Your Top Tips
Our pickof the best advice fromour
readers. Please send questions and answers
68 29 May - 11 June 2019
GENERAL PC
Checkyour storage space
You can see how much free hard-drive
spaceyou have byselectingThis PC in
Explorer, right-clicking the drive and
selecting Properties. Ifyou want to know
what’s stored on the drive, open Settings
(pressWindows+i) and selectSystem,
thenStorage. Click the bar labelledThis
PCto see a breakdown of how the space
is used onyour main hard drive, and the
split between documents, photos,
videos, music and so on.
To checkexternal drives, scroll down
and click ‘Viewstorage usage on other
drives’. Drives are listed with free and
used space shown, and clicking a drive
breaks down usagebycategory. Each
category – Documents, Photos,Videos
and so on – can be clickedto show more
detail, soyou can see whichfolders are
using the most space.
Gary Kirby, via emailGENERAL PC
Blockthe Windows 7‘endof
life’ pop-up
As if it’s not bad enough that Microsoft is
ditching a perfectly serviceable operatingsystem, I’m now beingconstantly
reminded of the changebyceaseless
pop-upstelling me thatWindows7 will
no longer be supported. It’s worse than
whenWindows10 first came out!
To avoid all this, setWindowsUpdates
to ‘Checkfor updates but let me choose
whetherto download and install them’.
Next,at all costs, avoid installing update
KB4493132 – just right-click it and
choose ‘Hide update’. Ifyou’ve already
downloaded it, openControlPanel and
click Programs. Along thetop of the
screen, locate the optionto ‘View
installed updates’, right-click it and
choose Uninstall.
Ashley Bates, via emailGENERAL PC
Optimise USB memory sticks
for better performance
Readers may already know about
Microsoft’s changeto USB memory
sticks, which meansyou no longer have
to right-click and select‘safely eject’ or
‘remove device’.While that’s great ifyou
want to just unplug a USBstick in a hurry,
thiscomesat a cost to performance.
With the new setting,Windowsputs all
its effort into writing datato the USB so
you canremove it as soon as possible.
This can slow down other programs.
If you want to switch back, plug inyour
USB device, right-clickStart and goto
Disk Management. Find the USB device
and right-click it, selecting ‘Change Drive
Letter andPaths’. Click thePolicies tabs
in the pop-up. Under ‘Removal policy’,
click ‘Better performance’, then ensureTOP TIPI read with interestRoland
Waddilove’s reply about
sendingattachments
rather than tryingto
download them from
email.Wouldn’t it be great
if therewas a program that
allowed both sender and
receiverto be anywhere in
theworld, and only the
senderwas requiredto
have the specific program?
Well, there is:To nido
(www.tonido.com) letsyou
share files andfolders
directly fromyour phone
or computer, so it’s not on
theweb at all. Right-click
the itemyou want to share,
select ‘Tonido 1-click share’ and a link is
automaticallycopiedto your clipboard.
You then email the link and that’s it.
The recipient doesn’t needTo nido–
they just click the linkto open it inaShare files direct from PC and mobileFILESHAREbrowser. If it’s a folder, it
showsa list of the files it
contains. Click oneto
either open or download
it. No one else can access
it without the link.
The downside is that
the originatingcomputer
must beswitched onto
enable access, but that’s
hardly onerous if a group
or familywant to share
photos of anevent,for
example. And it’s freefor
non-commercial use. I‘ve
shared hundreds of
photos and files thisway
without paying a penny.
For larger files, including
videos, the link becomes a download
link, using therecipient’s bandwidth.
Oh, and no login orregistration is
required.
James Gourley, via emailShare file s with people,
even if they don’t have
the same softwareBack
Issues
disc
winnerUse Settings to see how space isbeing
used onany drive attachedto your PC
Tired of being nagged about the end of
Windows 7 support? Then stopit