I have a Dell Inspiron 1501 Laptop and the last time I upgraded my PC to Windows 8.1, the screen turned black. But after unchecking certain drivers, the update worked. After the installation, as Windows auto-updated, the same problem recurred. Now I want to upgrade my laptop to Windows 10. Will it work? How do I avoid these problems from afflicting my new installation as well?

—Bidur Parajuli

Dear Bidur,

It seems as if your laptop hardware is having trouble initialising the new Windows installation. There are two reasons why your laptop might be rejecting the new Windows update. This could be primarily because the internal hardware of your laptop is not supported by Windows 8, or because certain peripherals that you might have connected to your laptop might be incompatible. Research on the minimum requirements for Windows 10 and also before you upgrade your computer, always attest your hardware and make sure that all of your laptop components are supported. You can do this directly from the upgrade to Windows 10 icon that have found a home on your system tray for a few months now. There is a built-in PC Compatibility tester that comes with the upgrade package and makes upgrading to Windows 10 much easier and safer. Even if you don’t want to upgrade and want to perform a fresh install, the Upgrade Utility will perform a check and inform you if your computer can handle the new Windows. I would suggest you upgrade to Windows 10 only after you’re sure that all of your laptop components can support the new Windows, and since you’ve already had a bad experience with Windows 8, research a bit before you upgrade.

Hi, I read your article about AllCast on The Kathmandu Post earlier today. I wanted to give it a try but it’s not working. I’ve installed AllCast and AllCast Receiver app on my Android (HTC M8) and laptop (Samsung) respectively. But the only notification I get on my phone as I try to pair it with my laptop is “Please verify your TV is connected, the device is on and connected to the network”. What am I supposed to do?

— Mim Shrestha

Dear Mim,

This should not have happened since AllCast is a relatively easy app to configure, but there might be certain key points that you might have missed out on. To get the devices to pair, make sure AllCast is running on both your devices (Android AllCast and the desktop AllCast Receiver). Also, AllCast Receiver comes installed as a Chrome App, so you might have to fire it up through the Chrome App Launcher. You should be greeted with a pop-up that asks you to Open up the AllCast application on your Android device, this is when you should try to connect from your Android device. Also, make sure that your Wi-Fi is on and connected to the same Wi-Fi network on both of your devices, AllCast uses the Wi-Fi network to interface with each other, so connecting to the same Wi-Fi connection is imperative. But even after you make sure that all of these variables are in place, and AllCast does not seem to work, you might want to migrate to other streaming applications. Localcast and Toastercast seem to be good alternatives to AllCast, so if AllCast is giving you a lot of trouble, try migrating to these alternatives.

I upgraded to Windows 10 about 3-4 months ago and it periodically auto-updated then but for the last month, it has not been updating. Instead it cites various errors like 0x8024402f and others ending with a b and x. I googled up the error codes and tried a few techniques that showed up on YouTube by modifying the services, but to no avail. Could you help?

—Amit Jha

Dear Amit,

A lot of these upgrade problems arise after default Windows settings have been altered, either by a virus or other malicious software. This could also stem from the modified values in the system registry. This could happen also after you’ve installed software that work with and modify these settings, for example Microsoft Office. Try this fix: navigate to Windows Update, click on Advanced Options and deselect the “Give me updates for other Microsoft Products…”. Check if your updates work now. These problems persistently occur when your laptop is having trouble connecting to the internet and this happens the most if you are connected to an internet that is protected through proxy settings. Proxy settings are an annoyance to deal with and even if you get connectivity on your web browsers, certain parts of your laptop will still be deprived of an internet connection because they don’t take the proxy settings. This was most evident in Windows 8 and Windows 8.1, where even after setting up your proxy settings, Metro apps would not be configured with the proxy settings. So if you are connected to a proxy connections, my advice would be to run this command on an elevated Command Prompt, [ netshwinhttp set proxy proxy-server=(your proxy address and gateway) ]. If even after all of these fixes, you’re still having trouble updating your system, send me another email with as much detail about the problem as you can, if you can find a log file for the problem, attach that file and send it to me and I will try to help you with your problem as best I can. I hope these fixes work for you.

If your technological devices are giving you a hard time or if you’re just curious about certain technological questions, please drop us an email at [email protected] and we’ll try to answer your questions as best we can.