You should install the recent Windows 10 May 2019 update, if you haven’t already. The update has a cool new feature, Recommended Troubleshooting, that makes diagnosing and solving common PC issues much easier.

One of the things about being PC-literate is that everyone you know becomes a potential source of new information. In solving other people's problems, I get to learn about lots of things that I might not have otherwise come across. One of those moments happened recently. And it was a rude awakening.

While we might like to think we are moving towards a paperless world, the journey is taking a little longer than many of us expected. So, I have a couple of scanners in my home office; a Fujitsu ScanSnap 1300i and a Fuji Xerox CM315z multi-function device. I needed to scan a document from the CM315z to my WIndows system when I discovered there's no built-in scanning tool in Windows 10 any more. Here's how to scan documents with Windows 10.

Microsoft officially launched the Windows 10 May 2019 update today for all to consume—all who haven’t already been beta-testing it for months, that is. Acquiring said update is easy. Click the Start button, type in “Updates,” click on the “Check for Updates” option that pops up, and click on the can’t-miss-it “Check for Updates” button in the subsequent screen. If you see a listing for a “Windows 10, version 1930" update, that’s the one you want.

There are a lot of new features — some big, some small, some minuscule — in Microsoft’s big May 2019 update for Windows 10. I already covered a few of my favourites (the “coolest ones,” as I put it), but I’ll be going through the rest of the update and highlighting other interesting tweaks that Lifehacker’s mighty readers might want to know about.

Remember PowerToys? They were those Windows XP-era utilities that granted you features beyond what “regular” Windows users could do within their operating systems, like: opening a command prompt directly to a folder (instead of having to “CD” your way on over), changing your screen’s resolution via a quick right-click context menu, and good ol’ XMouse. Well, PowerToys is back.

2019 has been declared the Year Of The Folding Smartphone. But why settle for a 7- or 8-inch screen when you could have a whole laptop? That's the apparent reasoning behind Lenovo's latest ThinkPad - a tablet/laptop hybrid that can be folded like a book. Intrigued? Here's everything you need to know.

Microsoft has been pushing towards a password-free future for some time. Another step along this road has been taken. The Windows Hello authentication system has been granted FIDO2 certification. What is FIDO2 and why is this important?

Windows: While a normal Windows 10 installation isn’t usually that difficult to manage, there’s probably a lot running under the hood of your operating system that annoys you. Maybe it’s a feature or two you wish you could turn off, or perhaps you’re concerned about what kind of data Microsoft collects on that which you do on your PC — or where it’s located.

Microsoft has launched public testing for the newest version of its Edge web browser, which it built on top of Google’s “Chromium” open-source framework. Not only does this mean that Edge should (supposedly) work better with sites designed to modern web standards, but it also means that you’ll be able to run Chrome extensions in Edge—making the browser much more bearable than previous incarnations.

With the latest Windows 10 update, Windows 10 1809, Microsoft has changed the default USB drive transfer setting to favour quick removal over better performance.

Microsoft made PC gamers’ dreams come true last week when it announced the Halo: Master Chief Collection would be available on PC through Steam and the Windows Store later this year, and now you can sign up for a chance to play the game early via the company’s new Halo Insider program.

If you’ve noticed that some of your games on Windows 10 have been particularly unresponsive in the last week, you aren’t alone. Microsoft confirmed that a recent Windows 10 update, patch KB4482887, introduced a bug that dramatically increased lag. Don’t sweat it, though. Microsoft has, thankfully, dealt with the issue quickly in a new patch, KB4489899, which reportedly fixes the issue.

As of this week, Windows 10 Mail finally has a Dark Mode worth using. After a few weeks of testing, the upgraded Mail and Calendar app now includes a more useful version of the feature for the email side of the app: one that actually makes the whole app dark, and offers the ability to quickly go “bright” when it’s tough to read.

There are so many Windows apps out there, that picking a list of the very best, most must-install software for your desktop or laptop feels daunting. We've pored over pages of recommendations, countless forum posts, and lots of comments to come up with this year's Lifehacker Pack for Windows, a list of software champions across four categories: productivity, internet/communications, music/photos/video and utilities.

Windows 10 users may soon notice their hard drive storage organised a bit differently.

Upcoming builds of Windows 10 will support a new feature designed to ensure system updates occur more smoothly. Reserved Storage will ensure there's enough free space on your hard drive so that system updates can download and install seamlessly.

Not all smart speakers are created equal. In fact, some barely meet the qualifications to be called “smart” in the first place—but they’re getting better at answering your questions, assuming they can understand what you’re saying.

For a while now, software makers have been making it safer, through various means, to run applications you don't quite trust more safely. Various techniques such as protected memory have helped and the widespread availability of virtualisation lets you create disposable environments. But Microsoft is taking that a step further with a new feature called Windows Sandbox. It's an extension of a feature that's already part of Windows 10 that will let you run whatever app you want in a dynamically created and destroyed VM.