Dennis Faas

Infopackets Reader Barb F. writes: " Dear Dennis, Thanks for your ongoing articles on Thunderbird - they've been a big help! I have a question as well. In earlier editions of Thunderbird, there was an option such that if I minimized Thunderbird, it ... would minimize to my tray bar (where the clock is) rather than on the task bar. I've searched and searched inside the program preferences but I don't see an option for Thunderbird to 'minimize to tray bar'. I prefer this behavior because I leave Thunderbird open all the time, but I don't want it taking up space on my task bar. Is there a way to ... (view more)

Duplicate files are the curse of every computer user - even professional computer technicians have them. While duplicate files are not really something that harms your PC, they do take up disk drive space, slow the PC down (especially when thumbnail ... previews are generated in Windows), and make things very disorganized. So, if you have a large drive - or a couple of them - and store lots of files on your PC, one thing I recommend my clients do is to take some time to manage duplicate files in order to free up space. This not only saves backup space, but also the users' sanity, should they ever ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Fran G. writes: " Dear Dennis, Thanks so much for your recent articles on Mozilla Thunderbird. I have a question regarding Thunderbird as well. Whenever I respond to an email from someone, during the composition I usually press ... Enter twice on the keyboard to start a new paragraph. This happens most of the time. However, if I start a new email and then begin a new paragraph, I only need to press Enter once on the keyboard. This is very inconsistent and confusing! Can you explain why this is and/or explain how to fix it so paragraphs are the same all the time? " My response: ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Peter F. writes: " Dear Dennis, Thanks so much for your newsletter. I've been a long time subscriber (about 10 years now) and enjoy reading your Windows tips. I took your advice some time ago regarding antivirus software, and have ... been using Avast antivirus (free) ever since. I have never had an issue with it - except for today when Avast popped up with an 'Avast Software Updater' notification in the bottom right hand corner near the clock. I have never seen this notification before. When I clicked on it, Avast opened up with a new window with the title 'Software Updater' ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Bryan M. writes: " Dear Dennis, Thanks for your excellent article on how to disable Thunderbird email attachment reminders ! I have somewhat of a related question. When I leave Thunderbird running in the background and if I'm ... surfing the web or perhaps even writing a document, Thunderbird pops up constantly with a new email notification window in the bottom right of my screen (by the clock), and it stays there for about 5 seconds. I imagine this wouldn't be an issue for most people, however I have multiple email accounts set up with Thunderbird and I receive a lot of emails ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Barb S. writes: " Dear Dennis, I just upgraded to Windows 10 and did not like the default email client, so I decided to give Mozilla Thunderbird a try. So far it is an excellent email program; however, one thing that is driving me ... nuts is the way that Thunderbird constantly pops up with a message 'Found an attachment keyboard: attached' every time I type in 'attached' or 'attach', when composing an email. I would prefer not to be reminded of this every time I type those words. Is there any way to disable the Thunderbird attachment reminder messages, or whatever they're ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Mike B. writes: " Dear Dennis, I just read John Lister's article on ' 700M Android Phones Contain Chinese Spyware ', and I have a related question. I've just bought myself a Windows 10 phone (Lumia 640 XLT LTE). I like it, but am ... unsure what I need to do, if anything, about antivirus / malware protection. I'm a bit paranoid about this stuff and keep my home PC up to date and protected, and backed up. I read in a number of places that it's not necessary to have antivirus / anti-malware software on the Windows Phone. Is this true, or do I need some form of malware protection ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader John D. writes: " Dear Dennis, I just upgraded to Windows 10 recently. When I click on File Explorer by the Start menu (which brings up This PC or "My Computer" in previous editions of Windows), I now see C and D drive and now a ... drive E which appears to be empty - it is only about 1 gigabyte large. I don't know where this drive came from but I have no use for it and would prefer not to see it. Is there any way to remove this drive letter in file explorer? " My response: Some manufactures will assign partitions on the hard drive for Windows or BIOS recovery or some other ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader David F. writes: " Dear Dennis, Our company is running Windows Server 2008 Standard edition. One of the things that has been broken for a very long time is the right click context menu. For example, if we login as the ... Administrator on the server and try and right click an icon on the desktop, nothing happens. The right click context menu is also missing on all of our machines connected to the domain. Can you help? " My response: Admittedly I was not sure why this was happening but had a suspicion it was related to a group policy object setting. Group Policy Objects (or GPOs ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Pat P. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently had to rollback Windows 7 because the system appeared to be corrupt. The rollback worked. However, now whenever I try to open MS Office it starts up with a message that it is configuring MS ... Office, then says 'MS Office requires validation'. I chose the option to activate on line (or by phone), but then all I get after that is a message that MS Office could not be activated because the product key is invalid. What do I do now? " My response: I did have this exact same problem a few months back with another user. The scenario was ... (view more)