The Local Group Policy Editor (GPEDIT.MSC) is a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in used to configure and modify Group Policy settings within Group Policy Objects. This tool is available only on Windows 10/11 Professional Edition and higher.Read more
The traditional MSI (Microsoft Installer) based installation allowed you to install or uninstall individual office products (e.g., Word, Excel, or PowerPoint). But the Office click-to-run (CTR) installations don’t allow installation choices. Click-to-Run is the technology used to install Microsoft 365, and most versions of Office 2013 and newer.Read more
Accidentally deleted an important file? Have you wiped clean your hard drive? Unsure of what to do with corrupted data? Windows File Recovery can help recover your personal data.
Windows File Recovery (WFR) is a command-line app from Microsoft. This app can help you recover lost files that have been deleted from your local storage device (including internal drives, external drives, and USB devices) and can’t be restored from the Recycle Bin.
For photos, documents, videos, and more, Windows File Recovery supports many file types to help ensure that your data is not permanently lost. However, WFR can’t recover files in your network file shares.
WFR can recover data from your hard drive, SSD (*limited by TRIM), USB drive, or memory cards.
When you start Microsoft Teams, Discord, or other apps on your Windows computer, you may receive the following error message or similar:
Teams.exe - System Error The code execution cannot proceed because ffmpeg.dll was not found. Reinstalling the program may fix this problem.
Let’s see how to fix the “ffmpeg.dll was not found” error if you’re using Microsoft Teams.
Notepad++ is one of the excellent open-source text editors available. Many users replace the plain old Notepad with Notepad++, as the latter has a lot of features and is also lightweight. You may be knowing that the functionality of Notepad++ can be extended by installing third-party plugins into it using the built-in Plugins Admin feature.
On some computers, you may be unable to install any plugins using the Plugins Admin feature. When trying to install a plugin, it restarts Notepad but does not install the chosen plugin even though you’ve tried both x86 and 64-bit versions. On some versions you may see the following error:
Installation Error: Installation of plugin failed
This issue may persist even if the
We’ll see how to resolve the Notepad++ plugins installation issue.
When uninstalling a Store app in Windows 10, you may get the error 0x80073CFA. This happens whether you use the Apps & Features GUI or PowerShell command to remove the app. Many users have indicated that the error happens when uninstalling some game apps like Forza Motorsport, Forza Horizon, Asphalt: Airborne, etc.
We couldn't uninstall app_name The operation did not complete successfully. Try again in a bit. The error code is 0x80073CFA, in case you need it.
However, the error 0x80073CFA is not specific to Microsoft gaming apps. It can happen for any app, for that matter.
Attempting to uninstalling the app using PowerShell’s Remove-AppxPackage would result in the same error code:
Remove-AppxPackage : Deployment failed with HRESULT: 0x80073CFA, Removal failed. Please contact your software vendor. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80073CFA) error 0x80070032: AppX Deployment Remove operation on package package_name from: C:\WINDOWS\SystemApps\package_path failed. This app is part of Windows and cannot be uninstalled on a per-user basis. An administrator can attempt to remove the app from the computer using Turn Windows Features on or off. However, it may not be possible to uninstall the app.
(The above error happened when attempting to uninstall the in-box package named Microsoft.Windows.PeopleExperienceHost for the sake of illustration.)
The 0x80073CFA error (“Removal failed. Please contact your software vendor.”) occurs if you try to uninstall a non-removable inbox app. Inbox apps are official Microsoft apps bundled with Windows 10 and installed during Windows 10 Setup — e.g., Photos, Calendar, Alarma, Camera, Calculator, People app, etc. Some of the inbox apps are “non-removable” and some are removable — e.g., the Photos app.
The StateRepository-Machine.srd database has a field named IsInbox against app which may be set to 1 or 0. If it’s set to 1, it’s a designated inbox app. For non-removable apps, PowerShell’s Get-AppxPackage <PackageName> command will show that the package is NonRemovable.
If you need to trim down Windows by removing unused or unwanted apps, there is a way to forcibly remove them even though they’re marked as non-removable inbox apps. To do so, you need to first set the IsInbox value to 0 by editing the StateRepository-Machine.srd database.Read more
Your system may slow down to a crawl, and when you open Task Manager, you may find the Microsoft Software Protection Platform Service (sppsvc) utilizing very high CPU (ranging anywhere from 30% to 75%) for a considerably long time. You may be wondering why the Software Protection service is consuming enormous resources.
After installing the Windows 10 Feature Update 2004 (Build 19041.xx), you may be unable to send or receive emails using Windows Live Mail Version 2012. The error message may look like the following:
Unable to send or receive messages for the [name] account. An unknown error has occurred. Server: 'mail.server.com' Windows Live Mail Error ID: 0x800C013E Protocol: POP3 Port: 110 Secure(SSL): No Server: imap.googlemail.com Username: Protocol: IMAP Port: 993 Secure(SSL): 1 Code: 800c013e Server: imap-mail.outlook.com Username: [name]@hotmail.co.uk Protocol: IMAP Port: 993 Secure(SSL): 1 Code: 800c013e
Also, when you preview an email in Windows Live Mail, you may see the following error message(s):
Message could not be displayed Windows Live Mail encountered an unexpected problem while displaying this message. Check your computer for low memory or low disk space and try again.
Could not write this message to disk
Due to file size restrictions or other reasons, sometimes, your friends or co-workers may send videos in multiple parts. This is especially the case when you get the videos from WhatsApp, email, or other social media platforms. Once downloaded, you may want to combine the multiple clips into one single video for easier management.
We’ve seen how to do merge videos using the built-in Photos app. But this post tells you how to combine multiple video clips into one, using 3rd party freeware like Avidemux, FFmpeg, etc.Read more
Occasionally, your system may slow down to a crawl due to the PC-Doctor Module process that runs in the background. When this happens, it can take several seconds to open the Task Manager or any program.
The Task Manager may show that a process named PC-Doctor Module is occupying 100% of CPU and a very high amount of RAM. You may be wondering if PC-Doctor Module is a virus, Malware, or a PUA.Read more
