Windows 11 and Drive Encryption

Windows 11 is terrible. And that is probably too kind. One of the more serious problems with Windows 11 is the foolish idea to encrypt everybody’s hard drive by default. This is a dumb dumb dumb idea. You almost certainly don’t have anything that you must keep secret. With you hard drive encrypted, if your computer goes bad, it can be very difficult to recover the files. But there is another serious flaw with drive encryption that can cause you to lose all your files. If the computer restarts while an encryption/decryption is in progress, it can make your files unrecoverable. Sadly, Windows Update is too dumb to know when an encryption/decryption is happening, so it will install updates and restart without your permission. This problem is almost certain to happen if one of the updates applies to the BIOS/UEFI.

There is a faster and safer way to decrypt your hard drive. These are the steps:

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Printer Problems With Optimum/Suddenlink Modems

Mid February 2023, I have seen a large number of printers that suddenly stopped working with Optimum (formerly Suddenlink) modems. My guess is that Optimum pushed out an update to the modem that is causing the problem. The printer is connected to the modem’s Wi-Fi, but no computer is able to talk to the printer. If you restart, the printer successfully reconnects to the Wi-Fi, but the problem remains. And the only devices having trouble are printers, the brand does not matter. So far, the modem/router that I have confirmed to have this problem is from Oobe.

Further investigations reveal that factory resets will fix the problem temporarily. Sometimes you need to do a factory reset multiple times to fix the problem.

After checking with Optimum tech support, this is an issue they are aware of. They recommend purchasing your own modem and router to fix the problem.

I never recommend renting the cable modem from any cable company. You should buy your own modem and save the $10/month fee. I usually recommend a modem and router separately, but if you don’t want complicated you can a router/modem combo. There are many good choices, so long as it is a DOCSIS 3.1 cable modem. I usually recommend buying the modem and router separate, even though it will cost more.

Microsoft Outlook Cannot Add Gmail Account

This is a problem that occurs when you remove a Gmail account from Outlook and then re-add it. Normally when you add a Gmail account, you get a window that asks you to sign in to Gmail. But if you removed your account, then that window might never appear. This is because Outlook did not properly delete some entries in the registry.

I would recommend you remove all email accounts in Outlook using the Mail setting in the Control Panel before this fix.

Open the registry editor and go to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\Identity\Identities

(Note: the number may not be 16.0; it might be higher or lower so be sure to check all similar entries).

Delete any entry with your email address in it. If you removed all email address, delete every entry. After that, re-add your Gmail account as normal.

Although I haven’t tested this, I would think this problem would also appear for Hotmail/Outlook and Yahoo email because these also use the OAuth2 standard.