Windows 10 ESU now offered free of charge – or is it?

Windows 10 end of support is less than three months away. After 14th October 2025 Windows 10 will no longer receive updates for: feature updates quality updates bug fixes security updates If you are using Windows Defender antivirus on a Windows 10 computer then carry on. You will continue to receive antivirus signature updates (definitions …
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Windows 10 End of Support – ESU pricing

Microsoft will not support Windows 10 or provide updates after October 14th 2025 Windows 10 End Of Support does not mean that Windows 10 will stop working. However, although Windows 10 will continue to function after that date, the lack of updates (including security updates) will make it more and more vulnerable, as time goes …
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Printer stuck? You may need to unblock the print spooler

How to clear a blockage when your printer won’t print If you send a document for printing in Windows and it fails to print (for whatever reason), then any further documents you try (or retry) to print can get stuck behind the first one. A piece of software called the “print spooler” handles stuff sent …
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Windows 10 end of life. Your options

The Windows 10 end of life is 14/10/2025 In an earlier blog on Windows 10 end of life, I concentrated on the pros and cons of updating to Windows 11 if you can. But what if you can’t? Windows 10, once hailed as “the last version of Windows,” is approaching its end-of-life on October 14, 2025. …
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Microsoft Bitlocker

Bitlocker improves security but can complicate things A password or PIN normally protects the contents of your Windows computer from prying eyes. But what happens if someone removes the hard drive (or SSD) from your computer and attaches it via USB to another computer? In the past, it has been trivially easy to access the …
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Close a frozen program from the taskbar in Windows 11

What do you do when a program stops working in Windows? It happens to everyone from time to time: a program just stops responding. It doesn’t necessarily mean there’s any great problem, but you can’t do any more with it until you dismiss it and start again. If you don’t know a better way, you …
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“Let’s finish setting up your device”

If you have a Windows 10 or 11 computer then this unwanted interruption has probably hassled you several times in recent months Microsoft’s screen that sometimes pops up with the exhortation “let’s finish setting up your device” is un-necessary and somewhat misleading. Maybe I am naive for thinking that no company with whom we deal …
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Upgrade to Windows 11?

Windows 10 is nearing “end of life” What if your computer will not run Windows 11? The main reason probably lies in a piece of hardware that your computer lacks. It is called Trusted Platform Module: level 2.0. If your computer lacks this then it is likely to be at least five years old and …
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Predictive typing in Word and Windows (10 & 11)

The spirit of Clippy is back Remember the olden days of the Microsoft “Clippy” character in Microsoft Word? If you started to create a document that looked anything like a letter then it popped up a totally useless box with a totally fatuous and infantile piece of clipart, and a caption saying “It looks like …
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