my email inbox and it's not some kind of calendar event.

Edit: apparently it's google calendar that does this? It just automatically ads invitations from anyone, even messages that were filtered as spam?

I had the same thing in my calendar last night, repeating for days. I dug around and could never find the source, not in my inbox, not in my spam, I could never find it. I deleted the invitation, but yeah, super suspicious and annoying.

I've had google add things from my email to my calendar automatically. I'd rather it didn't but it hasn't been obtrusive so far. Until this.

I had this today too! I couldn't do anything but delete it when looking at my phone, but I waited until I was in front of my PC and found on the Google Calendar page that you can report calendar items as spam, so I did that. Then about 6 hours later I had another set of spam calendar events that I also reported. Interesting you all are seeing this too--I guess someone just spotted a vulnerability in Google Calendar and is exploiting it while it lasts? Hopefully Google stomps this out quickly.

eta: looks like this is news

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/pQONJCn.png)

I had to change Google calendar settings to stop automatically adding events completely.

Middcore wrote:

Came in to the office this morning and found this... ad?... on the lock screen of my work laptop.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/fzrjurE.png)

I can't for the life of me figure out where it's coming from. It's not in my email inbox and it's not some kind of calendar event.

Edit: apparently it's google calendar that does this? It just automatically ads invitations from anyone, even messages that were filtered as spam?

This happen to me also. What is happening is someone is using google calendar/gmail to invite spam. There is no way to block this. This problem has been known about for years but hasn't been abused enough to cause a outcry,

So any way how did I stop this. The invite goes to a specific calendar. I currently have 5 on my account. I just deleted the one calendar the invites were going to and created a replacement calendar for it. The calendar I deleted didn't have any task, events, or anything else on it besides the spam so deleting wasn't a problem. I have a task calendar for that stuff.

There is a way to stop this. You just have to change a few settings in your Google Calendar. Here are instructions.

Edit: Rykin beat me to it.

That only stops the invite from showing up on agenda or your lock screen. The actually invite that ask you for a response will still show up on your calendar. Which is fine if you never actual go into your calendar. The invite will go away for a bit after marking it as spam but will return once a new invite goes out.

So today while casting my PC screen to the tv I accidentally click on a tv that wasn't mine. After doing a bit of searching on why is alien tv on my network I learned about Wifi direct. So Win 10 and this other tv support this which is why I can see it when attempting to cast.

My question is there a way to prevent this tv from showing up? I was thinking of casting to the tv with a message that reads "You left your tv wifi connect open to everybody. Now I can see into your home and soul" but that would be mean.

Also very, very funny.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

I was thinking of casting to the tv with a message that reads "You left your tv wifi connect open to everybody. Now I can see into your home and soul" but that would be mean.

I would certainly have fun with casting things onto someone else's TV.

IMAGE(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J3XcSwu2c7E/U__3DP6V-8I/AAAAAAAAMzo/wZfJZpJfzdw/s1600/KILTYmed.jpg)

I was thinking:
IMAGE(https://media0.giphy.com/media/kG3Z0IxmyH2rC/source.gif)

Someone I knew found the TVs in McDonalds were not secure and starting mirroring adult content there. Not something I condone, but still pretty hilarious.

What are people using to play 4k discs? Looks like most of them run around $200 and the xbox one x $500. The S is around $300. I was sad when I learned my playstation couldn't do 4k discs. I'm not seeing any cheap but good options.

Still bummed the PS4 pro didn't. I would have got one for sure.

At this point I'm waiting for the PS5

Baron Of Hell wrote:

What are people using to play 4k discs? Looks like most of them run around $200 and the xbox one x $500. The S is around $300. I was sad when I learned my playstation couldn't do 4k discs. I'm not seeing any cheap but good options.

cheapest I've seen is a Magnavox player at Walmart

Chairman_Mao wrote:
Baron Of Hell wrote:

What are people using to play 4k discs? Looks like most of them run around $200 and the xbox one x $500. The S is around $300. I was sad when I learned my playstation couldn't do 4k discs. I'm not seeing any cheap but good options.

cheapest I've seen is a Magnavox player at Walmart

which I think does fine but won't get any firmware updates. It shows up on Slickdeals whenever it drops to 70 or so.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

What are people using to play 4k discs? Looks like most of them run around $200 and the xbox one x $500. The S is around $300. I was sad when I learned my playstation couldn't do 4k discs. I'm not seeing any cheap but good options.

An Xbox One S/X of some kind. The S will probably have deals around $200 next month. Here's the One S for $215 right now.

I worked from home today, on my personal desktop mostly (dual monitors FTW). I wanted to save an Excel sheet on the company OneDrive and added my work account to O365. It worked, but it also asked me if [MyCompanyName] could 'manage my device'. Sure I guess?

Then I had to change my PIN code to be more secure (6 digits instead of 5). I don't mind that, but I'm wondering... what access did I give to my corporate overlords? Are they now reading as I type this post? HI CEO YOU'RE SUPER COMPETENT.

Google turns out little, and Bing even less. Anyone in the know, or should I just open a ticket at my company?

It depends on your company, but I bet that opens them up to doing pretty much whatever they want via group policy and SCCM. Never put company stuff on personal machines.

I have a TP-Link Archer C7 AC1750 wireless router, that suddenly (within the last month) had decided to start randomly losing all internet connection and disabling all wireless connections multiple times a day. It seems to be getting worse (more frequent) as time passes. What could be causing this? Is the router crapping out somehow? Too many connections? Why would it be getting worse? Seems like the kind of thing that would either work or not.

I don't really want to have to go buy a router, considering that when it works it works great. But I am getting tired of randomly rebooting it every 3-4 hours during the day. Any suggestions on what could be causing this, or how to fix it?

We have cable internet through Spectrum if that matters. The router connects to the cable modem for internet, is hardwired to two PCs and delivers wi-fi to my work laptop, a PS4, two Roku devices, and a handful of phones.

First question - are you sure it's the router and not the modem (or even your ISP)? Fact that you're dropping hardwire AND wifi connections is suspicious.

That said, the fact that it's getting worse over time suggests an electronics degradation mechanism e.g. failing solder joint, intermittent short/open circuit, noise issues as a result of those, failing power supply (but that's probably internal to the unit anyway).

But lets get the stupid questions out the way first.

- You've rebooted it, right? You've also rebooted the modem, right? Hard reset / Factory reset might be worth trying, to clean out any configuration issues that are causing the problem.
- You haven't moved it recently? Like next to a microwave?
- You've changed your wifi password, right? If your neighbors are hanging another 30 devices off it, that could be a problem.

We had something like that a couple of years go. Turns out it was a problem with the line from the house to the pole. It had started wearing down, so anytime there was wind (or a bunch of squirrels or birds on it) it would partially lose connection and require me to do a reboot of the modem and the router.

Jonman wrote:

First question - are you sure it's the router and not the modem (or even your ISP)? Fact that you're dropping hardwire AND wifi connections is suspicious.

I can't be positive. But I've seen what happens when the modem loses its connection, and that is not happening here. The modem looks fine, even the router looks fine, but no connection. As soon as I reboot the router, it all comes back.

You've rebooted it, right? You've also rebooted the modem, right? Hard reset / Factory reset might be worth trying, to clean out any configuration issues that are causing the problem.

As noted above, yes. I'm going to also update the router firmware to see if that helps, which appears to basically do a factory reset.

- You haven't moved it recently? Like next to a microwave?

Ha! No.

You've changed your wifi password, right? If your neighbors are hanging another 30 devices off it, that could be a problem.

That's a good idea, I'll do that as well.

Which version of the C7 do you have? Looking at the firmware notes for the V4, this sticks out:

5. Improved the reliability for Internet and wireless connection.
dejanzie wrote:

I worked from home today, on my personal desktop mostly (dual monitors FTW). I wanted to save an Excel sheet on the company OneDrive and added my work account to O365. It worked, but it also asked me if [MyCompanyName] could 'manage my device'. Sure I guess?

Then I had to change my PIN code to be more secure (6 digits instead of 5). I don't mind that, but I'm wondering... what access did I give to my corporate overlords? Are they now reading as I type this post? HI CEO YOU'RE SUPER COMPETENT.

Google turns out little, and Bing even less. Anyone in the know, or should I just open a ticket at my company?

Look up “Azure AD Registered Devices” and then ask your company what policies they apply to these. It’s probably very minimal to ensure a baseline level of protection for company data.

Most companies will require slightly better security, like (more complicated) passcodes and device encryption, before they allow access to internal networks and files. I worked for a company that would have required me to download and use their device encryption package, as well, which would encrypt the entire storage system...

deftly wrote:

Which version of the C7 do you have? Looking at the firmware notes for the V4, this sticks out:

5. Improved the reliability for Internet and wireless connection.

Mine is V2. I think the firmware update for it says the same thing. So maybe it will help.