The issue of a USB WiFi adapter losing its settings after a cold boot in Windows 10 is commonly linked to power management settings that cause the device to power down to save energy. To resolve this, you should disable power-saving features for the USB adapter and related USB hubs. Specifically, navigate to the device properties in Device Manager, go to the Power Management tab, and uncheck the option “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power” for the USB WiFi adapter.
How to Hide the “Try the new Outlook” toggle
If you wish to hide the New Outlook toggle or prevent the automatic migration, you can set a registry key. The specific key is:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Options\General
Create a new DWORD type entry with the name “HideNewOutlookToggle” and a value of “1“.
This will hide the “Try the new Outlook” toggle. Conversely setting it to 0 or deleting the value will re-enable it.
Missing Windows Boot Manager or bootrec fixboot error
The “bootrec /fixboot access denied” error in Windows occurs when the bootrec /fixboot command cannot access or modify the boot sector and similarly Windows Boot Manager missing in the BIOS Boot Order are often due to issues with the Boot Configuration Data (BCD) or partition structure.
To resolve this, try using bcdboot to rebuild the BCD store, or attempt to fix the issue using the Windows Recovery Environment
Here’s a breakdown of how to troubleshoot and resolve the issue:
1.
Remove Change Search Settings from Firefox Homepage Content Search Suggestion List
This fix works around the issue of Firefox randomly selecting “Change Search Settings” to search for the entered string in Firefox Settings when you want to search the web with the default search engine. When this happens you also lose the search string and have to retype it.
Place the following code in userContent.css or userChrome.css and place it in the chrome (lower case) folder within the Firefox default profile directory. If the chrome folder does not exist then create it.
* Update: best to have both userContent.css and userChrome.css in chrome folder as it is noticed that some pages,
Reset and Wipe your PC using Windows Reset
The simplest way to wipe your PC to donate, recycle, or sell your PC, is to use the Windows 10 | 11 Reset option
Windows 10
Settings > Update & Security > Recovery
Click ‘Get started’ under ‘Reset this PC’
Windows 11
Settings > Windows Update > Advanced options > Recovery
Click ‘Reset PC’
When ‘Reset this PC’ dialog opens, click ‘Remove everything’
Click reinstall Windows from ‘Cloud download’ or ‘Local reinstall’ (faster)
In ‘Additional settings”
List LAN IP Addresses Host Names MAC addresses and Owners
Linux script to discover active hosts and resolve IP, .local hostnames, MAC addresses, and owners
Install nmap and avahi-utils (if not already installed):
sudo apt update sudo apt install nmap avahi-utils
Short nmap command to list IP, hosts, etc. but omits .local devices
sudo nmap -sn -R 192.168.1.0/24
# Terminal script to list IP Addresses, Host Names, MAC addresses and vendors
resolve_device() {
local ip=$1
echo "Resolving IP: $ip"
local hostname=$(avahi-resolve -4 -a "$ip" 2>/dev/null | awk '{print $2}')
if [ -z "$hostname" ];
Create Locally Trusted Host SSL Development Certificates
Use mkcert to making locally-trusted host development certificates that avoids browser self-certification dialog warning and requires little or no configuration
Install mkcert:
sudo apt update sudo apt install libnss3-tools curl -JLO "https://dl.filippo.io/mkcert/latest?for=linux/amd64" chmod +x mkcert-v*-linux-amd64 sudo mv mkcert-v*-linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/mkcert
Install the local CA:
mkcert -install
Generates and installs CA cert/key pair (rootCA-key.pem,rootCA.pem) in system trust store – $CAROOT (defaults to ~/.local/share/mkcert)
Installs local CA in the Firefox and/or Chrome/Chromium trust store (requires browser restart)
Generate certificate and key file for locally hosted website:
mkcert example.org localhost 127.0.0.1 ::1
Creates two files: example.org+3.pem (certificate) and example.org+3-key.pem (private key).
Enable 3rd Party SSD Trim in MacOS
Enabling TRIM for third-party SSDs is primarily done through the trimforce command in Terminal. Here’s a breakdown of the process and important considerations:
Understanding TRIM
- TRIM is a command that allows the operating system to tell an SSD which data blocks are no longer in use and can be erased. This helps maintain the SSD’s performance over time.
Enabling TRIM
- The
trimforcecommand is the native way to enable TRIM in macOS High Sierra and later versions.
MAC Terminal command to stop indexing external drive
sudo mdutil -i off /Volumes/YourExternalDriveName
Explanation:
sudo: This command requires administrator privileges to modify system settings.mdutil: This is the command-line utility for managing the Metadata Server, which handles Spotlight indexing.-i off: This option tellsmdutilto turn off indexing./Volumes/YourExternalDriveName: This is the path to your external drive. You must replace “YourExternalDriveName” with the actual name of your drive as it appears in the Finder or in the/Volumesdirectory.
Copy files with rsync on Mac
Use the power of rsync to ensure file creation dates are preserved whilst copying and the ability to restart if interrupted and automatically skip files which have already been copied
MacOS does come with a version of rsync pre-installed. However, this is normally an ancient version and needs the newer version installed to get the latest features, e.g. preserve creation times option or bug fixes. Here’s how you can typically achieve this on MacOS:
-
- Install Homebrew (package manager for macOS) :
- Open Terminal.
- Install Homebrew (package manager for macOS) :