Synchronize Your Cloud Files Without Slowing Down Your Computer

Cloud Computing

Synchronize Your Cloud Files

Clouds are a great storage option to protect your files. Even if your computer dies the files still live on in the cloud.

Issues With Clouds – Synchronize Your Cloud Files

The problem is that Synchronizing Your Cloud Files may slow your computer down to a crawl if you are synchronizing too many files. We certainly don’t want that.

Problem & Solution

Another problem with Synchronize Your Cloud Files is that it’s somewhat limited unless you purchase a premium plan.

Limited Space in the Cloud

When we use clouds with limited space we have to ensure we don’t try to back up unnecessary files.

The best Synchronize Your Cloud Files solution is to back up files that are the most important taking precautions with sensitive materials by encrypting.

Scroll down or click for help with Synchronizing Select Cloud Files

We can also spread out files among various cloud plans by maybe putting family photos on one and business documents on another.

If you have Office 365 you get 1 TB to backup your files so space should not be a major concern.

Slow Computer

The more files you have to synchronize the longer it takes the cloud software to index your files and upload.

Even if you only change one file the software has to evaluate them all. This can make your computer unusable when the cloud software is indexing.

Slow Zone

Synchronizing websites can be particularly bad since they may have lots of little files.

If there are repository file like Git then the situation is even worse.

If Windows Search all by itself can slow down your computer. Add that to cloud synchronization and you may think your computer is broken or infected.

Synchronize Your Cloud Files – Too Many Files

One Solution that addresses speed and space is to limit the files you synchronize.

If you have plenty of space but don’t want to drag your computer down every time it indexes your changes you can select which folders you need synchronized.

In our case, we have lots of websites and customer backups that don’t need to be constantly synchronized.

First we backup these sorts of files to an external drive or internal section of our drive that’s not associated with the cloud.

Test Case

We download a lot of stock photos from GraphicStock.com that we may want to use someday and we have 1 TB of cloud storage available on OneDrive thanks to our Office 365 subscription.

Initially we download the stock photos to our external RAID (12 TB) into a folder that shows it has not been synchronized to the cloud.

Problem Folder

Then we copy this folder to an appropriate place on our local OneDrive folder which gets synchronized to the cloud.

OneDrive Problem Folder

Once the synchronization is complete we remove the folder from synchronization by opening OneDrive Settings.

  • Start OneDrive if it’s not running
  • Right click OneDrive icon in tray
  • Navigate to Account Tab
  • Choose folders
    • Only Choose folders that are likely to change

      OneDrive Settings – Account

What This Does

Removing the folder from synchronization removes the files from the local PC which is why we have it backed up outside the OneDrive folder. We don’t need these files in 2 places on our computer.

More importantly OneDrive doesn’t have to scan through all these files to see if they have changed. Since they are stock photos we won’t be changing them.

We might however create new versions from the stock photos but we will be sure to back these up.

It does not remove the files from the cloud so the files are still available on OneDrive.com

Windows Search

Windows Search is also known for slowing down your computer so this added to a cloud backup can really bring your computer to a crawl.

This is especially true if you try to open Windows Explorer. Just clicking on a drive may take a long time to open. Think minutes instead of seconds.

Disabling Windows Search

Microsoft constantly recommends Windows Search for Outlook and Windows Explorer. They suggest that searches may take a long time unless we turn it on.

Search performance will be impacted because Windows Search service is turned off.

In our experience, Windows Search slows down any drive with a lot of files. You probably want to turn it off even if you are not synchronizing Cloud files.

Perhaps Windows Search is useful if you are looking for text within files but it’s a significant drag on our resources.

Disabling Windows Search is easy enough. Crank up the Services and disable Windows Search.

Windows Services

You can find Services by typing in the search bar. Double click Windows Search service and set it to disabled or manual.

Conclusion

It’s possible to synchronize your files to the clouds without impacting your computer performance by selecting specific files and folders to keep synchronized.

Turning off Windows Search will help even if you are not synchronizing files to the cloud.

Troubleshooting Your Laptop Webcam

Troubleshooting Your Laptop webcam usually requires some research on the vendor’s site.

Case Study

Dell laptop – Inspiron 3721 purchased September 2013.

The webcam worked when running Windows 7 but failed later on when it was upgraded to Windows 10 in October 2015.

Client is in a remote location so we don’t have physical access to the machine.

Laptop History

Laptop had issues with Windows 7 so it was an easy decision to upgrade to Windows 10. The assumption was that the laptop had malware.

Webcam had worked at some point under Windows 7 but the laptop.

It’s unclear how much time has passed since the webcam worked but the Windows 10 upgrade was done in October 2015 (8 months ago).

Teamviewer Remote Access

We were able to connect to the laptop remotely and review the problem as well as create a live USB drive to boot into Ubuntu.

Troubleshooting Your Laptop Webcam

As expected, the webcam was not found when running camera.

The unusual part was that it was not listed in Device Manager under Imaging devices and nothing was flagged as not working or listed in Other.

 

Vendor Site – Dell

Our 1st inclination was that we needed a driver but found no reference of drivers for the webcam on Dell’s support. Apparently the laptop uses Windows drivers.

We updated BIOS & chipset but that had no effect.

Live O/S

It’s usually wise to get a view of the machine from a neutral Operating System.

We could have created a live Windows 8 or Windows 7 disk but  this is not as simple to do as creating a live Ubuntu disk.

Ubuntu

What is a Live O/S?

Using a live Operating System (O/S) doesn’t require you to install anything but rather boot into the O/S on some sort of removable media.

In our case, we used a USB drive.

Ubuntu has a Try feature that runs off the drive without impacting your current O/S.

We often use live O/S to recover files from a broken Windows O/S.

Troubleshooting Your Laptop Webcam with Ubuntu Cheese

Within Ubuntu we could open a terminal window (CTRL-ALT-T) and invoke the webcam via cheese.

The camera was not found with cheese either so it appears that the camera is broken somehow. maybe a loose connection.

Conclusion

In our sample case, the Dell laptop was diagnosed as having hardware issues since it exhibited the same problems using another O/S.

Webcam Video

Our recommendations were to use an external webcam supported by Windows 10 or have the laptop repaired.

Since the laptop is a few years old it’s probably best to use an external camera. An external probably has better specifications and it’s designed specifically for Windows 10.

Keep Your Data Safe With Secure Email

Are you using secure email?

This post is focused on secure email but some aspects like SSL and encryption apply equally to data in general.

  • With all the breaches in the headlines, it behooves us to secure our email.
  • Breaches expose client data that can be used to access your accounts.
  • Even if a hacker has your email account credentials, he may be unable to read encrypted email.
  • Email can be accessed by the unscrupulous in a number of ways.
  • Sending email without SSL is like sending your mail on postcards.

Think your data is safe?

Our focus is finding solutions that work for our clients with minimal intervention and/or setup.

Recent Breaches?

Fraud

These high profile breaches are a reminder that our data is not as secure as we would like.

Anything shared on the Internet is vulnerable to various types of snooping and hacks.

Email is no exception.

With the information gleaned from breaches, hackers may have direct access to your accounts if they uncovered passwords that you use elsewhere.

That’s why we suggest unique strong passwords  for every account.

Let’s investigate methods to secure our email.

How Difficult is it for Someone to Hack Your Data?

With folks getting emails on their mobile devices via Wi-Fi, it’s more important than ever to use secure email.

The best defense is to use encryption but that is not as convenient as we would like.

SSL email helps in most cases.

Otherwise your email is open to anyone that can sniff it out of the air.

That’s easier than you may think using attacks like Man in the Middle.

Hacking Methods Used

Once hackers have your information there are a number of ways to access your accounts.

With enough information, a determined hacker can gain access to your accounts.

  • Phishing – acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication
  • Man-in-the-middle attack (MITM) – attacker secretly relays and possibly alters the communication between two parties who believe they are directly communicating with each other.
  • Session stealing (cookie hijacking) – exploitation of a valid computer session (session key) to gain unauthorized access to information or services in a computer system. … theft of a magic cookie used to authenticate a user to a remote server.
  • Keylogging (Keystroke logging/keyboard capturing) –  recording (logging) the keys struck on a keyboard, typically covertly.
  • Social Engineering – psychological manipulation of people into performing actions or divulging confidential information
  • Hacking your computer – malware planted on your computer allows hackers complete access to your data
    • If a hacker has access to your computer you need to have it cleaned.

Doesn’t  SSL Secure My Email?

Using SSL for your email provides security between you and your email host.

Prior to SSL (Secure Socket Layer) emails were sent in plain text from your email client like Outlook to the host server.

Google’s chart below shows that most email to and from Gmail in the America’s uses SSL.

Volume of email to and from Gmail

SSL is helpful but it doesn’t keep anyone with access to the server from reading your email or necessarily guarantee that it will be transported to the recipient via SSL.

Client-side SSL is a step in the right direction but encrypting you email is much more secure.

Using SSL and SSL Email Setup?

If you want to check whether you are using SSL you can use Comcast’s guide to interrogate various email clients.

If you need to setup an email account to use SSL you can contact your provider or Google setup “Provider Name” email.

“Provider Name” is the provider who sends you a bill each month.

Implementing Secure Email

Secure Email

We encrypted email for our clients back in the late 1980s but it was tedious to setup and use.

Consequently, secure email was not considered a priority and seldom used.

We need encryption to ensure that sensitive email is not compromised.

This requires some inconvenience on the clients but it’s the best way to secure our email.

HIPAA Compliant Email

With the advent of the HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) companies have become more security aware.

If you send sensitive email or work in the medical industry you may be required to secure your email or face penalties.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), sets the standard for protecting sensitive patient data. Any organization dealing with protected health information (PHI) must ensure that all the required physical, network, and process security measures are in place and followed.

Paubox article on HIPAA compliance

sending receiving email

Is HIPAA Email Encrypted?

Some HIPAA email providers like GoDaddy do not necessarily encrypt email in transit.

There is some debate on whether or not HIPAA requires email to be encrypted.

GoDaddy encryption has an add-on for HIPAA email. It’s an all or nothing scenario so all your mailboxes either get encryption or they don’t.

Likewise encrypted email isn’t necessarily HIPAA compliant.

HIPAA compliance requires partners to sign a Business Associate Agreement (BAA).

HIPAA Compliant Hosts

GoDaddy and other hosts offer HIPAA compliant email.

Host

GoDaddy was the least expensive of the providers we found using Exchange email.

HIPAA COMPLIANT EMAIL

HIPAA requires health care providers to ensure that their business associates will safeguard Protected Health Information (PHI). If you are interested in emailing with your patients, or sending any patient data through email, you need to be sure that your email is protected in a HIPAA-compliant manner.

OFFICE 365 FROM GODADDY HELP

Exchange

Some vendors offer HIPAA compliant email with Exchange like features.

In some ways, these email services may surpass Exchange by encrypting email.

On the other hand, why not get a service that is like Exchange when you can have Exchange even if it isn’t encrypted.

Encryption

You need encryption if you want to secure your email while in transit.

Encryption Key

HIPAA email providers using Exchange email do not necessarily encrypt in transit.

There are, however,  encryption add-ons.

Encryption uses PGP key pairs.

One key is shared with the public and the other is private.

Without the private key, your message is safe from prying eyes.

Generating Keys

Part of the challenge of setting up and using PGP encryption is the generation and tracking keys.

Security Key

The nomenclature is a bit confusing.

Key generators typically import private keys and export public keys.

Some key generators will export both public and private keys simultaneously.

Kleopatra

GPG4Win’s Kleopatra Interface is a bit clunky but works fine once set up.

Kelopatra

We did have issues with some public certificates generated in Kleopatra not working with Gravity Form PGP Extension.

Interestingly the Kleopatra generated  public key did not work with Kleopatra but did work with Gmail Mailvelope extension.

Importing the  Kleopatra public key into Mailvelope and exporting produced a working certificate for our server.

Mailvelope

Mailvelope Chrome extension easy to install and use.

Mailvelope

After running into issues with Kleopatra generated public certificates, we tried generating keys via Mailvelope.

Unfortunately, the certificates didn’t install well on Gravity Form PGP Extension.

Gravity Form PGP Extension requires a matching email address for a notification email and the Mailvelope public certificates displayed none.

Symantec Desktop Email Encryption

Symantec Desktop Email Encryption was the easiest solution to work with but expensive.

It works with Macs & Windows but not Linux.

Once setup outlook emails are decrypted automatically with no intervention of the user.

Secure Email

ProtonMail and Gmail send encrypted email these days but you lose that

Secure Email

feature when you send to an outside account.

Gmail is not HIPAA compliant.

Google Apps business email is HIPAA compliant.

Web Forms

If your website asks for sensitive information you should use SSL and encryption to protect that data.

Installation instructions for Gravity Forms PGP Encryption plugin

Gravity Forms and their PGP Extension  makes it easy to setup an encrypted form.

Gravity Form PGP Extension requires public keys and matching email for notifications to be send.

Decryption

When you send encrypted email you must decrypt to read it.

The following table lists software that handles encryption/decryption.

Recommended Software

Gpg4win

Gpg4win is a free solution for Windows Outlook users.

  1. Import private key
  2. Certify you will be able to
  3. Decrypt messages
    1. Open message
    2. click decrypt

Mailvelope

Mailvelope is a free and easy solution to implement for Gmail and Chrome.

This is the easiest solution if you are using Gmail and Chrome.

  1. Install extension
  2. Import private key
  3. Emails are automatically decrypted

Conclusion

  • Use SSL Email at very least.
  • Make sure your computer doesn’t have malware.
  • Encrypt email if you and your correspondents want the most security.
  • Use HIPAA email if you deal with Protected Health Information (PHI).

Best Home Small Business Printer

Best Home Small Business Printer

Best Home Small Business Printer – where do I find one? The problem these days is that there are too many choices.

While a color laser printer used to be out of reach for home and small businesses they can be had for a reasonable price these days.

The initial cost of the Best Home Small Business Printer is just the beginning.

Keeping them in ink or toner can be expensive.

Bells and Whistles for Best Home Small Business Printer

Adding to the confusion of finding the Best Home Small Business Printer is all the bells and whistles that are available.

  • WiFi
  • FAX
  • ADF (Automatic Document Feeder)
  • Ethernet
  • print-shop-quality color prints
  • laser-sharp black and color text
  • high-speed prints
  • multiple paper trays
  • monthly duty cycle (pages/month)
  •  auto 2-sided print/copy/scan/fax.

Wireless Printers

Wireless printers allows printing from tablets (e.g., iPad) and

smartphones (e.g., iPhone). Not all printers make this easy.

Some printers may require mobile devices to print to the cloud (Internet).

While this can be useful we want our Best Home Small Business Printer to connect directly to.

Some may require you to print to their cloud or allow popular clouds like Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive.

Printing to the cloud may not be a concern if you have high-speed Internet but it might be a problem if you depend on a cellular data plan to upload the files.

There are also security concerns for uploading sensitive documents to the cloud.

Downs Consulting recommends a wireless printer that doesn’t require printing to the cloud. We prefer our Best Home Small Business Printer to print directly via WiFi.

Printing to the cloud is a nice feature but we don’t want all our print jobs to go through it.

Wi-Fi

Wireless setup sounds nice. In theory you setup your Best Home Small Business Printer anywhere you have

Wireless Connection

power and WiFi reception and you are “good to go”.

The printer forums are littered with complaints about printers connected or rather not connected via WiFi.

It’s common for WiFi to drop the connections. It’s similar to mobile phone connections.

Dropping a connection in the middle of a big print job could cause problems. Maybe you would have to start all over again after waiting minutes for it to enter the print queue.

The reality is that WiFi is not as dependable as an Ethernet connection.

Our advice is to use a wired connection if at all possible. This requires an Ethernet connections which some models may not have.

Ethernet

This is our preferred method of connecting our printer. We

can still use WiFi to connect to our mobile devices.

Downs Consulting recommends a networked printer that is not tied to a computer.

Many printers limit their functions if connected via USB.

Some printers may not have this capability.

Footprint and Noise

A noisy printer right next to you in a small office is no small intrusion on

your space.

Likewise, a huge printer is not going to very welcome either.

While there are plenty of small printers they tend to skimp on some features.

A small printer may be better for a Home user that doesn’t need all the “bells and whistles”.

When we settled on our Best Home Small Business Printer we still had to convince our office that we had room for it.

Printer Maintenance Costs – Ink & Toner

A major concern is operating costs. It’s common to see the ink/toner

replacement cost more than the printer.

Printers often come with starter

supplies that don’t last as long as the standard capacity.

Usually, you can find high-yield supplies that are a better buy in the long run.

It also saves on the aggravation of running to the store for supplies.

Some printers may refuse to work at all if one of their cartridges are low. This is particularly frustrating if you don’t need that cartridge for the job you have queued up.

New Color Inkjet printers can be up to 50% cheaper to operate than a color laser.

Review Sites

Review sites are a good place to start looking for available features, costs,

and buyer or editor opinions.

Preferably the  site has lost of reviews so the overall score can’t be skewed one way or another by a few one-sided reviews.

If there are not many reviews you may not get an accurate assessment.

Likewise, the site should not have a vested interest in the sale of the product and reviewers should be able to post sincere remarks.

A lack of disparaging or complimentary remarks could be a sign of bias.

 

Consumer Reports

Consumer Reports is a great resource for buying appliances like this but you need a subscription to see their reviews online. They compile statistics on the main categories including maintenance cost, print quality, photo quality, and speed.

You can usually get a free trial for online or magazines. The magazines come with a buyers guide and is a good resource in itself.

The Consumer Reports interactive video below offers some good advice.  You can click on the sections you are most interested in.

Other Review Sites

Some websites like PC Magazine have editor and user reviews.

Amazon has good prices and user reviews.

Bad Reviews

No printer is perfect in every way and we found bad reviews on the best-rated ones.

Some bad reviews may have been from lemons or simply technical errors. Some may have had issues with their networks. Some may have been malicious.

Laser Printers

Since some inkjet printers are cheaper to run than a color laser we would

not recommend a color laser as a Best Home Small Business Printer.

If you are only concerned about printing text then you may want to consider buying a monochrome laser printer.

Text quality has long been the domain of the laser printer but even here  inkjet printers are competitive with text print quality and speed.

Inkjet Printers

For us, all roads point to a Multi-Function inkjet printer which is somewhat disappointing.

Just when the costs of color laser have become affordable, inkjet

Inkjet printer – Downs Consulting

technology has become competitive in all respects.

 

We shouldn’t complain since keeping up with multiple toners for the color laser is not a task we would want.

Inkjet ink itself is expensive enough.

Compromises for the Best Home Small Business Printer

 

If you find a printer that is perfect in every way then it is likely a budget breaker.

Consequently, you have to decide what’s the most important features you need and what you can do without.

Our Best Home Small Business Printer requirements:

  1. Network connection  using our LAN (local area )
  2. Print laser-sharp text
  3. Print color and text
  4. FAX
  5. Scan
  6. Low Cost
  7. Reasonable speed
  8. Reasonable maintenance costs – Save on ink or toner
  9. Multiple Paper Trays

Nice to have features

  1. ADF – Automatic Document Feeder
  2. Automatic 2-sided print/copy/scan/fax
  3. Easy printing from tablets and smartphones – Android, Apple & Windows products
  4. Fast print speeds
  5. Stunning graphics and images

Windows 10 Upgrade? – Restore Old O/S

Windows 10 Upgrade?

 

 

Windows 10 Upgrade, should I allow it? For the most part Windows 10 is a decent Operating System.

There are over 200 million installs and Microsoft’s goal is one billion.

There are some issues with Windows 10 that may cause grief for some

users.

Isn’t Windows 10 Upgrade a Better Operating System?

Certainly Windows 10 has a much better reputation than Windows 8.

Our recommendation would be to upgrade Windows 8 unless you have applications that are not officially supported for Windows 10.

If you are using Windows 7, you may want to keep the O/S. It will lose extended support for security patches in 2020 but by then you will may want a new computer.

 

Is Windows 10 Upgrade Secure?

There are some security issues with the default settings but

It’s easy enough to change those.

Overall we think Windows 10 is secure but you may want to change the settings.

Keep in mind that you are already tracked by the likes of Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft.

In some cases, you don’t have to be logged in to be tracked. Certainly you are tracked if you are logged into their accounts.

That said Windows 10 is not any more intrusive than Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, …

All Programs Are Compatible with Windows 10 Upgrade, Right?

Some folks assume that Windows 10 is compatible with their applications

since it runs a test prior to the upgrade.

 

While the test is a good precaution it’s a Herculean task to test every

application in the world not to mention applications you may not  have currently installed.

Case in Point – Windows 10 Upgrade Gone Wrong

To our dismay we have found some applications like LogMeIn Backup are not officially supported for Windows 10.

While it may work the LogMeIn team is clueless about fixing the problem or even moving your backup to another machine.

Part of the problem is with the USB drives we use for backups.

Unfortunately for us this was after the thirty-day rollback period and

moving the application required a full backup.

A full backup backs up every file. Subsequent backups are much quicker since you don’t have to backup files that don’t change.

Note that moving backups requires a lot of time for the full backup and being cut off from the previous backups is disconcerting too.

Some of our remote full backups  take twenty hours.

Obviously we were not happy with this pitfall of Windows 10 and in the end wiped our computer and installed Windows 7.

 My Hardware is Supported for the Windows 10 Upgrade , Right?

In most Windows 10 Upgrade cases, you probably won’t have issues with hardware if it was

installed prior to the upgrade. In theory Windows 10 would warn you if the hardware was incompatible.

USB external drives may not be compatible with Windows 10.

Manufacturers like Western Digital and Seagate may not a Windows 10 driver that works reliably for relatively new drives.

We found that our external drives using USB 3 were not compatible. This was very disconcerting since most of our files are backed up to external drives.

In our case, LogMeIn backups and even Windows Explorer couldn’t get the drives to show a listing until we installed a Windows 7 driver!

Even with the Windows 7 driver, we suspect we didn’t get USB 3 speeds but never measured.

How Did I End Up With Windows 10 Upgrade?

Microsoft has gotten more aggressive in pushing out Windows 10. They

made it a recommended upgrade so it upgraded if you had automatic updates on.

Downs Consulting recommends Windows Updates so the dilemma is that we don’t necessarily want the upgrade but do want updates.

An alternative is to use something like GWX Control Panel.

GWX Control Panel should stop the upgrade to Windows 10.

Restore Old O/S – How Do I Go Back to My Previous Operating System (O/S)?

If you ran into as many issues as we did then you will want to revert back

to your old O/S.

Gracefully Revert to Your Old O/S

If you decide to revert your old O/S in the thirty-day window you may back out gracefully.

To uninstall Windows 10 within the first month, go to the Start menu and choose “settings.” From the resulting menu, choose “update and security,” then click “recovery.” You’ll be given the option to “go back” to Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, depending on what you had previously. Click “get started.”

Reinstall Windows

If you are beyond the thirty-day window you are looking at a re-install of

Downgrade Windows 10

some sort.

Image Backup

If you made an image backup of your system you may want to restore it

but that will wipe out all your data too.

Likewise you could use the factory image backup to restore everything back to the day your computer arrived.

To install the factory image backup, you probably have to press specific keys during start-up. F8 & Advanced Boot Options work for some Dell computers.

Image backups will restore all software  that was installed at the time the image was made.

A factory image may contain trail software that they sent with the computer.

A personal image will have the software, data and updates that resided on the computer at the time of the backup.

New Installation

New installation is not for the faint at heart but it may keep your files in

Windows.old. This is a nice backup but we recommend backing up your files to an external drive as a precaution.

You will have to restore all the Windows updates and any software you use .

Obtaining Recovery Media

Ideally you created  backup disks when you received your computer. If you

can locate these disks then you can restore the factory image backup.

If you don’t have recovery media then you will have to contact the computer manufacturer. This may be a nominal fee if you are no longer in warranty.

Our Experience Obtaining Recovery Media

Hopefully you won’t have as much trouble obtaining recovery media as we

did. Maybe you can avoid some of the pitfalls of our experience.

It started out well enough with our first contact at Dell and we were prepared to pay the $20 or so since we were no longer in warranty. So far, so good.

We ran into problems when they wanted our account. Since we were logged into our Dell Advantage account this didn’t seem to be a problem but they wanted an account number.

We didn’t have an account number on our purchases or our online account.

Seven conversations and two hours later we assume the original person wanted a financial account which we didn’t have. We finally explained we wanted to pay by credit card and got the media in a couple of days.

To add insult to injury, we discovered later that we had a $20 credit we could have used for this transaction.

Backup You Files

As a general rule, most of your files will be in your User folder. If the user

is “Randy” then the user folder will look something like the following:

C:\Windows.old\Users\Randy – backup profile in previous Windows

C:\Users\Randy – profile in current Windows

Once you have you files backed up you can initiate a new install and preferably keep old files in Windows.old.

You can always remove this later if space is an issue.

Removing Windows.old

Removing Windows.old should be done via Disk Cleanup.

Here’s the proper way to delete the Windows.old folder: Step 1: Click in Windows‘ search field, type Cleanup, then click Disk Cleanup. Step 2: Click the “Clean up system files” button. Step 3: Wait a bit while Windows scans for files, then scroll down the list until you see “Previous Windows installation(s).