Tech Solutions NC

Your one stop for home and small business computer and network support

Password

Fix for Windows 10 2004 ‘Password Amnesia’ Bug

by Leave a Comment

Outlook 2016
Image ©Office.com

Fix for Windows 10 2004 ‘Password Amnesia’ Bug

In troubleshooting a client’s computer, I ran across a workaround for a specific problem he was having: his computer would continually require him to re-enter his login information in Outlook for his email accounts; his Microsoft OneDrive required re-login daily, and his Adobe Acrobat Pro required him to re-login daily. No amount of troubleshooting seemed to make a bit of difference. For the record, here are some of the things I tried:

  1. Check for updates and apply patches on all platforms.
  2. Look for driver updates using manufacturing software programs.
  3. Opened a ticket with the hardware manufacturer.
  4. Performed a Windows 10 reset, while keeping his data. That of course required me to re-install his applications.
  5. Performed a Windows 10 reset and wiped his data. We had backups, of course, and all of his critical data was in the cloud so all was good with restoring his data.
  6. And on and on and on.

It got to the point where I was just about to throw in the towel, which is not something I like to do. But I didn’t; I kept looking, and finally, I found this blog post from ZDNet: Windows 10 Password Problems. As I read through the article, I was seeing the same problems that my client was having. Finally! An answer to the problem. Right now, the answer is a workaround, but this is what I did, per their instructions:

  1. Until Microsoft delivers a fix, its recommended workaround involves right-clicking the Windows 10 Start Button and selecting Windows PowerShell (Admin).
  2. Copy and paste the command below into Windows PowerShell and press Enter.
  3. Get-ScheduledTask | foreach { If (([xml](Export-ScheduledTask -TaskName $_.TaskName -TaskPath $_.TaskPath)).GetElementsByTagName(“LogonType”).’#text’ -eq “S4U”) { $_.TaskName } }
  4. If you see any Tasks listed from the PowerShell output, make a note of them.

Next, go to Windows Task Scheduler and disable any tasks you found from the above command.  Follow these steps:

  1. In the Windows 10 Search box, type Task Scheduler and then open the Task Scheduler app.
  2. Locate the task in the Window (HP Customer participation), or other task from the Windows PowerShell output.
  3. Right-click the task and choose Disable.
  4. After you disable the task, restart Windows.

After the reboot, I did have to provide login credentials again for all of the affected services, but so far, just the one time. I’m continuing tomorrow to see if it’s still fixed. The task that was the problem for me was the same HP Customer Participation that was mentioned over at ZDnet.

Fingers crossed!

Saving a Contact Group in Outlook 2016

by Leave a Comment

Outlook 2016
Image ©Office.com

Have you ever received an Outlook 2016 contact group from someone and weren’t sure how to handle saving it into your contacts so that you could use it?  I know that I have, and others I’ve worked with have as well.  You would think it would be as simple as opening the group (which usually arrives as an attachment in an email) and saving it.  In fact, as this screenshot shows, “Save & Close” is one of the options available to you.

Outlook 2016

But the key here is at the top, with the red arrow pointing at it.  It’s the dreaded “Read-Only” message, hiding in plain site like malware hidden in a steganography file. What that tells us is that, no matter how many times we click the “Save & Close” button — over and over and over again, we’ll never save that contact group into our contacts.

So, how do we get around this?  Well, there may be multiple ways around this, but for me, the simplest way for me is this.

  1. Open the message up in it’s own window.  So, when you do this, you’ll have one window with your main Outlook program running, and another window with the mail message that contains the contact group.
  2. In the main Outlook 2016 window, click on your contacts.
  3. Switch back to the mail message with the contact group, and click and drag the attachment to your contacts in the main Outlook window.  The contact group will be created in your contacts, and all of the names and their email addresses will be there.

So there you have it, a simple way to add a contact group from someone else into your Outlook 2016 contacts.

NOTE: Another option for doing the same thing is to drag the contact group directly to the contact icon.

Save

Safety 101: How do you make sure your family is safe online?

by 1 Comment

Safety 101

When it comes to your family and their online safety, there are several things that you should consider. In Safety 101: Making sure your family is safe online, I’m going to explore some important factors that can help your family in their time online.

Safety 101 Step 1: Parental Controls

The first thing I recommend when you are working with your child’s online usage is to setup a separate account for them on the computer, and to turn on parental controls for that account.  By enabling parental control over your child’s computer account, it will give you control over the sites they can visit, and even the applications they can run on the computer. This will allow you to have a conversation with your children about why this site or that site isn’t allowed to be accessed, and will help you teach them about the importance of online security.

Safety 101 Step 2: Monitor Social Networks

Facebook. Instagram. Twitter. MySpace. The list of social networking sites goes on and on. While these sites can be fun and a useful way for your children to keep up with their friends, it’s especially important that you make sure that you know what sites your child is on.  Some tips to help with this include making sure that you know the passwords for their account, and that it isn’t changed without you knowing and working with your child on that.  Additionally, make part of the permission to access these sites be that you have to friend or follow them. Also, make sure that your child is aware of the dangers of communicating location information to those that you don’t know online. Online safety extends into your offline world as well, and by not being safe online, it could very well lead to security issues offline.

Safety 101 Step 3: Have a no-online policy

Far too often, we spend way to much time online, staring at our computer monitors.  I’m as guilty of this as anyone, and it’s one of the reasons why having a no-online policy is a good idea.  Setup designated times when being online is acceptable; for example, consider setting a policy where it’s okay to be online from 4-6PM each day, or perhaps for an hour after lunch and an hour after dinner each day.  The timing is up to each family, of course, as is the duration, but having a policy in place will help your children be keeping them active in ways other than just online activities.

Safety 101 Step 4: Designate areas where online usage is allowed

Just as it’s important to set guidelines on the time of day when your child can be online, it’s also important to set guidelines to the location in the house where your child can access the internet.  In our family, the rule that my wife and I have set in stone is that our daughter is not allowed to use her computer in her room, with very few exceptions (which happen so infrequently that they are truly exceptions).  For our daughter, that means using her computer in the family room, or the dining room, depending on what is going on.  This allows for some oversight in what she’s doing just by glancing at her computer.

Safety 101 Step 5: Explore using internet accountability software

Lastly, one evolving area for keeping your children (or yourself, for that matter) safe online is in the use of internet accountability software.  Tools such as Covenant Eyes, Net Nanny, K9 Web Protection, and Cybersitter (to name a few) are all designed to help you in your online life stay safe and secure.  Most come with a price, but if they work, then it could be the best investment you ever made.  In future posts, I’m going to explore the more popular of these tools and give my recommendations on the ones for you to use.

In summary, the key to keeping your children safe online is vigilance.  Your child thinks that they are not vulnerable online, and as a result, it is up to you to teach them internet safety to ensure that something doesn’t happen to them while they are online.  Some would argue perhaps that by implementing these steps I’m just showing my child that they can’t be trusted.  I, however, would counter that it isn’t my child that I don’t trust — it is those that she encounters online that can’t be trusted.

What do you do to ensure the safety of your child online? Please let us know in the comments or subscribe to our newsletter, and thanks for stopping by!

[wysija_form id=”1″]

Save

WordPress Security Update to 4.5.3

by Leave a Comment

WordPress
©WordPress

For all of you that blog, many of you choose WordPress as your platform of choice for your blog.  I run WordPress here at Tech Solutions NC, as well as on my personal blog.  WordPress recently released version 4.5.3 of their software, which takes care of a host of security issues that were exposed in version 4.5.2.  Among the issues:

  • Redirect bypass in the customizer
  • Two different XSS problems via attachment names
  • Revision history information disclosure
  • oEmbed Denial of Service
  • Unauthorized category removal in a post
  • Password change via a stolen cookie
  • and more…

As we discussed on our post on the security settings you need to have enabled on your computer, automatic updates is a key part of that strategy.  While automatic updates for your blogging software may not be feasible, it’s still important to make sure that the update is taken care of.  For some of you, your host may take care of the update for you; for others, it may be automated; but for the majority of bloggers, especially in a self-hosted environment, you need to take care of it yourself. Make sure you do so as soon as is feasible.

Kudos to WordPress for dealing with these issues quickly, and also to those that discovered the vulnerabilities and reported back to WordPress.  If you haven’t upgraded your WordPress yet, go ahead and take care of that soon.  If you aren’t sure what to do, then by all means, reach out to us — WordPress site maintenance is just one of the services we offer here at Tech Solutions NC. Reach out to us via our Appointments page and we schedule an appointment with us today!

You can read the complete security release on the WordPress website.