In todays day and age, your PC or laptop is your essential companion to handle personal, work, entertainment, and creative endeavors. While some wear and tear is inevitable over time, you can adopt several smart practices to avoid sluggish performance, unexpected crashes, annoying glitches, and even premature hardware failure. In this article, we will discuss some of the most harmful habits that may unintentionally hinder or damage your computer, and offer various tips to ensure your digital workhorse remains in peak condition.

If you want to access Windows while on another operating system, there's always the Microsoft Remote Desktop app. As the name suggests, it lets you access a Windows machine regardless of what kind of machine you're on. Well, we say "as the name suggests," but the app has received a name change, and people aren't very happy with Microsoft's decision-making.

With the arrival of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the console world moved over to (or in Xbox's case returned to) the x86 CPU architecture. The current generation of these consoles has stayed the course and it's largely been a success.

As you use your Windows 11 PC, files can start to pile up and take a lot of space, even when you don't need them anymore. In many cases, these may be files you intentionally downloaded, but other times, the system itself may download or generate files that serve as a cache. Essentially, cached files can speed up certain processes by allowing you to load those files locally without having to download them again.

Windows Spotlight is a great way to keep your desktop fresh every day. Set it up, and Windows will automatically find a new scene to set for as wallpaper, and you can tell it what kind of topics you'd like to see. However, some windows were getting in the way of the beautiful scenery, displaying buttons to search more about what Windows Spotlight is showing you. If you'd rather make room to see the photography at its best, there's some good news for you, as Microsoft is working on a way to hide more of the Spotlight UI.

Shopping for storage can be a strange endeavor. In many cases, items with the same capacity and the same connector (with the same theoretical speed limitations) can cost wildly different prices. Demystifying this can be a process in itself, and comparing SSD features while shopping for one can be just as difficult.

Image: NASA US astronaut Barry Wilmore called NASA ground crew on Saturday, asking for help with a repetitive knocking sound that was coming from the Boeing Starliner craft. The interaction was captured by a NASA Space Flight forum member, who included a recording of it in a post that was spotted by Ars Technica.In the recording, Wilmore asks NASA crew in Houston to configure their call so that he could show them the noise, which he says is coming from the speaker inside Starliner. Then, a repetitive clanging sound with slight there’s-something-on-the-wing vibes can be heard. The Earthside crew member describes it as sounding “almost like a sonar ping.”Starliner crew reports hearing strange "sonar like noises" emanating from their craft. This is... Continue reading…

Whether you have a great gaming PC, one of the best laptops, or even a mini PC, Windows will somehow still find a way to give you unexpected errors. There are many ways to fix these random issues, but DISM (Deployment Image Servicing and Management) commands are something most people aren't familiar with. System admins regularly use DISM to configure, tweak, and repair system images.

Image: Microsoft While the latest update to Windows 11 makes it look like the upcoming Recall feature can be easily removed by users, Microsoft tells us it’s just a bug and a fix is coming. Deskmodder spotted the change last week in the latest 24H2 version of Windows 11, with KB5041865 seemingly delivering the ability to uninstall Recall from the Windows Features section.“We are aware of an issue where Recall is incorrectly listed as an option under the ‘Turn Windows features on or off’ dialog in Control Panel,” says Windows senior product manager Brandon LeBlanc in a statement to The Verge. “This will be fixed in an upcoming update.” Image: Tom Warren / The Verge Recall appeared as an optional Windows feature recently. The... Continue reading…

Disney and DirecTV both blame each other for causing the blackout. | Image: The Verge Disney-owned channels including ABC and ESPN were pulled from DirecTV’s lineup on Sunday after talks to reach a new distribution deal between the companies collapsed. The blackout started midway through ESPN’s broadcast of the US Open tennis tournament, and just ahead of the NFL season opener this coming weekend. DirecTV and Disney are both blaming each other for causing the blackout. The only thing for certain is that DirecTV’s roughly 11 million subscribers are the ones suffering.DirecTV says it’s being prevented from offering more flexible packages that can more closely cater to consumer interest, and that Disney is “herding consumers away” from network TV by shifting content to Disney-owned streaming services like Hulu and Disney... Continue reading…

A few days ago, we learned that Microsoft may allow you to uninstall its upcoming Recall capability from Windows 11. This was based on the settings present in a recent optional Windows 11 update that was rolled out in the European Union (EU) . This build offered users a toggle in the Control Panel, enabling them to get rid of the controversial capability altogether. However, Microsoft now says that it does not plan to empower customers in this way after all.

From craving any graphics card to wondering which one to buy, we all grew up. I fondly remember the struggles of getting games to run without a discrete graphics card on my "gaming" PC 20 years ago. While integrated graphics have come a long way in the last 15 years, you still need a dedicated graphics card for serious gaming.