Afterword

ThimphuTech was the first technology blog in Bhutan. We started writing it in 2009, just as broadband and mobile internet started to take off. (Although internet in Bhutan was launched in 1999, it was either super-slow or super-expensive, and was only used by a selected few).

In the blog, we wrote about technology and food, but also about plenty of other stuff. The blog became popular and influential in Bhutan. A companion bi-weekly column -- Ask Boaz -- was published for many years in the Kuensel, Bhutan's national newspaper. (The complete Kuensel columns are available as an ebook, Blogging with Dragons).

We stopped updating the blog when we left Bhutan in 2014, but the information within the posts can still prove useful, and thus we decided to keep it online.

We thank all our readers.
Tashi Delek,
Boaz & Galit.

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Updating Windows 7 (K2 #28)

I am trying to use Windows Update but I keep getting the following error code: 80072EFE. I tried to solve the problem in different ways, such as running PC Cleaner and SystemCare 4, and even reinstalling Windows 7 (without formatting drive C). However, I keep getting the error. Can you kindly advise?

-- Tashi Dubjur, College of Science and Technology (CST)

Dear Tashi,

Operating systems such as Windows 7 are complex creatures, and the issue of the type that you encountered is quite common. I’ve also run into similarly annoying error messages. In my experience, the key to solving such problems is by searching online for solutions. Why? Well, there are millions of other Windows users around the world, and typically a few of them have already run into the same problem. Luckily, you are not alone! Other users will often share their solutions, usually in an online forum. You can find online discussions by typing the exact error message text into the Google search bar.

With all of this in mind, I've searched for your specific problem. I typed "error code 80072EFE" in the Google search bar, and got many relevant results. Try it! The top result was for a discussion that had more than one hundred posts. According to the discussion, many users found that a Kaspersky utility that removes a nasty virus was able to solve the problem. So read the discussions, see what solutions people have found, and try them out.


Website of the Week

Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.com)

Students have started their winter vacations, but that does not mean that learning must stop. About five years ago, Salman Khan, a young Bangladeshi-American with a gift for making the complicated appear simple, created and uploaded a few short video clips containing math tutorials to YouTube. His original motivation was to help his remotely-located cousins with maths. The videos became popular. Very popular. So popular, in fact, that eventually Khan left his job, founded “Khan Academy”, and the rest, as they say, is history. KhanAcademy.org now contains over 2700 short video clips covering math, physics, chemistry, history and more. Everything is free. Check it out and you’ll discover that there's more to the Internet than Facebook.

Readers are encouraged to submit technology-related questions to boaz@thimphutech.com