One of the big barriers to upgrading to Windows 8 is that Windows 7 is so good. For keyboard-and-mouse users, Windows 8 isn't a hugely compelling upgrade -- and without judicious use of third-party ...

The Key Exchange Key (KEK) acts as an authority that allows Microsoft to update the other databases, like the DB and DBX that ...

Running Windows completely off of a USB flash drive is quite handy if you want to try a newer or older version of Windows without affecting your current system. The USB drive can also serve as a ...

One of the largest underlying changes to Windows 8 is the long-overdue shift from BIOS to UEFI. UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is superior to BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) in almost ...

When Windows won’t boot up, it can be a disturbing experience. But that moment passes quickly, and you must decide how to get past this (hopefully) temporary hiccup. Fortunately, there are plenty of ...

What just happened? Judgment day for Windows 7 and 8 has finally arrived. While we've known this was coming for a while, Microsoft had a final surprise for Windows 7 users: anyone still needing ...

Since I can’t turn on my laptop with the power of my mind, I guess I’ll have to live with waiting for it to boot up. You know, for eight seconds. It might be seven-and-a-half seconds too long, but ...

In June 2025, Microsoft announced that, in June 2026, it would begin deprecating Secure Boot certificates of Windows systems from 2011, which were superseded by their 2023 counterparts.