A18 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22 , 2021
BY CHRIS VELAZCOUndoing the upgrade: If I update
to Windows 11, and it doesn’t suit
my needs, can I convert back to
Windows 10 easily enough?
— Glenn Brown,
Grand Junction, Colo.
I love when a question can be
summed up in a song title, and this
one feels like “Should I Stay or
Should I Go” to me. You’re definite-
ly not alone in your wariness,
Glenn: Windows 11 comes with a
lot of changes, some of which can
feel a little jarring to people who
have gotten used to how Windows
10 works. (Changing your default
apps for browsing the Web and
opening certain files springs to
mind, because it’s a real pain now.)
Thankfully, Microsoft is giving
you an out.
Assuming you’ve upgraded nor-
mally — that is, you went into your
computer’s Windows Update set-
tings and clicked a button, rather
than gaming the system to get the
update sooner — you have the
option of downgrading back to
Windows 10 with all of your files
and apps intact. (That said, you
should make sure to back up all
your important files to an external
drive anyway.)
As usual, though, there’s a
catch: You only have 10 days to do
it, and the clock starts once your
upgrade is complete. Here’s how to
do it:
How to downgrade from
Windows 11 to Windows 10
within 10 days
l Open the Start menu and click
“Settings.”
l Click “Windows Update” in
the left column.
l Scroll down to “Advanced Op-
tions” and click “Recovery.”
l Click “Go Back” and fill out the
short form asking why you’re
downgrading.
That should be it — from there,
Windows 11 will take a little while
to process before beginning the
downgrade. If you’re already out of
the 10-day window, Windows 11
will break the bad news to you
after you click “Go Back.”
And if that does happen to you,
don’t panic: You can still revert to
Windows 10, but you’ll need to use
Microsoft’s installation media
creation tool to reinstall that soft-
ware from scratch. (Aren’t you
glad you backed up your files al-
ready?) It’s not as difficult as it
sounds, but if you run into any
issues, you know where to find me.Backing up the backups: How can
we download or transfer all files at
once from an overcrowded iCloud
or Google Drive account to a large
enough hard drive? I want to stop
paying perpetual monthly fees — a
trap that was free when I walked
willingly into it now feels a bait-
and-switch situation, or even ex-
tortion!
— D. Patrick, RichmondI was just looking at my bank
statement and had a similar
thought — I’m up to my eyeballs in
subscriptions and it’s getting pret-
ty old. And while having all of my
important files saved in the cloud
for easy access is definitely con-
venient, it’s always a good idea to
keep a local backup just in case. (If
we can save a little money along
the way, even better!)
If you don’t have that many files
saved in Google Drive or iCloud
Drive, it might be worth down-Keeping control ofeveryday tech with
rollbacks, backupsHelp Desk tackles undoing software upgrades,
reducing cloud storage and pay-as-you-go phonescapital businessCompany Insider Title Date Action Shares Price Now holds
AGNC Investment Gary D. Kain Director Nov. 5Sold 10,200 16.25 2,711,
Booz Allen Hamilton Lloyd W. Howell Jr. Chief financial officer Nov. 12 Sold 3,555 90.02 163,
Susan L. Penfield Executive vice president Nov. 12 Sold 14,851 90 10,
CACI International William S. Wallace Director Nov. 8Sold 167 287.42 4,
Carlyle Group David M. Rubenstein Director Nov. 9Sold 2,000,000 58 31,249,
CoStar Group Laura Cox Kaplan Director Nov. 5Sold 4,040 83.29 7,
Christopher J. Nassetta Chief executive officer Nov. 10 Sold 2,120 83.21 267,
Scott T. Wheeler Chief financial officer Nov. 11 Sold 85 81.72 272,
Danaher Linda P. Hefner Director Nov. 11 Sold 2,185 303.72 43,
Joakim Weidemanis Executive vice president Nov. 10 Sold 5,000 297.55 65,
DiamondRock Hospitality William J. Tennis General counsel Nov. 8Sold 30,000 10.90 372,
Graham Holdings Thomas Sinnickson GaynerDirector Nov. 11 Bought 100 595.17 5,
Hilton Worldwide Holdings Kristin Ann Campbell General counsel Nov. 5Sold 28,067 151.21 213,
Matthew W. Schuyler Chief brand officer Nov. 5Sold 10,000 152.19 271,
Marriott International Frederick A. Henderson Director Nov. 11 Sold 1,640 159.18 15,
Kathleen K. Oberg Chief financial officer Nov. 9Sold 10,690166.22 to 166.39 74,
Rena Hozore Reiss General counsel Nov. 8Sold 3,500 168.16 27,
MicroStrategy Stephen X. Graham Director Nov. 8Sold 2,000 850 to 865 200
Leslie J. Rechan Director Nov. 8Sold 7,500855.54 to 869.49 —
Northrop Grumman Karl J. Krapek Director Nov. 11 Sold 2,800 357.25 23,
Sandy Spring Bancorp Kenneth C. Cook Executive vice president Nov. 10 Sold 2,531 50.44 222,
Saul Centers John F. Collich Senior vice president Nov. 9Sold 2,541 51.38 35,
United Therapeutics Christopher Patusky Vice chairman Nov. 8Sold 2,300 200.16 2,
Martine A. Rothblatt Chief executive officer Nov. 15 Sold 3,083 203.45 651,
Thomson Financial
Trading as reported by companies’ directors, presidents, chief financial officers, general counsel, chief executive
officers, chairmen and other officers, or by beneficial owners of more than 10 percent of a company’s stock.
TRANSACTIONS
loading each of them individually
to that external drive you men-
tioned. Google makes it relatively
easy: just open your main Drive
folder, hit Ctrl-A (Windows) or
Cmd-A (Mac) to select all your
files, click the three-dot menu but-
ton in the top-right corner and
select “Download.” From what I
can tell, though, you can’t down-
load multiple files from iCloud
Drive at the same time.
Thankfully, Google and Apple
offer tools to help you download
everything you’ve saved in your
cloud storage all at once — you just
need to know where to look for
them.
If you’re trying to get all your
files out of Google’s clutches, go to
the company’s Takeout site and
deselect everything except “Drive.”
Then click “Next step,” select how
frequently you’ll want to export
those files and choose how large
you want the .zip files with all your
stuff in them to be. (The default
2GB option is probably fine.) Then
just hit “Create export” and settle
in for a wait — it could take any-
where from hours to days, accord-
ing to Google.
Apple’s approach is pretty simi-lar: Visit the company’s Data and
Privacy site and log in with your
Apple ID. Then you can click the
option called “Get a copy of your
data” and tick the boxes for iCloud
Drive files, iCloud Mail, iCloud
Photos, depending on what you’d
like to save. Once you’ve confirmed
your choices, Apple will also email
you to let you know when you can
start downloading all of your im-
portant data.Emergencies only: I don’t use a
mobile phone (I don’t want to be
found). But, I would like a solution
when I’m out driving around, away
from my landline, to contact 911. Is
there any kind of phone service or
burner phone solution that does
not incur a monthly charge, but
charges on a per-use basis?
— Anne Hopkins, TucsonPay-as-you-go phone services
like the one you describe used to be
extremely common — I saw them
all the time when I sold cellphones
in college. Unfortunately, they’re a
lot more difficult to find now that
big wireless carriers and smaller
resellers push monthly plans
wherever possible. But you dohave some options.
Page Plus, a mobile virtual net-
work operator (MVNO) that sells
access to Verizon’s airwaves, still
has options that should work for
you. According to the company’s
website, you’ll be able to squeeze
166 minutes out of a $10 top-up
card or code on its 4G pay-as-you-
go plan and you’ll only have to add
money to your account every 120
days. (Other companies with simi-
lar per-minute calling plans make
you refill your account every 90
days instead.)
You’ll also have to pay for a SIM
card and a compatible phone to get
started, but Page Plus seems to
have a slew of reasonably priced
models.
You might also want to consider
TracFone Wireless, which — as it
turns out — owns Page Plus. After
chatting with a few customer serv-
ice reps, I learned that it doesn’t do
pay-per-minute calling at all. What
TracFone will do, however, is let
you buy 400 minutes of talk time
for $99. The kicker: Those minutes
will last an entire year and based
on how often it sounds like you’ll
use your phone, you’ll probably
still have plenty of talk time leftover come November 2022.
You’ll still have to a get a phone
— either by buying one at a store or
grabbing a compatible model from
a friend — but you won’t have to
worry about remembering to refill
your account frequently.
If you’re absolutely positive that
you’ll only ever use a mobile phone
for emergency calls, there is one
more thing you could try. Every
functioning cellphone in the Unit-
ed States, regardless of whether it’s
been activated on a wireless carri-
er’s plan, can place a 911 call at no
cost. (Thanks, Federal Communi-
cations Commission.)
This obviously isn’t ideal —
without a working phone number,
there’s no way for emergency ser-
vices to call you back if they need to
— but some people still do it. All
you would need is a phone that still
turns on that was released within
the last five years or so; anything
older than that might be affected
by the 3G shutdown scheduled to
take place in early 2022. But I
think you and I would both feel
better if you had an actual phone
number, even if it’s one you only
use rarely.
[email protected]ELENABS/GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO
Google’s Takeout and Apple’s Data and Privacy sites can help download everything saved in cloud storage. But for those who don’t have a
ton saved i n Google Drive or iCloud Drive, downloading each file individually may work just as well.BY CHRISTIAN DAVENPORTThe space world has a little
engine that could — a small,
snub-nosed space plane called
Dream Chaser that looks like it
could be the space shuttle’s off-
spring. For years, it has pursued
an unlikely path in its quest to
reach space, facing all sorts of
obstacles along the way. But it has
never given up.
Sierra Space, the company that
is developing Dream Chaser, lost
out on a major NASA contract to
use it to fly people in 2014. It
appealed, but lost that decision,
too. Two years later, it secured a
major procurement, this time to
fly cargo and supplies to the
International Space Station, not
humans. It’s been five years, and
it still hasn’t flown to space,
despite spending $1 billion on the
program.
But on Friday, Sierra Space
announced it is getting a huge
boost that it said would help get
Dream Chaser off the ground, a
$1.4 billion investment in a Series
A funding round that the compa-
ny says will help it fly astronauts
by 2025. The investment marks
the first time the Colorado-based
company has brought in outside
investors, and it comes as it is
revamping the company to pur-
sue a number of projects in an
attempt to become a major player
in the growing commercial space
industry.
NASA has contracts with
SpaceX and Boeing to fly astro-
nauts to the space station. SpaceX
has flown several missions so far,
but Boeing has faltered and may
not have its first flight with crew
until late next year. That could
provide an opportunity for
Dream Chaser to get back into the
picture, and company executives
have discussed the possibility
with NASA.
Unlike the SpaceX and Boeingcapsules, which land in the sea or
in the desert, Dream Chaser
would land on a runway and
allow scientists to access research
flown down from the space sta-
tion immediately. The additional
money “is going to be incredibly
important for us to take the op-
portunity to accelerate our plans,”
said Eren Ozmen, who with her
husband, Fatih Ozmen, owns Si-
erra Nevada Corp., the majority
owner of Sierra Space. The first
cargo resupply mission to the
space station is expected by the
end of next year.
“We are not giving up,” she
said. “You know us by now; we’re
going to double down.”
Plus, she said, NASA is eager to
bring back a winged vehicle; the
space shuttle was retired in 2011.
“They really want us to bring the
wings back, and they want to
have the ability to bring the sci-
ence to land softly on a runway,”
she said.
“Being able to land on any
commercial runway is a huge
deal,” she added.
There are also plans to developa variant of the vehicle to be used
for national security missions,
but the Ozmens would not elabo-
rate on what that would entail.
Last month, Sierra Space an-
nounced it is partnering with Jeff
Bezos’s Blue Origin, as well as
Boeing, Redwire Space, Genesis
Engineering and Arizona State
University to build a space station
called Orbital Reef that the team
hopes would serve as a replace-
ment for the International Space
Station (ISS). (Bezos also owns
The Washington Post.)
Sierra Space is developing the
habitat module for the station,
which would inflate in orbit and
house as many as 12 people in
three stories.
I t would, the companies
vowed, “provide anyone with the
opportunity to establish their
own address on orbit.”
Sierra and Blue Origin are not
the only companies trying to
build commercial space stations.
NanoRacks, an aerospace ven-
ture that helps companies fly
science experiments and other
payloads to the ISS, announced itis partnering with its majority
owner, Voyager Space, as well as
Lockheed Martin to build a space
station called StarLab.
Despite those endeavors, some
in the space industry are con-
cerned that private industry
won’t have the resources to get
the stations ready in time to
replace the ISS, which could last
through 2030 but has shown
signs of age after orbiting the
Earth for more than 20 years.
NASA this year requested
$101 million for the program that
would develop private space sta-
tions, but many in the space
industry have said that is not
nearly enough.
Former NASA administrator
Jim Bridenstine recently testified
to Congress that it would need to
appropriate $2 billion annually
for the effort.
The new money for Sierra
comes as investors are increas-
ingly looking to space as an op-
portunity for growth after years
of skepticism about an industry
that had long been dominated by
governments.Over the past decade, investors
pumped $200 billion into 1,
space companies around the
world, according to an analysis
done by Space Capital, a space
investment firm.
Investment in start-up space
companies reached $7.6 billion
last year, a 16 percent increase
from 2019, according to Bryce
Space and Technology, a consult-
ing firm.
That has helped drive a
$447 billion global space econo-
my that grew 4.4 percent last year,
according to the Space Founda-
tion, an advocacy group. Over the
past 10 years, the space economy
has grown 55 percent, according
to the foundation, which said the
commercial space products and
services market is valued at
$219 billion.
Sierra Space’s investment
round was led by General Atlan-
tic, Coatue and Moore Strategic
Ventures, with participation from
funds and accounts managed by
BlackRock Private Equity Part-
ners, AE Industrial Partners.
[email protected]Sierra Space hopes to g et plane, station off the ground
Influx of cash will help
advance shuttle-like
Dream ChaserASSOCIATIONS AND
NONPROFITS
The Council for Responsible
Nutrition of the District
appointed Craig M. Muckle
director of communications.
LAW AND LOBBYING
Cozen O’Connor of the
District appointed James
Billings-Kang and G. Evan
Pritchard members.
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher of
the District appointed Sanford
Stark, Saul Mezei and C. Terrell
Ussing partners.
McGuireWoods of the
District appointed LauraColombell Marshall partner.
Barnes & Thornburg of the
District appointed David A.
Frazee, Nicholas A. Galbraith
and Adetayo Osuntogun
partners.Send information about promotions,
appointments and personnel moves
in the Washington region to
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