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We have been receiving NUMEROUS reports of computers automatically upgrading to Windows 10 without input from the owner.   Although Windows 10 is fine for many users, there may be reasons that you do not want to upgrade.  For instance, older versions of Quickbooks are not compatible with it.  There are also other software programs, like EagleSoft which may not run using Windows 10.  Or, you may just be comfortable with your current version and just don’t want to upgrade.

Lately, Microsoft has been aggressively pushing the upgrade.  The prompt for the upgrade will pop up and if the user does not decline or delay the upgrade, it will happen.  What we’ve been seeing is that people who leave their computers on overnight are frequently returning to find the machine upgraded.  This is because the computer is unattended for hours and no one is present to decline the upgrade.

If you are on a business network using a “domain”, this will not happen and you don’t have to worry about it.  However, if you are on a “workgroup” or using an individual computer (at work or home), this upgrade may present a problem.

For those of you who do NOT want to upgrade to Windows 10 unexpectedly, we have found a tool called GWX Control Panel which will allow you to turn off the “Get Windows 10” notifications and disable the “Upgrade to Windows 10” behavior on Windows 7 and 8.  You can click HERE to get that tool.  The user guide can be found here.   The tool can do many things, but to disable the notifications and the automatic upgrade, you just run the app.  A window like the one below will appear:

The computer we took this screenshot on had Windows 10 already installed, so the upper left button is grayed out.  You will see a button that says “Click to Disable ‘Get Windows 10’ App” instead of the grayed on which says “Click to Enable ‘Get Windows 10’ App (restore icon)”.   Click that one and the button which says “Click to Prevent Windows 10 Upgrades”.

After clicking those two buttons, it is safe to just delete the file you downloaded for the GWX Control Panel app.   If you have any questions or concerns, please email us at support@internetpro.net or call 256-547-6817.

April 8, 2016 – We applied an update to our Hosted Exchange services to improve compatibility with the new Outlook 2016 version.  As a result, users may get a message similar to the one below.  Please place a check mark next to “Don’t ask me about this website again” and hit “Allow” if you see this popup message.   It will not affect your security in any way and once you accept the message, you will not be bothered again by it.

If you have any questions or concerns about this update, please email support@internetpro.net or call our office at 256-547-6817.

April 6, 2016 – We are experiencing some performance problems with our website (https://www.netsolinc.com) and we are trying to isolate the cause.  While we do some troubleshooting, you may notice the site not behaving properly.  This is temporary and we are aware of the issue.  We apologize for the inconvenience.

Update – April 11, 2016 – Well it took us a few days to track it down, but the issue ended up being the “Latest Virus Alerts” feed at the bottom of the site.  We pull that data from Sophos and apparently they moved the feed.  Our site was slowing down because the feed was timing out and the site was not rendering until that happened.  We’ve updated the footer with a new feed from the same company.

Additional – While working on the site, we took the opportunity to make some adjustments so that the netsolinc.com site is completely served by SSL, meaning that all of the information on the site is served to customers through encrypted traffic.  Google and other companies are making a push to move all traffic to SSL in the future.

March 28, 2106 – 10:00am:  We are experiencing issues with our phone lines resulting in callers getting a busy signal when trying to reach us.  We are also having trouble calling out.  A very few calls are able to come through, but not all. If you are having trouble, please try reaching us at support@internetpro.net and we will do our best to contact you.  We have contacted our phone provider and are working to resolve the problem.  Updates will be posted here as soon as we have them.

11:30am – Our phone services have been restored.  Apparently, the SIP password for our upstream connection was cracked and our lines were being used by third-parties to make unauthorized calls.  This used all of the call paths we are authorized for and caused our lines to be busy.

February 19, 2016 – A critical vulnerability has been identified in the Linux operating system.  This issue affects many of the services running on Linux servers and can result in the server being completely taken over.   Most of our infrastructure is based on Linux and as such, we are having to patch this vulnerability as soon as possible.  You can read more about the issue in this article if interested.   For most updates on Linux, a reboot of the server is not necessary.  However, this particular vulnerability affects many services, some of which cannot be restarted without a reboot.   For that reason, we will be doing emergency maintenance which will require updates/reboots of many of our servers.  We are scheduling this to happen between 11:00pm Saturday the 20th and 2:00am Sunday the 21st.   During this time, some services will be temporarily unavailable including email, web hosting, and offsite backup services.   Not all services will be unavailable at the same time, but there will be disruptions periodically during the maintenance window.  We will post more updates here as the issue is addressed.

If you have any questions or concerns, please email us at support@internetpro.net or call 256-547-6817.

Update 4:28am February 21, 2016 – Our maintenance went a little longer than planned but all servers should be safe from the vulnerability found in the Linux OS.  We also were able to implement some upgrades on our virtual server hosts while we were working on the issue.  These upgrades result in faster virtual machines and more features.  If you have any issues with your web page which we missed, please email us at support@internetpro.net or call 256-547-6817.

Thank you and we apologize for any inconvenience.

Update 10:15pm February 22 – One of our virtual server hosts did not properly upgrade and we are having to work on that server.  It is affecting some VPS machines and websites.

Update 11:00pm February 22 – The server update problem has been corrected and all hosts should again be online and functioning properly.

February 19, 2016 – We have found that our fax line (256-547-6818) is temporarily out of service.   We are working with AT&T to get the service restored.  In the mean time, if you need to send us a document, please scan it and send it to support@internetpro.net.   We will post an update here when the service is restored.

Update- The issue with AT&T has been resolved and we are again able to receive faxes!

January 14, 2016 – Unfortunately, our phone system has experienced a failure and we are unable to receive calls properly.  We are in the process of switching over to our failover solution which will allow customers to leave voicemails which we will return.  However, customers who are able to email to support@internetpro.net will have faster response.   We do apologize for the issue.   The system may be out for an extended period of time as it does seem to be a hardware failure which may take some time to resolve.  We will post updates here as we have them.

Update 8:45am – Our failover solution has been put in place so all calls will go to voicemail.  These voicemails are forwarded via email to our staff and will be returned as quickly as possible.

Update 2:00pm – Our phone system functions have been restored to normal!   If you try to call into our office and are still having trouble, please email us to let us know, but it looks like everything is working correctly.

Tuesday, September 29, 2015 3:30pm – Our phone system is currently experiencing trouble.  Our office is unreachable by phone, nor can we return calls through our normal lines.  If you are needing assistance, please email us at support@internetpro.net.  A technician will respond as quickly as possible. Please include a phone number in your email so that we may contact you by phone if necessary (using cell phones).   We apologize for the inconvenience.

 
Update 5:30pm – Telesystems has gotten our system somewhat up and going while we await a replacement part. Customers should be able to contact us normally. We may experience some additional downtime tomorrow while the replacement is installed and we will post more information as we have it.

Update September 30 2:00pm –  The part(s) have been replaced and everything is fully functional.  We have returned all calls that we have received during the outage.  If you are awaiting a call from us and haven’t received it yet, please call us back at 256-547-6817.