Archive for January, 2019

4 Ways to Find Number of Cores in your CPU on Windows 10

January 31st, 2019 by Admin

How to find out how many physical cores and logic cores your CPU has? Need to check the CPU core before you buy a new laptop? In this tutorial we’ll show you 4 simple ways to find number of physical cores and logical cores in your CPU on Windows 10.

Physical Core VS. Logical Core

A physical core is an actual physical processor core in your CPU. Each physical core has its own circuitry and its own L1 (and usually L2) cache can read and execute instructions separately (for the most part) from the other physical cores on the chip. A CPU with two physical cores is called a dual-core processor and four physical cores is called a quad-core processor.

A logical core (also known as logical processors) is more of a programming abstraction than an actual physical entity. Logical cores are the abilities of a single physical core to run multiple tasks or threads simultaneously. For example, if you have a quad core CPU and each of its physical cores can run two threads at a time, then you have 8 logical cores.

Method 1: Check Number of CPU Cores Using Task Manager

Press the Ctrl + Shift + Esc keys simultaneously to open the Task Manager. Go to the Performance tab and select CPU from the left column. You’ll see the number of physical cores and logical processors on the bottom-right side.

Method 2: Check Number of CPU Cores Using msinfo32 Command

Press the Windows key + R to open the Run command box, then type msinfo32 and hit Enter.

It should open up the System Information app. Select Summary and scroll down until you find Processor. The details will tell you both how many cores and logical processors your CPU has.

Method 3: Check Number of CPU Cores Using Command Prompt or PowerShell

Open the Command Prompt or PowerShell. Type the following command and press Enter:
WMIC CPU Get DeviceID,NumberOfCores,NumberOfLogicalProcessors

The output of the command tells you how many cores and how many logical processors are found in each CPU on your computer.

Method 4: Check Number of CPU Cores Using Third-Party Software

If you would like to find out the detail information about your CPU, try the third-party freeware CPU-Z. After running the app, you can see the number of physical cores and threads (logical cores) at the bottom.

That’s it!

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VMware: How to Boot a VM from USB Stick

January 27th, 2019 by Admin

How can I USB boot a VM in VMware Workstation 9? Since VMware’s BIOS doesn’t natively support booting from USB stick, you have to do it with the help of Plop Boot Manager. But Plop Boot Manager only works in legacy BIOS mode. In this tutorial we’ll show you another way to boot VMware Workstation / Fusion / ESXi virtual machine from USB stick, by mounting USB stick as virtual hard disk.

How to Boot a VM in VMware from USB Stick

Before getting started, make sure your bootable USB stick is already attached to your host machine.

  1. Open VMware Workstation and go to any existing virtual machine. Click on the VM menu and select Settings.

  2. In the Hardware section, click on the Add button.

  3. Select Hard Disk as the hardware type, and click Next.

  4. I would recommend you select IDE disk type other than the default one.

  5. Choose Use a physical disk (for advanced users) and then click Next.

  6. Select your USB stick (PhysicalDrive1) from the drop-down list and click Next. PhysicalDrive0 is your first physical disk.

  7. Enter the filename and location for the new virtual disk, and click Finish.

  8. Now, your USB stick will appear as an IDE hard drive to the virtual machine. To turn on your machine, click on the VM menu and select Power -> Power On to Firmware.

  9. If your virtual machine uses UEFI firmware, it will boot to the Boot Manager screen. From there you can simply select IDE drive to boot from your USB stick.

    If your virtual machine uses BIOS, it will boot to the BIOS Setup Utility. Go to the Boot tab and select the Hard Drive and press Enter. Use the + key to move the virtual IDE drive to the top position.

    Finally press F10 to save your changes and exit.

  10. Within a few seconds you will be booted into the USB stick.

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How to Disable Windows 10 Timeline with Group Policy

January 24th, 2019 by Admin

Timeline is a new feature introduced since Windows 10 April 2018 Update, which will record all your PC activities so that you can resume them later, from where you left off. If you don’t use this feature, here is how to disable Timeline with group policy to stop Windows 10 from collecting your activity history.

Method 1: Disable Timeline in Windows 10 with Group Policy

  1. Open the Local Group Policy Editor and browse to:
    Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\OS Policies

    Next, double-click on the “Enables Activity Feed” policy in the right pane to edit it.

  2. Select Disabled and click OK.

    From now on Windows 10 will no longer collect activities on your device.

Method 2: Disable Timeline in Windows 10 with Registry Editor

  1. Open Registry Editor and navigate to:
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System

    On the right pane, right-click blank area and select New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value.

  2. Name the new entry as EnableActivityFeed, and leave its value data as 0.

  3. Restart Windows 10 and the Timeline feature should now be disabled. If you need to enable Timeline again, just change the value of EnableActivityFeed to 1 and you’re done.

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2 Ways to Remove Saved Passwords in Firefox

January 21st, 2019 by Admin

How do I erase my stored user names and passwords in Firefox? Need to clear the old passwords from Firefox that you don’t use any longer? Here are 2 simple ways to remove all saved passwords in Firefox on Windows 10 / 8 / 7, so that you’ll be prompted for new password when you sign into any website.

Method 1: Remove Firefox Saved Passwords Using GUI

  1. When Firefox is running, click on the Menu button (three horizontal lines) in the far right corner of the browser, and then select Options.

  2. Go to the “Privacy & Security” tab. Click Saved Logins under the Logins & Passwords section.

  3. The Saved Logins dialog box displays each site for which you have saved your username and password. To delete all your passwords from the Password Manager, click Remove All.

  4. Click Yes to confirm, all of your stored usernames and passwords will be deleted.

Method 2: Remove Firefox Saved Passwords Using Windows Explorer

If you’ve forgotten the Master password or your Firefox browser is crashed, just delete the password file (logins.json or signons.sqlite) in the Firefox profile location and your saved passwords will be gone.

That’s it!

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How to Import Passwords into Chrome from Firefox in Windows 10

January 18th, 2019 by Admin

When you start moving to Chrome as your primary web browser, the first thing to do is to move all your passwords and bookmarks from the old browser to the new one. Since Chrome 66, it makes password importing & exporting much easier for inexperienced users. In this tutorial we’ll walk you through the steps to import passwords into Chrome from Firefox in Windows 10.

How to Import Passwords into Chrome from Firefox in Windows 10

  1. Open Chrome and click the three dots menu button appeared in the upper right corner, then select Bookmarks -> Import bookmarks and settings.

  2. The following pop-up will appear. You can select Mozilla Firefox from the drop-down list and click on Import. Make sure the “Saved passwords” is checked.

  3. After a while, the migration process will be completed.

This method works only if both Chrome and Firefox are installed on the same computer. If you need to export Firefox saved password from an old PC, and then import them into Chrome on a new PC, a third-party software like Password Recovery Bundle can help you keep track of your passwords saved in different web browsers.

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How to Recover or Export Passwords from Firefox Quantum

January 10th, 2019 by Admin

How can I export the user names and passwords stored in Firefox Quantum? Firefox offers to store the passwords and then auto-fill the login forms whenever you access a specific website. It seems that the passwords are no longer needed, but anyway, the moment will come when you need to reinstall Windows or export the passwords to a new computer. In this tutorial we’ll show you a simple way to recover or export passwords from Firefox Quantum.

Starting from Firefox 57 Quantum, your passwords are stored in the key4.db and logins.json files and the old Firefox password exporter add-ons doesn’t work any longer. But you can still rescue your saved passwords with the third-party software – Firefox Password Recovery.

Part 1: Export Passwords from Your Current Firefox Installation

To get started, download and install the Firefox Password Recovery program on your local PC. After the program is launched, click on Start Recovery.

It displays a list of supported applications you can recover passwords from. Just select the “Recover Firefox Password” option.

The program will locate all profiles for your current Firefox installation and decrypt the stored passwords. If one of your Firefox profiles is secured with a master password, the following pop-up will appear and you have to enter the master password.

Just about a few seconds later, you’ll see all passwords saved in Firefox Quantum along with username and URL.

Now, you can export / save the list of passwords to a plain text file.

Part 2: Recover Passwords from Old Firefox Profile

How do I recover Firefox saved passwords from old hard drive? If you have a backup copy of your previous Firefox profile directory, it’s super easy to extract passwords from it. Follow these steps:

Open up the Firefox Password Recovery program and click on Recover From File.

You’ll see the following pop-up window. Click on Browse to locate your old Firefox profile folder and click OK. By default, the profile is in this location: C:\Users\{Windows_account_name}\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles.

All your Firefox saved passwords will be shown immediately. If your Firefox profile is protected using master password, you’ll be prompted to enter it first.

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How To Stop Firefox Quantum from Updating Automatically

January 8th, 2019 by Admin

How can I disable automatic updates in Firefox Quantum? It could be frustrating for Firefox to push the update notifications and interrupt what you’re reading.

Starting with Firefox version 63, Mozilla has removed the ability to disable updates completely. When you click on the Menu button at the top right corner and select Options.

Scroll down to the Firefox Updates section, you’re left with two options: Automatically install updates, Check for updates but let you choose to install them. The option “Never check for updates” is no longer available.

If you don’t like Firefox frequently installing the updates, here is a simple way to prevent Firefox Quantum from updating the version automatically in Windows 10 / 8 / 7.

Part 1: Stop Firefox Quantum from Updating Automatically

  1. Open Windows Explorer and type %appdata%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profile in the address bar and press Enter.

  2. The name of your default profile folder should start with eight random characters and end with .default. Just open the Firefox profile folder, then right-click on the prefs.js file and select Edit.

  3. Add the following line to the file and save your changes.
    user_pref("app.update.enabled", false);

  4. Now, Firefox Quantum should never download and install updates automatically.

Part 2: Install Firefox Updates Manually

After disabling automatic updates in Firefox Quantum, you can decide how often and when you want Firefox to install updates. Here’s how to install Firefox updates manually:

  1. Open up Firefox and click on the Menu button in the upper right hand corner, and then select Help from the drop-down menu.

  2. Click on About Firefox.

  3. You can see the exact version number of Firefox you’re running. If a new version of Firefox is available, you can click on the “Check for updates” button to download and install it.

That’s it!

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2 Ways to Find Your Firefox Profile Location in Windows

January 7th, 2019 by Admin

Firefox stores all your settings (including home page, bookmarks and passwords) in a profile folder that keeps your personal information separate from the Firefox program. When Firefox keeps crashing or your PC can’t boot, your information won’t be lost (at least your Firefox saved passwords could be recovered). In this tutorial we’ll show you 2 ways to find your Firefox profile location in Windows 10 / 8 / 7.

Method 1: Find Your Profile Folder When Firefox is Running

  1. After opening Firefox, click on the Menu button (the icon with three lines) in the upper right side of the address bar, and then select Help.

  2. Select Troubleshooting Information.

  3. When the Troubleshooting Information tab appears, click on the Open Folder button under the Application Basics section.

  4. This will launch Windows Explorer and display your current Firefox profile directory.

Method 2: Find Your Profile Folder without Opening Firefox

  1. Press the Windows key + R to open the Run command. Type the following and press Enter.
    %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox

  2. After Windows Explorer opens to that directory, double-click on the profile.ini file to open it with Notepad or other text editor.

  3. You can view the relative or absolute path for all your Firefox profiles. But there is only one default profile. In my example, the default profile is located under the directory: %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\einxo22v.default.

That’s it

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3 Ways to Enable or Disable Cortana on Windows 10 Lock Screen

January 3rd, 2019 by Admin

By default, Cortana is available on the lock screen in Windows 10, so you can chat with Cortana without first unlocking your computer. If you want to improve the security level, it’s better to turn off Cortana as needed. In this tutorial we’ll show you 3 ways to enable or disable Cortana on Windows 10 lock screen.

Method 1: Enable or Disable Cortana on Lock Screen from Settings App

  1. Press the Windows key + I on your keyboard to open the Settings app, then click on Cortana.

  2. Select the Talk to Cortana tab, and turn on or off the “Use Cortana even when my device is locked” option.

  3. If you allow Cortana to access your personal information, you can check the box for “Let Cortana access my calendar, email, messages, and Power BI data when my device is locked“.

Method 2: Enable or Disable Cortana on Lock Screen Using Registry Editor

  1. Open Registry Editor and navigate to the following location:
    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Speech_OneCore\Preferences
  2. Double-click on the VoiceActivationEnableAboveLockscreen entry in the right pane, and set its value data to 1 or 0. 1: enable Cortana on lock screen; 0: disable Cortana on lock screen.

  3. Close Registry Editor and you’re done.

Method 3: Enable or Disable Cortana on Lock Screen Using Group Policy

  1. Open Local Group Policy Editor and navigate to:
    Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Search

    Next, double-click on “Allow Cortana above lock screen” policy to edit it.

  2. Select Enabled to put Cortana on the lock screen for all Windows accounts. If you don’t like Cortana on the lock screen, choose Disabled to get rid of it.

  3. Close Local Group Policy Editor and reboot your computer for the changes to take effect.

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