Welcome to the computing section
of the Wikipedia reference desk.

Select a section:

WP:RD/C

Want a faster answer?

Main page: Help searching Wikipedia

How can I get my question answered?

Select the section of the desk that best fits the general topic of your question (see the navigation column to the right).
Post your question to only one section, providing a short header that gives the topic of your question.
Type '~~~~' (that is, four tilde characters) at the end – this signs and dates your contribution so we know who wrote what and when.
Don't post personal contact information – it will be removed. Any answers will be provided here.
Please be as specific as possible, and include all relevant context – the usefulness of answers may depend on the context.
Note:
- We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or legal advice.
- We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate.
- We don't do your homework for you, though we'll help you past the stuck point.
- We don't conduct original research or provide a free source of ideas, but we'll help you find information you need.

Ready? Ask a new question!

How do I answer a question?

Main page: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines

The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.

February 12

No password is good for MS

I want to condemn Microsoft for what it does with my passwords. I established a new password on Jan 26 of this year and tonight it is invalid. That 26 Jan PW was established in response to MS claim that a previous PW was invalid and that PW was set up in November, I guess. I waste hours retrieving my PWs from my database and creating new ones.! Wikipedia passwords last years without change. Microsoft terrorises us deliberately. Why do they do it? AboutFace 22 (talk) 05:03, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's unclear what password you're referring to but Microsoft account passwords definitely do not normally become invalid after any set date or time. However for good reason, many vendors do check passwords against leaked password databases (often on login) and require such passwords be changed. If your problem is you're using a leaked password, all I can say is you really shouldn't. If you're re-using passwords, this might be a reason why your password is leaked as many sites have suffered breaches and even when properly hashed, the plain text version of weak passwords will be quickly found. Vendors do sometimes also increase password strength requirements and may require a change of old passwords which don't meet these requirements (again normally on login) although AFAIK Microsoft account requirements are still fairly weak (I think 8 characters without symbols required). Finally vendors may sometimes automatically invalidate passwords if they suspect the account has been compromised, generally forbidding this password from being re-used. Unfortunately such systems are imperfect as one would expect and are vulnerable to false positives especially if you proxies or maybe Tor to login a lot. Turning on multi factor authentication may help reduce such detections. Note if you are using this password for access to services or computers provided by work or school, it's possible they have their own password policies in place which may be more stringent than Microsoft's and could include enforced password changes after some period of time. Nil Einne (talk) 09:09, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It has to do with the encryption bypass processing cache. Passwords are normally stored in a dynamic cloud-based relay environment and only accessible to users delegated by a selection algorithm. Microsoft has gotten around this problem by applying an analytic framework to the encryption sequencing process that allows multiplex bidirectional input/output aggregation. Pretty simple stuff.

You can override this default setting by reconfiguring your operating system to parse out encryption keys in a nested virtual framework. It’s easy to figure out and it only takes about 5 minutes. It will also bypass a number of default settings that Microsoft uses to limit cloud-relay analytic processing speed. Dinglepincter (talk) 16:51, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Dinglepincter, it appears that you are the user who previously edited under the User:Serratra account. You were warned that this kind of silly nonsensical edit is not appropriate, and it's even less appropriate now that you are evading the block that was placed on the Serratra account. Please stop doing this. CodeTalker (talk) 00:13, 19 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

February 13

Compiling this list

I used to be an active member of WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles many years ago. After a long hiatus, I came back to find the editor who had been compiling Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/de had left Wikipedia. It is a list of German wikipedia articles with at least 3 interwiki links, but no link to the English wikipedia. The editor hasn't left any instructions, so I'd like to ask here. Could anyone tell me how to compile the list? They certainly didn't do it manually. BorgQueen (talk) 18:25, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The list was generated from the toolserver database. The Toolserver was shut down on 1 July 2014. I suppose the Toolforge database is its replacement. See also Wikipedia:Database download. The folks at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) may be able to offer more help. --Lambiam 10:34, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! BorgQueen (talk) 11:16, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

February 17

Auto-brightness on cell phones

At work here, a co-worker complained that her phone gets very bright in the dark and is so dim in sunlight that it is useless. I noticed that my phone is the same. If I cover everything that looks like a light sensor to make it think it is in the dark, the screen gets much brighter. If I shine a flaslight on it, the screen gets very dim. Both of us have Android phones, so we asked another coworker to check her Apply phone. It behaves the same way. In the dark, it gets brighter and in bright light it gets dimmer. All of us think that this is backwards. Shouldn't it get dim in the dark and bright in the light? Is there a way to fix this other than turning off auto-brightness and setting it my hand every time you need it changed? 97.82.165.112 (talk) 19:04, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This has instructions on how to turn the feature off. This is called "adaptive brightness" on Android phones. --Jayron 32 19:07, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As described here, the idea behind auto-brightness is that the display will be dimmed in a dark environment and made bright in direct light. --Lambiam 21:18, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that Android phones attempt to learn your preferences, so maybe if you continually turn the slider down in the dark and up in the light (with adaptive brightness turned on at the same time) it will eventually catch your drift. I'm not sure why it would be backward in the first place, or why this would be commonplace. Card Zero (talk) 18:39, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

February 20

Word Changes Darkness of Text

I bought a new computer which is running Windows 11, and have installed MS Office, or whatever its name is, including MS Word. I have an annoyance that I haven't previously seen, which is that the darkness or intensity of text changes on my screen. I haven't tried to study in detail when it lightens the text. This didn't happen with the old computer. (I had other problems with Word on the old computer, but that is not important.) Is this variation of the darkness of the text an option that I can turn off? It seems to be a misfeature rather than either a bug or a feature. It doesn't seem to depend on what font I am using, because I am seeing it both with Times New Roman and with Arial. How do I get Word to stop lightening the text? I tried changing the font color from Automatic to Black, and that doesn't seem to solve the problem. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:26, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Using Ethernet Cable for Internet

As part of a complicated troubleshooting effort, I bought Ethernet cables and an Ethernet switch. I have now connected a 25-foot Ethernet cable to my Windows 11 computer and to the Ethernet switch, and a 10-foot Ethernet cable to the Ethernet switch and my cable modem that serves as a wireless router. My question is what I need to do to connect to the Internet via the Ethernet connection. That is, how do I use the router as a wired router? Is it simply a matter of disconnecting the WiFi connection, or is there something else I need to do? Robert McClenon (talk) 03:26, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Apart from disconnecting your WiFi you do not normally need to do anything. An entry-level Ethernet switch would be practically "invisible" to your computer. As long as your cable modem is configured with DHCP (a way to assign an IP address, subnet mask and gateway to your computer) for a wired connection you should be good to go. 41.23.55.195 (talk) 06:45, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]