Software Archives - Page 3 of 12

Why You Need to Track Software Licenses

Office IT, Softwarelicenses, managed services, softwareOphtek, LLC

Sep 2014

Can you list all of your licenses? From audits to system failures, tracking software licenses is a crucial part of keeping your business flowing smoothly.

We know how tedious this can be. Managing software is a little more complex than counting the number of physical assets, such as computer desktops and monitors.

Why would your business track software licenses?

We’ll use the BBC as a brief case study. They have over 27,000 computers on their network across the UK. As you can imagine, they’ve encountered a huge problem in the past when they needed to run an audit for all of the installed software on their endpoints. They were lost as to what was really being used on all staff computers. For example, a particular software package was purchased for 3,000 desktops; however, they eventually came to realize that only 300 were actually being used!

They found both legal and out of compliance software packages. They eventually decided to run a weekly audit to keep all of this under control. Prior to this, both hardware and software assets were de-centrally managed by each of their own departments, with no common procedure.

Big impact for small businesses

Users can have all sorts of software installed on their computers which can vary from Microsoft Office, Windows, Quickbooks and so forth. So think about this for a moment. What if your computer crashed today or worse yet, what if an employee reports their laptop stolen or completely kaput, what do you do about it?

You will likely search your storage or server room in desperation to find your previously purchased software. But wait, where’s the license? Nowadays, most software is available virtually over the cloud. Paper licenses and CDs have been replaced by electronic virtual software!

In the event of a computer crashing, there is of course a list of other important considerations regarding why a business needs to keep track of their software licenses.

Productivity. If not monitored systematically, it wastes time, resources, making it unproductive for both the business and staff. For instance, staff may need to spend an additional few hours to track software manually. Even then, the tracking may not be 100% accurate!
Less surprises. Your business and users can keep in compliance with EULAs, helping you to avoid expired software usage, which would also be outside of software support. In addition to this, it would prevent any disruption made to business operations as they would have fully functional software packages.
Understanding the software usage of your company. You can be in control and manage software usage, as well as making better purchasing decisions in regards to the exact amount needed over a given period of time.
Meeting budgets. Continuing from the last discussion point and using the BBC example, once you understand the realistic demand for a particular software package, you can save a significant amount and reduce costs from purchasing 3 licenses as opposed to 30.
Free up unused licensed keys. Every business knows the daunting task of having to re-purposing equipment or taking some out of service. With this taken into account, it is also important to consider what software may be installed that could be using up licenses or may be making the license key dormant.

Solutions

One piece of software that allows you to track thousands of software licenses on your office computers is called Recover Keys. Recover Keys allows you to find licenses to your computer Operating System, Office Products and 6500+ other pieces of software installed throughout your systems.

Aside from digging up licenses, Recover Keys has the following features:

Backup activation keys
Scan another Windows system or HDD
Scan remote network computers
Automatic updates

Onsite PC Solution offers software license tracking and management as a part of our managed service plans for your business. For more information on tracking license and maintaining good IT policy in your office, contact your local IT professionals.

How to Check Your Hard Drive Usage

hardware, Security, SoftwareDrive, Hard, Problem, UsageOphtek, LLC

Sep 2014

Has your computer been sluggish lately? Your hard drive usage could be too high and on its way to a crash. Here’s how to check if it’s working too hard.

Your hard drive is the main storage of your computer. It holds your pictures, videos, office or business software among everything else running on your PC. If you’ve already scanned for malware, removed unnecessary programs and toolbars, checked your CPU and your memory then it may be time to check your hard drive. Programs malfunctioning in the background can read and write unnecessarily from your hard causing your computer to slow down.

To find out if your hard drive is overwhelmed, first click the Start button and choose Computer.

In Windows 8, hold down the key and press the F key. Click Apps > PC. For more on how to make Windows 8 look and behave like Windows 7, please consult the following IT article.

Clicking on your hard drive will show the free space available. Even if you have plenty of space available, your hard drive could be reading and writing too much.

To find out if that is the case, first open the task manager by right clicking the bar at the bottom of the screen.

Select Start Task Manager.

Under the Performance tab, select Resource Monitor.

Under Processes with Disk Activity, you can view which processes are accessing the hard drive for reading and writing. Any process that looks unfamiliar should be googled. Many sites will help you discriminate between legitimate and suspicious processes.

Under Disk Activity, you can view the exact bytes per second each process is using for reading and writing. If any process is using an inordinate amount reading and writing capacity, several possibilities exist.

One possibility is the software governing the wayward process could be malfunctioning. To find out if this is the case, close and re -open the program. If you cannot close the program normally, go back to the Task Manager.

Under the Processes tab, highlight the process in question and click End Process.

Check the Resource Monitor again to see if the process is still reading and writing with the same bytes per second. If it is, you might want to uninstall and re- install the program. Go to the Start menu and select Control Panel.

From the Control Panel, select either Programs and Features or Uninstall a Program (this will depend on the type of menu you have).

Highlight the targeted program and click uninstall.

Install the program again and see if the reading and writing speeds are different.

If the high reading and writing speeds persist, the computer could be infected with malware. For more on how to detect and remove malware, please consult the following IT article.

If malware is not the culprit for the aberrant reading and writing, your hard disk could have errors. Once again, go to Start > Computer. Right click your hard drive and select Properties.

Click the Tools tab. Under Error checking, click Check now.

Provide authentication if you are requested for it. If the scan detects problems, select both Automatically fix file system errors and Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors.

Click Start. You will be prompted to reschedule a disk check the next time you restart your computer. Allow the disk check to proceed upon restart.

If this doesn’t manage to sort out the reading and writing problems, you could have a defective hard disk. Temporarily installing another hard disk on your PC with the same software should give you a reference on whether the abnormal reading and writing stems from physical problems with the hard drive. Note if the reading and writing speeds for the same processes are dramatically different for the different hard drives. If they are, going with a new hard drive might be the best bet.

For more information about hard drive errors and other problems affecting your SOHO or office PCs, consult your local IT professional.

How to Remove Toolbars

Internet, Security, SoftwareAvoid, Remove, security, ToolbarOphtek, LLC

Sep 2014

Browser toolbars entice you with safety and promised convenience. In reality, they should be avoided as much as possible. Here’s how to remove toolbars.

Hopefully, your web browser doesn’t look like the one above. If so, something drastic is in order to restore an smooth web browsing experience.

Though initially designed to enhance a user’s web browsing experience, the reality is toolbars are piggy- backed by malware, data mining or browser hijacking to steal the user’s information. In addition, they burden your processor and memory with an extra, unnecessary application.

Here are three ways to remove toolbars.

1.) Uninstall them as applications from the Control Panel

After selecting Control Panel from the Start menu, choose either Programs and Features or Uninstall a Program, depending on the menu you are presented with.

From the list of programs that appear, find the one that looks like the toolbar. Sometimes it can be tricky, as the name can be different.

Click Uninstall from the top menu. If you are presented with a User Account Control warning, click OK or Yes to allow Windows to uninstall.

2.) Toolbars in browsers can be disabled

In Internet Explorer, click either the gear icon or Tools and select Manage add- ons.

In the Add-on Types menu on the left, choose Toolbars and Extensions.

Select each toolbar and click Disable in the bottom right corner.

In Google Chrome, select Settings or Tools then Extensions.

Select the extensions that are the toolbars and click Remove.

For some Chrome browsers, there will be a trashcan icon insread of the Remove prompt.

In Firefox, select Add- ons then Extensions.

You navigate there by typing about:addons in the address bar. Click the toolbar you wish to remove and click Remove.

3.) Browsers can be restored to their factory default states

You are best advised to backup your bookmarks or any other setting you wish to retain from the browser.

In Internet Explorer, select Internet Options and the Advanced tab.

Click Reset and click to confirm.

In Google Chrome, click Settings and show advanced settings.

Click Reset browser settings.

In Firefox, select Help denoted by the ? icon.

Select Troubleshooting Information.

Click Reset Firefox.

For more information about toolbars or other issues affecting your PC, consult your local IT professional.

How to Check for High Memory Usage

hardware, SoftwareCheck, Memory, ram, slow computer, Use, WindowsOphtek, LLC

Sep 2014

Is your computer hanging or freezing while working? If disk space and infections aren’t the issue you may be low on memory. Here are several ways to check.

High memory usage can indicate a number of problems with the computer. The system could be low on physical memory. A program could be malfunctioning causing it to abuse the available memory. High memory usage could also indicate a virus or malware infection.

1.) Open the Task Manager by holding down the Ctrl and Shift keys and pressing Esc.

Under the Performance tab, below the CPU Usage graphic there is one for Memory. This gives you a pictorial representation of the amount of memory used. The Physical Memory in megabytes is the amount of Total RAM installed on the computer or Available RAM for handling processes. The amount of physical memory used to map open files is denoted by the Cached entry. Available memory includes Free memory, which is memory currently used for absolutely nothing.

Kernel Memory is used for the operating system and device drivers. Paged memory can be copied to a paging file, freeing more physical memory for use by the operating system. Nonpaged continues to occupy physical memory.

Under System, Commit is the amount of virtual memory that could be backed by physical memory or paging files. The Commit entry depicts a ratio of memory that could be allocated to data to the total virtual memory on the computer.

At the bottom right of the window is the percentage of Physical Memory currently in use.

2.) By clicking the Resource Monitor within the Task Manager, you can view detailed information for memory in use and memory allocated for each process.

User Account Control will bother you for authorization, which you must give to launch the monitor. The Memory tab provides extensive descriptions of the headings of each column if you hover your mouse over each heading.

The advantage of the Resource Monitor is that it breaks down memory use on a process by process basis, allowing you to ferret out the resource hogs among your programs.

If you do find unnecessary programs that are taking up an unusual amount of memory, you can uninstall them using the Control Panel or remove them as startup programs. For more on how to remove unnecessary startup programs, please consult the following IT article. And for more on how to uninstall programs and other ways to improve Windows performance, please consult the following IT article.

3.) The Performance Monitor is extremely customizable, giving you exactly the performance stats you wish to view.

You can launch it by clicking the Start menu and by typing perfmon.

When it opens, it gives you the basics on how to use it and the memory in use.

By clicking Performance Monitor on the top left, you get a graph of processor usage that you can complement with memory usage stats by first clicking the + icon to add data to the graph.

Within the Memory heading, you can view the memory of various subheadings that you can add to the graph.

Most end users might be overwhelmed by the number of viewable options available in the Performance Monitor. To get a reasonable assessment of the memory in use, the Task Manager and Resource Monitor generally suffice. The Performance Monitor is recommended for Windows experts who are familiar with the ins and outs of memory usage.

For more about memory and other issues affecting your office systems, consult your local IT professionals.

Should You Update Adobe Flash?

Internet, Security, SoftwareAdobe, Flash, security, updateOphtek, LLC

Aug 2014

Adobe Flash player is an indispensable part of web browsing. Whether you’re watching Youtube videos, gaming online, or streaming videos, Adobe Flash will likely be necessary so be sure to keep it secure.

What is Adobe Flash?

According to Wikipedia:

Adobe Flash (formerly called Macromedia Flash and Shockwave Flash) is a multimedia and software platform used for creating vector graphics, animation, games and rich Internet applications (RIAs) that can be viewed, played and executed in Adobe Flash Player.

In other words, when you view multimedia through your web browser such as videos, music or animations, there is a good chance that it is using Adobe Flash.

What’s the risk?

The increased functionality flash player gives you also comes with risks. Flash player gives criminals almost as many opportunities to compromise your system as Java. If these risks are not addressed, you could be subject to exploits such as one that allows attackers to mimic a website to obtain your confidential information or even cause a denial of service by corrupting your memory.

Keeping your flash player updated to the latest version is the best way to plug these security holes that jeopardize your system. Fortunately, if you web browse with google chrome, your flash player is automatically updated.

How to update Adobe Flash player

1.) Go to Adobe’s website to check if you have the latest flash player installed.

Click Check Now to see if you have the the current version. If you do, congratulations. If you don’t….

2.) Go to the download link in step 2.

Click Download now to download the file. Before doing this, make sure NO extra programs are checked for you to download. Frequently, this will be McAfee as shown below:

Immediately uncheck the box next to Yes, install McAfee Security Scan Plus. You do NOT need this program, and it will make Windows run slower if you already have an antivirus program running.

3.) Follow the installation instructions on the download page.

4.) Enable Flash Player on your browser. The links for the instructions for each browser can be found on Adobe’s website.

5.) Verify if Flash Player is installed by checking the animation on Adobe’s website. If you see clouds moving, you have installed the player. If you don’t, try refreshing the page. If that still fails to produce moving clouds, go through the installation steps again.

For more information on this or other security issues affecting your PC, consult your local IT professional.

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Category Archives: Software

Why would your business track software licenses?

Big impact for small businesses

Solutions

1.) Uninstall them as applications from the Control Panel

2.) Toolbars in browsers can be disabled

3.) Browsers can be restored to their factory default states

1.) Open the Task Manager by holding down the Ctrl and Shift keys and pressing Esc.

2.) By clicking the Resource Monitor within the Task Manager, you can view detailed information for memory in use and memory allocated for each process.

3.) The Performance Monitor is extremely customizable, giving you exactly the performance stats you wish to view.

What is Adobe Flash?

What’s the risk?

How to update Adobe Flash player