How to update your computer

Welcome everyone, and let's jump right in.

To start off with, find your way to the control panel as you did with creating the Restore Point. If you haven't yet done that, I highly recommend following these instructions.

Now, I will forewarn users of Windows 10, these instructions may not necessarily apply equally, and if you find that you cannot check for and install updates with these instructions, I will have Windows 10 specific instructions down below.

For Windows 7 and 8, go ahead and click "Windows Update" in the Control Panel. This will take you to the Windows Update window. The other method of getting here is searching "wuapp" in your search bar (wuapp stands for Windows Update Application).

Once here it may say that you're set to automatically install updates and that there are no updates available. If this is the case, click "Check for updates" on the left. This may take up to a few minutes before it finds anything. For both Windows 7 and 8 there is a known issue with wuapp taking long periods of time to find updates if there are any. Anything longer than twenty minutes can be safely assumed that your computer is suffering from this issue. If this is the case, you may have to let the computer sit for hours, possibly even days, to find, download, and install these updates. Some of these updates include a fix to this issue, and once the fix applies, the update process will drastically speed up.

If your computer does find any updates, it will give you the option to either install just the Important updates, or choose optional ones as well. I advise that you do check these optional updates and see if any of them say anything about being security updates. They will typically include an identifier that looks like "KBXXXXXX" where the Xs are numbers (ie KB419687). If there are any of these, select them as well to be installed as part of the updates. Once the updates have been installed, you will be typically instructed to restart the computer. After doing so, check again for updates. If no new ones appear, then you are ready to go.

Windows 10 Updates

For Windows 10 users, if these instructions do not work for you, there is still a way to find out what updates you need. I do not have visuals, but these instructions should be easy to follow.

Either go to settings from the Start menu, or press the Windows key and 'I' together. This will bring up a window with settings. There should be either 9 or 11 options, depending on what build of Windows 10 you have (most of you will be on pre-1703, which is the only build with 11 options in this Window). The last option should be "Update and Recovery." Click this option, then the next screen should already be on updates. If not, click updates in the options on the left. Now, it should automatically scan for updates, but if not, as above, you can click "Check for updates," and it should look for updates for you. If it finds any, it will attempt to download and install these updates. Once completed, you may be instructed to restart the computer to fully apply the updates. Though it does happen, rarely do you need to check for updates a second time, as they usually are all found on the first check.


And these are how you find and install your updates. With these instructions you can keep your computer up-to-date and keep it protected from potential threats.

How to create a Restore Point

Hello, and for those who are here to learn how to create a Restore Point, I want to start by informing you that Restore Points do not replace keeping proper backups and ensuring your hardware is in working order. However, if you make regular restore points (maybe once a month or so), it can help you in the event that you have Operating System problems and need to reset your computer to an earlier state.

Okay, to begin, there are a few different ways to get into the Restore Point Creation Utility. The most sure fire way to get there is through the Control Panel. Now I do not have images for Windows 7, but if you click on the Start button, Control Panel will be one of the options on the right-hand side of your start menu. In Windows 8 and 10, as demonstrated below, you can right-click on the Start button, or press the Windows key and 'X' and it will bring up the Power User menu. There you can press 'P' or click Control Panel.

From here here you will be presented with the Control Panel. For ease of viewing, I recommend changing the option next to "View by:" to "Small icons."

You can then click "Recovery" which will take you to "Advanced recovery tools."

In this Windows, click "Configure System Restore." This will pop-up a Window that says System Properties, and the "System Protection" tab should already be selected.

Now, most people will already have a pre-configured System Restore drive. You will know whether or not it is configured, because the "Create..." button will be greyed out and unclickable. Also the "Protection Settings" will say "Off" for all of the drives. If you need to first Configure your drive, select your drive under "Protection Settings" (usually it's the drive that says OS and is labelled C:), click "Configure...", and a new Window will pop up.

You want to fill the bubble next to "Turn on system protection," then click "Apply" at the bottom, then click "OK." The Window will disappear, and your drive will now have "On" listed next to it under "Protection Settings". Now you can click "Create..." and one more Window will pop up. In here you will put in a name for the restore point. I highly recommend putting the current date and either what you were during before making the Restore Point, or the reason for making it. For example, "5-13-17 Restore Point before updates against malware". This way you know exactly what to look for should you need to go back to an old Restore Point.

Once you've put in a name, you can click "Create" and the computer will begin to create your Restore Point. Now depending on many factors, including age of computer, speed of Hard Drive and processor, and what programs you have installed, this process can take anywhere from 30 seconds to 10 minutes. It is very rare that this takes longer than 15 minutes, and if it does, I recommend cancelling the process, restarting the computer, and starting again.

The shortcut to getting to the System Properties Window, where you make the Restore Point, is to search for it in your Search Bar using the phrase "Create a Restore Point," however sometimes the Search function can have issues, so this is the guaranteed method to getting to this Window.

Now you have just made your own Restore Point and your computer is just that much more protected against future issues.

How to backup your files

I initially wrote this article to show people how to backup their own files in preparation for updating their computer to prevent a ransomware attack, but this information can still apply whenever you need to backup anything important.

So, to begin, we need to first locate our files. To do this we most open File Explorer. In all supported versions of Windows Operating System, holding the Windows key (usually located between the CTRL and ALT keys) and then pressing E should open up the Explorer window. If that doesn't work, you should typically have an icon on your taskbar, similar to this one on the right of the start button in the image shown below:

Or a similar icon should be located somewhere on your desktop. After opening File Explorer, you then need to locate what you want saved. Typically, the most important files will be found in the Users folder of your C: drive.

In the Users folder you'll find your own User account, as well as any others that are on the computer. If you are not sure what you want or need to backup, you can choose to backup the whole Users folder. Be warned, you want to make sure that you have a large enough storage drive to backup everything you have. To check on how much space your files are taking, I will show that down below, but for now, we will continue on with copying the files to your external drive. (Note: External drives is used here to mean any storage solution that you connect to the computer via USB. This can include Flash Drives, External Hard Drives, and various other methods of backing up data.)

Once you have found the files you wish to back up, the easiest way to copy them is to simply right-click on the folder containing these files, then clicking copy on the drop-down menu that appears. (Note: Only the things that are highlighted when you click copy will be copied. Nothing more and, more importantly, nothing less. All highlighted items will be copied by this command.)

Now that you have copied your desired files, it's time to move them to your external drive. Once you have your drive plugged in, you'll need to locate it in File Explorer. Typically you will find it on the left-hand side below the item labelled "This PC" or something similar. If you see nothing under "This PC," move your mouse over it, and you should see a white arrow/triangle pointing to the right. Click it, and it will list the main folders and drives on your computer. One of these should be your external drive. Mine is listed in the picture below as Movie Backups, assigned to drive letter G:.

Now, once you've located your external drive, click on it and it will show you what is currently on there. If this is a new drive, either there will be pre-loaded software from the vendor/manufacturer, or it will be entirely empty. Either is fine.

Now that you are in your drive, you can do one of two things. The first is to create a folder with a label to let you know when you made this backup. You do this by right clicking in the empty space, and then mouse-over "New," and then clicking "Folder" at the top of the menu. After that, it will immediately allow you to name the folder whatever you choose. Once you've chosen a name, press enter, and then you can open the folder to paste your files into.

The second option is to just paste directly onto your external drive. Either method is fine, though if you plan on doing regular backups in the future (which is highly recommended), having dated folders can be useful for knowing when your last good backup was. To paste your files onto your drive (or into the new folder on your drive), right-click in the empty space, and paste will be a clickable option in the menu (assuming you've followed all the instructions above and haven't been print-screening like I have).

Now, when you click paste, you may get a popup window that shows the estimated time of completion. If you are backing up a lot of files, this process can take a long time. Even longer if your hard drive is failing. Just be patient, and the process will eventually finish. Be forewarned, that you may encounter some errors when copying your files. Most of these (if you even have any) will be unnecessary files that the computer uses for indexing purposes, and do not need to be backed up. But occasionally it will tell you it can't back up a file, and it may be a picture, word document, or some other file you may consider important. If this happens, make note of it, then allow to the process to finish (usually be clicking ignore or skip). Then, find then file later, and see if you can retry backing it up. Sometimes it's just a small goof up in the backup process, but occasionally it can be seen as a sign of a corrupted file.

At this point, you should have your files backed up. If you have other things to backup, go back and repeat these steps with your remaining files until you have everything saved that you need. Below will be instructions on how to check the size of your files and folders, so you can determine if they will fit on your external drive.

To see how large the folders/files are, simply locate what you intend to backup (as detailed above), make sure it's highlighted by clicking on it only once, then right-click the folder/file. This will popup a menu with many different options. One of the bottom options will be "Properties." Click that, and a window will popup that should show the size of everything that's in the folder/file, as shown below.

Now, the difference between the two sizes are how big the actual files are, and how much space they take up on the drive. Think of it like a bookshelf containing books. Each book on the bookshelf may only take up a certain amount of space, and added together may be less space than how much the bookshelf can hold, but if there is no room for more books on the shelf, even if there is technically empty space open, you could effectively say that the books actually take up the whole space on the shelf. This is similarly applied to the files on your computer. The "Size on disk" is going to be the more important size, because this is roughly how much space it will take up on your external drive. And you may have noticed it earlier, but your external drive does not actually hold the exact amount of space that you may have thought you were buying. It holds a little bit less. This has to do mostly with unit conversion between different number bases (a bunch of math stuff), but it also is a little bit to do with rounding, so you lose roughly ten percent of the space you were advertised (eg 32 GB flashdrive only has about 29 GB of storage). With this information, you can now ensure you have enough space on your drive, or go purchase a drive large enough to hold all of your files.

To reiterate once more, it is highly recommended to make regular backups of your files, and I always recommend multiple backups. If you have data that absolutely cannot ever be lost, then have multiple backup drives with copies of that data, and make sure one of them is in a secured location (eg A fireproof safe, a safety deposit box at a bank, or buried in a cement casing). I am entirely serious about this, and I hope that you are now able to keep all of your important files safe.