Windows – PC Doctor Godalming

Category: Windows

Microsoft Windows Operating Systems

Remove Change Search Settings from Firefox Homepage Content Search Suggestion List

09/06/2025 by James

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

26/05/2025 by James

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”

Manually remove a printer on a Mac

10/03/2025 by James

Step-by-Step Instructions

Open System Settings:
- Click the Apple menu and choose System Settings.
Access Printers & Scanners:
- In the System Settings window, click on Printers & Scanners from the sidebar. You might need to scroll down to find it.
Select the Printer:
- Find the printer you want to delete in the list on the right side of the window.

Windows Clean Install

26/02/2025 by James

Steps to install a clean copy of Windows 10|11

Audit system set-up by taking screen-shots (Windows Key + Print Screen), e.g. desktop, installed programs, …
If not replacing drive create a System Image Backup to a USB drive and go to step 4
Replace drive
Boot latest Windows 10|11 iso version from USB
Clear drive partitions
Add Microsoft login account
Restore Windows settings, data and apps from Onedrive
Install Windows updates,

Bypass the windows 11 installation requirements

01/02/2025 by James

During the installation process, after confirming the keyboard type or before reaching the screen where it says your PC can’t run Windows 11.
Press Shift + F10 to open a Command Prompt window.
In the Command Prompt, type regedit and press Enter to open the Registry Editor. Now, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup
Right-click on the Setup key, select New > Key, and name it LabConfig. Inside the LabConfig key, create new DWORD (32-bit) Value entries with the following names and values:

BypassTPMCheck and set its value to 1

BypassSecureBootCheck and set its value to 1

Create BypassCPUCheck and set its value to 1

Close Registry Editor and the Command Prompt,

Windows Slow Down Causes

27/01/2025 by James

Windows Protection

if your computer is experiencing slowdowns, it’s possible that Windows System Protection background tasks are contributing to the issue, as they can consume system resources like CPU and Disk access while creating restore points, potentially impacting your computer’s overall performance, especially if the system is set to create restore points too frequently.

Why System Protection might slow down your computer:

Frequent restore point creation:
If your system is set to create restore points too often,

Can’t re-enable windows defender interface after uninstalling Norton

27/01/2025 by James

To ensure that another “Policy” has not been set, you should check this key in the Registry

“As an Administrator”

Hkey_Local_Machine\Software\Policies\Microsoft\ and select Windows Defender.

Any key in this folder other than Default is a policy that will affect the function of WD.

Expect to find DisableAntiVirus or DisableAntiSpyware. You can disable either of

these by modifying there Dword from 1 to 0. Do that by right-clicking the key name,

and select “Modify”.

Prevent Windows PC Overheating

11/11/2024 by James

Work-around to stop Windows PC Overheating

In Windows Run box (Windows Key + R) enter following command to lower the Control Panel ‘Maximum processor state’.

control powercfg.cpl,,1

Scroll down to ‘Processor power management’. Next, click to expand ‘Maximum processor state’, then set the ‘On battery’ and/or ‘Plugged in’ percentages to less than 100%, e.g. 80%.

This should prevent the CPU overheating, i.e. reaching the maximum die (Tjunction) temperature and shutting down the PC.

ref: Computer Active 696/p64

Bypass Windows 11 Microsoft Account Requirement

24/08/2024 by James

To bypass the Microsoft Account requirement, proceed with the first few steps of the installation process normally until you reach the Sign in screen.

Then press Shift + F10 to open up a Command Prompt Window and enter the following command:

oobe\bypassnro

The system will restart and begin the installation steps all over. At this point disconnect your PC from the Internet. Eventually you’ll see an “I Don’t Have Internet” option, or you’ll be prompted to create a local account immediately.

Increase Size of Recovery Partition

20/07/2024 by James

The procedure below assumes a standard Windows 10 | 11 installation where the Recovery Partition immediately follows the Windows OS partition

1. Run Command Prompt as administrator

2. Check the Recovery partition is enabled

reagentc /info

If the Recovery partition is enabled disable it

reagentc /disable

3. Shrink the Windows OS partition by 250MB so as to increase the Recovery partition by the same amount

diskpart
list disk
sel disk [OS disk index]
list part
sel part [OS partition]
shrink desired=250 minimum=250
sel part [Recovery partition]
delete partition override

PC Doctor Godalming

Dedicated to Fixing Computers of all Shapes and Sizes