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Q: I have a warranty with Wal-Mart but it’s been such a hassle to use it that I may just go ahead and pay someone. For no apparent reason that I know of I can no longer put in my password. It hangs up every time. The Asus warranty said it sounds like software and won’t help me. Could this actually be something out of the clear blue due to Windows 10?  Any suggestions would be so appreciated.

– Cheryl P.
Fort Walton Beach, Florida

A: It sounds like software to me too, Cheryl, but I don’t see why Asus should refuse to help you.  Over the years, OEMs like ASUS have been expected to provide the product support for the versions of Windows they bundle with their machines.  That was usually because the OEMs had the opportunity to perform their own customizations to the operating system that were outside of Microsoft’s control.  Perhaps that changed with the upgrade version of Windows 10.  Who knows what Microsoft does anymore?\

Without more information or direct examination of the machine, it’s difficult to tell why it may be hanging when you try to log in. If it used to work, and suddenly stopped, the culprit may be an update that was automatically applied to the system, or it could be a problem with your Microsoft account, or perhaps the PC’s startup files have become corrupted.  I can offer two suggestions to you.  First, try starting in Safe Mode and see if you can figure out what changed on the system around the time the problem started.  Second, try the Windows Startup Settings in the Windows Recovery Environment.  I poked around Microsoft’s forum, and found a link that should at least get you started: tinyurl.com/IGTM-0445A. Good luck! 

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Q: After downloading Windows 10 onto my laptop and realizing that was an error and going back to Windows 7 Pro I have experienced a few problems and have them corrected except for Windows Live Mail. When trying to delete email I cannot delete a whole folder at one time or even in batches of more than ten or even one at a time sometimes without being stopped and being told “An Unknown Error Has Occurred.” It seems like the system gets bogged down and stops. I have contacted my ISP and have been told it is not happening on their end. How can I correct this, my Active, Junk and Deleted folders get larger even though I spend time deleting as many as I can before being stopped.

– Jerry S.
Destin, Florida

A: I’m almost more interested in your declaration that downloading Windows 10 “was an error” since I’ve been using Windows 10 quite extensively, and except for a few problems with the Edge browser, I’ve found it to be quite a reasonable OS once you get used to it.  But, I try not to foist my preferences off on everyone else, so I’ll try and ignore the above and instead concentrate on what you asked about.

For the sake of this discussion, I’m assuming that the problem is not that you don’t know how to do mass e-mail deletions, but that it used to work, and has now stopped working after downgrading back to Win 7. I’ve heard of a couple of workarounds, such as dragging the files to the Drafts folder and then deleting from there.  If that works for you, you may have a corruption in Windows Live Mail itself.  You can attempt to repair it by visiting “Programs and Features” in the Control Panel, clicking “Windows Live Essentials” and selecting “Repair all Windows Live programs”.

Another possibility is that the integration of any Anti-Malware tools that you are running somehow got messed up during the restoration. Such tools should generally be installed after the programs they are intended to protect.  So, you might try re-installing whatever tools you use, and see if that helps.

There was one final item that I came across that seems like a shot in the dark, but if it helps you, that’s great. For the steps to follow, visit tinyurl.com/IGTM-0445B.