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If you've been experiencing system or application crashes in Windows, it's possible system files have become corrupt or that other system damage has occurred. Here's what you can do about it.

If Windows is experiencing blue-screen or other crashes, applications are failing, or some Windows features just aren't working properly, there are two system tools that might be able to help. The System File Checker (SFC) tool built into Windows will scan your Windows system files for corruption or any other changes. If a file has been modified, it will automatically replace that file with the correct version. If the SFC command doesn't work, you can also try the Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) command on Windows 10 or Windows 8 to repair the underlying Windows system image. On Windows 7 and earlier, Microsoft offers a downloadable "System Update Readiness Tool" instead. Let's take a look at how to use them.

Run the SFC Command to Repair System Files

Run the SFC command when troubleshooting a buggy Windows system. SFC works by scanning for and replacing system files that are corrupt, missing, or changed. Even if the SFC command doesn't repair any files, running it will at least confirm that no system files are corrupted and then you can continue to troubleshoot your system with other methods. You can use the SFC command as long as the computer itself will start. If Windows will start normally, you can run it from an administrative command prompt. If Windows won't start normally, you can try starting it in Safe Mode or in the recovery environment by booting from your installation media or recovery disc.

However you get to the Command Prompt-normally, Safe Mode, or recovery environment-you'll use the command the same way. Just remember that if you start Windows normally, you will need to open the Command Prompt with administrative privileges. To do this, right-click the Start button and select "Command Prompt (Admin)".

If you're not sure which device driver or update Windows just installed that might be causing you problems, you can view the list of installed updates. You'll see a list of updates and the dates they were installed here. If you want to work with a file in Windows, you'll have to save the file from your Windows file system with the save option. If need some help you can check softkeyhome.co.uk to find windows product key online with the lowest price.

At the Command Prompt, type the following command and press Enter to run a full system scan and have SFC attempt repairs:

sfc /scannow

Leave the Command Prompt window open until the command completes, which may take some time. If everything is fine, you'll see the message "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations."

If you see a "Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them" message, try restarting your PC in Safe Mode and running the command again. And if that fails, you can also try booting with your installation media or recovery disc and trying the command from there.

If you aren't a fan of scrolling your pointer over to the lower right corner of your monitor to show the desktop, we have a cool tweak that will allow you to add the Show Desktop icon to the Quick Launch bar or anywhere on your Taskbar.

If you want to easily get access to the Desktop in Windows 7, 8, or 10, you've undoubtedly noticed they moved the Show Desktop to the lower right corner of the screen. This can be annoying if you have a dual monitors, or even a large monitor.

There are a couple of ways you can make the Show Desktop icon more accessible. We'll take a look at each and you can choose which method works best for you. We show both methods in Windows 10, but they will also work in Windows 7 and 8.

How to Put the Show Desktop Icon Back to Where it Used to Be by Adding Back the Quick Launch Bar

The first method of moving the Show Desktop icon is to add back the Quick Launch bar to the Taskbar. The Quick Launch bar contains a Show Desktop option, so once you follow the steps in our article to bring back the Quick Launch bar, you should see the Show Desktop icon on the left side of the Taskbar. If you don't, the article also describes how to move icons on the Quick Launch bar.

This method will "kill two birds with one stone" by getting the Quick Launch bar and the Show Desktop icon back where they used to be in Windows.

How to Pin the Show Desktop Icon to the Taskbar

If you don't want the Quick Launch bar back, you could pin the icon to the Taskbar instead. Unfortunately, the process isn't as easy as a simple drag and drop, but there is an easy workaround.

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Right-click on any empty area of the desktop and go to New > Text Document.

Rename the shortcut to Show Desktop.exe.

NOTE: You will need to have file extensions showing in order for this to work.

The following warning dialog box displays because you are changing the extension on the shortcut. Click the "Yes" button to change the name and extension on the shortcut.

Right-click on the dummy .exe file you just made and select "Pin to taskbar" from the popup menu.

The Show Desktop icon on the far right side of the Taskbar is still available in Windows 7, 8, and 10, even after using one or both of these methods to "move" it.

VMware normally creates "growable" disks, which start small and grow over time as you add data. However, you can also create "preallocated" disks that start at their maximum size. If you want to compact a disk later, you'll need to convert it from preallocated to growable. Or, you may want to convert a disk from growable to preallocated for maximum performance.

Beginner Geek: How to Create and Use Virtual Machines

You can only do this in VMware Fusion or VMware Workstation. VMware Player does not include the necessary command. VMware Player always creates growable disks that expand over time, and there's no way to convert to preallocated without using another VMware product.

VMware Fusion

This is very simple in VMware Fusion on a Mac. VMware Fusion always creates new virtual disks as growable disks. You can convert them to preallocated disks afterwards, or convert disks back to growable disks if you've previously converted them to preallocated disks.

To do this, first shut down the virtual machine. You can't convert its disks if it's powered on or suspended.

Select the virtual machine in the main VMware Fusion window and click Virtual Machine > Settings.

Click the "Hard Disk" option under Removable Devices in the Settings window.

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If you see a message saying you can't make these changes while your virtual machine has a snapshot, you'll first need to delete any snapshots you've created for your virtual machine. Of course, you won't be able to restore your virtual machine to its previous state at those points in time later.

To delete snapshots, click Virtual Machine > Snapshots > Snapshots. Select each snapshot in the window and click the "Delete" button on the toolbar to delete each.

In the Hard Disk settings window, expand the "Advanced options" section. Check "Pre-allocate disk space" to convert the growable disk to a preallocated disk, or uncheck "Pre-allocate disk space" to convert a preallocated disk back to a growable disk. Click "Apply" to apply your changes afterwards.

Windows Update exists to keep Windows and other Microsoft software updated, usually with little intervention from us. This includes security updates that are pushed out on ​Patch Tuesday.

Unfortunately, sometimes one or more of those patches will cause a problem, ranging from serious ones like error messages preventing Windows from starting to less serious ones like video or audio problems.

If you're confident that the problem you're experiencing began only after one or more Windows updates, whether manual, automatic, on Patch Tuesday, or otherwise, continue reading for help on what to do next.

This might also be a good time to look over our Windows Updates & Patch Tuesday FAQ page if you haven't already.

​Note: Any of Microsoft's operating systems could experience problems after Windows updates are installed, including Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows Server versions.

Important: Please read the How to Use This Troubleshooting Guide and Are You Sure This Is an Issue Caused by a Windows Update? sections below before moving on to the troubleshooting steps! To get your computer running again, you need to understand how this troubleshooting is organized, as well as make sure that your problem really was most likely caused by a Windows update.

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How to Use This Troubleshooting Guide

I wouldn't normally explain how to use a troubleshooting guide, but since you have the great fortune of a theory about the cause of your problem, the help I provide below is structured a bit differently than other tutorials I've created where you work through some other problem with a completely unknown cause.

That said, the first thing you need to do is read the Are You Sure This Is an Issue Caused by a Windows Update? section below.

Even if you're 100% certain that an update from Microsoft caused the problem you're having, do me a favor and read it anyway. If you spend the next hour or two trying to fix a problem using the wrong assumption about its cause, it's unlikely that you're going to walk away with a working computer.

Once you're fairly certain that your issue is directly related to the installation of one or more Windows updates, the second thing to do is decide which set of troubleshooting steps to follow, either Windows Starts Successfully, or Windows Does Not Start Successfully.

A Windows theme is a group of settings, colors, sounds, and similar configurable options that define how the interface appears to the user. A theme is used to personalize the computing environment to make it easy to use.

All smart phones, tablets, e-readers, and even smart TVs come preconfigured with a specific graphical configuration. Designers choose the default font, color scheme, and sleep settings, among other things.

A television might turn off after a specific period of inactivity, for instance, or a screensaver could be applied automatically. Users can make changes to these settings to personalize their devices. It's quite common for a user to select a new background for a phone's Lock screen or change the brightness on an e-reader. Oftentimes consumers make these changes the first time they use the device.

These settings, as a group, are sometimes referred to as a theme. Computers come with a default theme too, and Windows is no exception.

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What Makes Up a Windows Theme?

Like the technologies listed above, Windows computers ship with a theme already in place. Many users opt for the default configuration during installation or setup, and thus, the most common elements are applied automatically. If changes are made during the setup process, those changes become part of the saved, edited theme. This saved theme and all of its settings are available in the Settings window, which we'll discuss shortly.

Here are a few options as they apply to both the Windows theme and the Windows 10 theme that are applied during set up:

Desktop image - This is the image that's shown on the Desktop. The Windows theme offers a blue screen with a white windows icon on the right side. The Windows 10 theme offers a Desktop image of a person running on a beach and includes four additional pictures that rotate every 30 minutes.

Color scheme/Color of Start menu - The Windows theme offers a blue and black color theme. The Windows 10 theme is gold and black. These colors appear in windows and on the Start menu, among other places. These colors are applied to fonts too.

Sounds - The Windows and Windows 10 themes use the default Windows sound configurations. It's possible to make changed in the Sound Properties dialog box.

Mouse and mouse cursor properties - Both the Windows and Windows 10 themes offer the default mouse properties settings. It's possible to make changes in the Mouse Properties dialog box.

Note: Themes, even the default themes, are editable. The user can change background images, colors, sounds, and mouse options easily from the Settings window in Personalization options, as well as other places. We'll discuss this later.

What isn't Part of a Windows Theme?

A theme offers a set of graphical options that are configurable, as noted earlier. Not every setting that's configured for a Windows computer is part of the theme, though, and this can be a little confusing. For instance, the placement of the Taskbar isn't part of a theme but is configurable. By default it runs across the bottom of the Desktop. When a user changes the theme, the placement of the Taskbar doesn't change.

However, any user can reposition the Taskbar by dragging it to another side of the Desktop and the operating system will remember that setting and apply it at each log in.

The look of the Desktop icons are another item not associated with a theme. These icons are preconfigured to be a specific size and shape to make them easy to see but not so big as to take up the entire Desktop area. Although the characteristics of these icons can be changed, those changes aren't part of the theme options.

Likewise, the Network icon that appears is in the Notification area of the Taskbar makes it simpler to connect to available networks, but is another non-theme related setting.

This is a system setting and is changed through the appropriate system properties.

These items, although not part of a theme per se, are applied per the user's preferences. The settings are stored in the user's profile. User profiles can be stored on the computer or online. When logging in with a Microsoft Account, the profile is stored online and is applied no matter what computer the user logs in to.

Note: A User Profile includes settings that are unique to the user such as where files are stored by default as well as application settings. User profiles also store information about how and when the system performs updates and how the Windows Firewall is configured.

The Purpose of a Theme

Themes exist for two reasons. First, a computer must come pre-configured and ready to use; any other option isn't practical. Setup could take several hours to complete if users had to select every setting available before they could use the PC!

Second, the computer needs to meet most users' needs and be pleasing to the eye, right out of the box. Most users don't want, say, a Start menu that's bright yellow or a background picture that's a dull gray. They also don't want to spend a lot of time making the computer usable. The graphical settings need to be easy to see and intuitive to use the first time a user turns on the computer.

Explore Available Windows 10 Themes

Although Windows ships with a theme already in place, the operating system does offer additional themes to choose from. What's available depends on several factors though, including whether or not the user has already downloaded additional themes or made recent upgrades to the operating system, so it's best to explore those themes already on the computer.

1.Click the Windows icon on the far left side of the Taskbar at the bottom of the screen.

2.Click the Settings cog.

3.If there's a left-facing arrow in the top left corner of the Settings window, click that arrow.

4.Click Personalization.

5.Click Themes.

The Themes area shows the current theme at the top and offers options to change parts of that theme independently (Background, Color, Sounds, and Mouse Color). Below that is Apply a Theme. As noted earlier, what is available depends on the Windows 10 build that's installed on the computer. However, there will likely always be a few themes listed no matter the case. Windows 10 and Flowers are popular themes. If a user has made changes to a theme from another computer with their personal Microsoft Account, there will also be a Synced theme.

To apply a new theme now, simply click the theme's icon under Apply a Theme. This will change some graphical aspects of the interface right away. The most noticeable include the following (although not all themes make changes in all areas):

Start menu color

Desktop background images that likely change every 30 minutes

Sounds for notifications

The mouse pointer size and style

If you apply a theme and decide to return to the previous one, click the desired theme under Apply a Theme. The change will be made immediately.

Feel free to explore and make any changes desired; you can't mess anything up! However, should you desire, you can click the Windows or Windows 10 theme to return to your previous settings.

Excel has many powerful features, but one of the most helpful is PivotTables. We'll show you how to create PivotTables quickly and simply in Excel using tools built into Microsoft's Office suite.

How to make PivotTables in Excel: What is a PivotTable?

While it might sound like an avant-garde piece of designer furniture, a PivotTable is a data summary tool that can display information about large data sets in a customisable tabulated form. In simpler terms, it's a clever trick that shows you what you want to know about stuff you already have in your spreadsheets.

Say you have a large data set that includes a range of information about your business, and you want to know how much a certain project has cost or which salesperson has performed the best over a set period? To find this out you can either try dabbling with several formulas to generate these results, which could be complicated and time consuming, or you could create a PivotTable which does the hard work for you.

How to make a Pivot Table in Excel

Although the use of PivotTables can be complex, depending on just how deep you want to go, creating one is actually very easy. The first thing you need is a spreadsheet with data already present. Before you can start it's important to ensure that there are no empty fields, columns or rows, as the PivotTable will assume that the data to be included ends there.

When you have everything ready click on a cell in the data you want to summarise, it doesn't matter which one, then go up to the ribbon menu and select Insert.

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The first option on the left should be PivotTable. Click this and you'll see that the data set has automatically been selected and a dialog box confirms the area that will be used for the PivotTable.

Below the Table/Range box you'll see the options for creating the table in either a new worksheet or an existing one. For this walk-through we'll select New. Click OK and the PivotTable will be created.

How to use a PivotTable

Initially it might look like things haven't gone to plan, as the new worksheet is empty. This is meant to happen as one of the main advantages of PivotTables is that you can select which data fields you want to appear, and then change them as many times as you like to produce different reports.

In the right-hand corner of the screen you'll see a list of fields you can choose to include. As you tick each box the PivotTable will begin to take shape in the main part of the screen.

When you add fields the PivotTable will order them into related areas which show the breakdown of the information. In our example we wanted to know the individual costs of the various assignments that our agents had undertaken, so by selecting those fields we quickly knew the exact amounts of each project and how much each agent had been awarded.

That's all well and good, but now we want to know how much revenue each client has generated. In a traditional spreadsheet this might take a while, but PivotTables work very quickly indeed to collate the information. There's no need to create a new table, instead we untick the fields that we no longer need, and instead select the ones for the client, assignment, and amounts. Instantly the information is displayed in front of us. Very nice!

As we said earlier, PivotTables can be very powerful if you dig deeper into the various options available in the ribbon menu. These advanced features would take up an article all of their own, so we won't be covering them today, but there is one area that it's worth exploring briefly - Design.

How to change the layout of a PivotTable in Excel

At the top of the ribbon menu you'll see the pink PivotTable Tools tab is highlighted. Directly underneath this are two more tabs - Options and Design - of which Options is currently selected. Click on Design and you'll see a far simpler set of tools appear.

In this menu you can shape how the information in the PivotTable is displayed. The first couple of options relate to whether you want Sub-Totals or Grand Totals in your table, but the one most people will want to start with is the Report Layout.

Clicking this opens up a drop down menu with a few basic alternatives for the layout of the table. Again this is all dynamic, so you can click through each option without ruining your report, then return to your preferred design at the end.

Try spending a few minutes experimenting with the settings, until you're happy with the look and feel of your report.

There's plenty more you can do with PivotTables, but at least with these initial steps you can start exploring how they can be put to work for your own needs. You never know, there might even be a large sticky donut in store at the next office meeting as people gaze upon your techno-wizardry with wonder.

Fast ring Insiders aren't having all of the fun today; the Slow ring is in for a treat, too.

Windows 10 preview build 16278 is now rolling out to Slow ring Insiders, less than a week after it first landed on the Fast ring. Microsoft is winding down development on the Fall Creators Update now, meaning no new features are expected to roll out. Instead, expect a lot of spit and polish, which is exactly what 16278 delivers.

Here's a recap of all of what's fixed in build 16278:

We fixed an issue where upgrading to recent flights would fail if you had a speech for a secondary language installed.

We fixed an issue where printing from 32-bit apps running on 64-bit versions of the OS was broken when using v3 print drivers on recent builds.

The ability to take HDR screenshots on your PC via the Xbox app has been removed starting with this build. We plan to re-introduce this feature again in the future.

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We fixed an issue resulting in drag and drop onto websites intermittently not working in Microsoft Edge.

We fixed an issue where Microsoft Edge would crash after choosing to pin certain websites to Start.

We fixed an issue in Microsoft Edge for certain websites where after watching an embedded video full screen then using Esc to return to the page would result in the video controller no longer being visible.

This is one of several builds flighted by Microsoft within the past week. Earlier today, Fast ring Insiders got their own new build with 16281, and "Skip Ahead" Insiders were treated to the first Redstone 4 build to head into testing just yesterday.