LETTERS
6 DECEMBER 2019|COMPUTER SHOPPER|ISSUE 382
Alexaisg reat forturning on yourlightsandmusic,but couldita lso
beusedtogivevulnerable peoplepeaceof mind?
[email protected]
Windowsupdatefix
Ihavealovely little Intel NUC
PC running Windows 10.
There wasapersistent problem
wherebyWindows Updatewas not
working. In advanced settings,
‘Automatically download updates’
was off and refusesto be set to on.
On numerous occasions,Imanually
updated Windows using the Microsoft
UpdateCatalog, hoping it would fix the
problem.Itdidn’t.ItriedswitchingKaspersky
internet protectionoff,but this didn’t enable
updates.Isearched on the webforthe
problem and error codes, but although it
seemedto be acommonfault Ididn’t come
across astraightforward fix.Idownloaded
and tried WUMT,but still no benefit.
And then, as ifby magic, the latest issue
arrived through my letterbox (Shopper381).
Istudied your ‘Keep Windows 10 updated
at all times’ section carefully and worked
my wa ythrough your suggestions.
Every stepfailed to resolve the update
failure until the last: ‘You can tryto fo rce
the Ma y2019 update.’
Iamp leased to report that this
has fixed the problem completely.
Many thanksforthis solution.
RGWillis, Axmins ter
Shareandsharealike
In responseto Bill Edwards’
question regarding his
sharing issues with Windows 10 (Helpfile,
Shopper380), if the suggested optionsfail to
work, Ihad asimilar issue.InW indows 10
version 1803, Microsoftremoved the home
group functionality and in doing so managed
to break someof the network functionality.
Bill needsto check that the function
discovery resource publication service is
running. It should start automatically,but
doesn’t turn on properly after the 1803
upgrade,andthiscontinuedintoversion1809.
Hope this helps.
Chris Hesketh
Betterbuys?
Ihavebeen monitoring any changes
made to the buyer’s guidesformany
months now.There are some discrepancies I
have found thatIcannot ignore any more.
In Best Buys, you continueto recommend
the Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti as the budget GPU.
Iknow it does not require any additional
power connectors and draws its power from
the PCI-E slot. However,int his da yand age
Iwould think most people haveadecent
enough power supply,and the AMD Radeon
RX 570 isaconsiderably better buyoverall in
terms of actual performance comparedto
the GTX 1050 Ti.
Youare also recommending the MSI
B350M Mortar priced at £
from Amazon, as opposedto
the newer MSI B450M
Mortar that can be had
forconsiderably less
(£89 at the timeof writing).
Why is this?
DarrinMaunders
TheB350M is stil lthe best AMD
motherboardwe’ve tested at that price.
We haven’t had the chanceto te st the
MSI B450M Mortar so it’s notacandidate
forBest Buys yet, and we’ll consider the
RX 570 asafuture addition.
Star letter
Alexaemergency
The recent guide on Amazon Alexa
(Shopper378) prompted meto write
this in respectof the Make calls and Send
message application.
Ipurchased two Echo devices,aPlus to
use in the lounge and alsoaDot forthe
bedroom.Iexpect that very many
households havearequirementfor
through-houseentertainment,but Iwould
like to see more mention from publishers
and manufacturersof the potential
benefitsof buying these from the point
of view of calling foraid if people,in
particular the elderly,find themselves in a
situation where theyare unableto reach
the phone in an emergency situation.
Friends, neighbours andfamily could
encourage and indeed help those at riskto
install these devices and encourage single
or people at home aloneto call them if
theyfind themselves
taken ill, have an accident
or if theytake afall by
agreeingto act as their watch
over.The recipientof acall could then
quickly call emergency services.
Clearly the emphasis would haveto be
on an emergency situation only,particularly
with friends and neighbours, and it would
have to be made clear
that the ‘Drop-in’could
not be ameans of regular
companionship support as
determinedby the user.
This could in anyevent be controlled
by the minders if this turned outto be
the case.
Keith Pearce
❱❱Write in and win
Do you wish your computer wasfaster when booting and loading
applications? Thanksto Crucial, you can achieve your dreamof a
faster PC or laptop witha500GB MX500 SSD.The writerof our
Star Lette rwill be awarded oneof these solid-statedevices, which
can be installed inadesktop PC oralaptop.
This SSD is 45 times more energyefficient thanatypical hard
drive and has sequential reads/writes upto 560/510MB/s and random
reads/writes upto 95K/90K IOPS, making it the perfect replacementforthe
ageing hard drive in your sluggish PC.
STAR
PRIZE
500GB
SSD
h com
mending the MSI
£
ed to
ing).
Darrin Maunders
