2 Share main PC’s drive
Share your desktop PC’s drive over the
network when at home: right-click the drive
in File Explorer and choose ‘Properties >
Sharing’ tab and click Advanced Sharing. Tick
‘Share this folder’ give it a descriptive share
name (PC-DVD) and click OK.1 Purchase a portable player
External DVD writers cost under
£15 online – the simplest option if you’ve
lots of DVDs you want access to. Most
require two free USB ports on the same
side of your laptop to deliver power to
the drive.PLAYDVDSONMY
LAPTOP
Q I’ve just bought a shiny
new slimline laptop that’s
perfect except in one respect:
no DVD drive! How do I get
around this problem?
KylieWeston
Ian’s solution
Laptops without optical
drives are becoming
very common. If you’re
still wedded to your optical discs
for whatever reason, read on for
some practical solutions and
workarounds to the lack of
DVD drive on your laptop.
Quickfirequestions
Windows Update
ERRORUPDATING
WINDOWS8.1
Q I’m unable to install any
updates in Windows 8.1.
Windows Update keeps throwing
up an 80246013 error.
AnthonyCarterMark’s solution
Try refreshing the search
by clicking ‘Try again’- you may find the error
is because the update has been
superseded by other updates.
Other potential issues include the
Background Intelligent Transfer
Service not running – to check this,
press [Win] + [R], type “services.
msc” and hit Enter. Locate the
service in the list, right-click it and
choose Start or Restart (whichever
one isn’t greyed out) to see if that
resolves the issue. Also check the
Software Protection service is
running and restart that too if
necessary. If all else fails, some have
My Windows 10 folders are
no longer displaying image
thumbnails, just an icon with
a blue triangle in it and the
filename underneath. How do
I get my thumbnails back?
Paris Gillespie
Type “folder” into the Search
box and click ‘File Explorer
Options’ from the results list.
In the View tab, untick ‘Always
show icons, never thumbnails’
before clicking Apply to bring
them back.My screen has been stuck
at configuring updates for
Windows 10 at 0% for hours
and I cannot clear the screen.
Please help!
Mike Thornton
After several hours delay,
Mike’s problem cleared itself,
but for those who encounter
this with no relief, dig out
your copy of the February
2020 issue and follow our
guide to troubleshooting
start-up problems.How can I prevent Windows
from asking for a password
when I resume from sleep?
George Stuart
Navigate to ‘Start > Settings >
Accounts > Sign-in options’
scroll down to the ‘Require
sign-in’ dropdown menu and
change it to Never.then reboot your PC – after the
initial loading screen appears
you should see the boot menu
allowing you to choose which
version of Windows to load in
the future.Web browsing
BROWSEROPENSNEW
WINDOWS,NOTTABS
Q When I click a web address
link, my browser opens a new
window instead of a new tab in the
existing window. How can I stop
this from happening?
SteveTuffCat’s solution
That depends on your
web browser. Try
switching defaults
between your preferred browser
and Microsoft Edge under
Settings > Apps > Default apps- this should reset things and,
all being well, open links in
new tabs again. If the problem
persists and applies to any
links – whether clicked in your
browser or in an application like
Word – then also check your
browser’s settings.
Firefox users should make sure
‘Open links in tabs instead of new
windows’ is ticked under General
for example.
No such option exists for Edge
or Chrome users – both browsers
should open links in new tabs by
default, so you might want to try
the option, in the browser’s
Settings, to reset your settings
back to their defaults.
Also check which browser
add-ons you have installed in case
any of those are the culprit – try
disabling them all to see if the
problem resolves itself, then
re-enable one at a time to track
down which one is causing the
strange behaviour.
UPDATE FIX This
error in Windows
8.1 is a relatively
simple one to fix.64 |^ |^ March 2020