Terms of use

Plain English, because a wall of legal boilerplate nobody reads protects nobody. Using this site means you're fine with what's below.

What this site is

PcFixin' publishes free how-to articles about Windows and macOS. It's information, not a service, and reading it doesn't make me your technician or create any professional relationship between us. Hands-on work is a separate arrangement with a separate business, Geaux Tech NOLA, under its own terms.

The risk notice — please actually read this one

Some of the guides here walk through changes that carry real risk of losing data or leaving a computer unable to start. Among them:

1. BIOS and UEFI settings. These are your computer's lowest-level firmware settings, below Windows or macOS entirely. Changing the wrong one can stop a machine booting, and there's no undo button waiting for you afterward.
2. Recovery mode and uninstalling updates. Working in Windows Recovery Environment or macOS Recovery means operating on a system that is already in trouble. Removing an update or rolling a system back can undo other changes along with the one you meant to fix.
3. Deleting snapshots and restore points. Clearing Windows Recall snapshots, restore points, or Time Machine history is permanent. Once they're gone, the thing you might have wanted to roll back to is gone with them.
4. Terminal and Command Prompt commands. A typed command does exactly what it says, immediately, with no confirmation dialog and no recycle bin.

Back up your files before you start anything on this list. Not after — before. If a guide's warning and your own judgement disagree, trust your judgement and stop; there is no shame in deciding a job isn't yours, and it's a lot cheaper than the alternative.

You follow these instructions at your own risk. I write them carefully and I check them against the manufacturers' own documentation, but I can't see your computer, I don't know what's already been done to it, and software changes under all of us — a menu that was in one place last year moves this year. I'm not liable for data loss, downtime, hardware damage, or any other loss that follows from using this site. If that's not an acceptable trade for free advice, please don't use the instructions.

Accuracy, and what to do when I'm wrong

Everything here is provided as-is, with no warranty that it's complete, current, or right for your particular machine. I try hard, and I'll still be wrong sometimes. When you catch it, tell me — corrections get made, and an article that's wrong is worse than no article at all.

Content and reuse

The articles, wording, and images produced for this site are mine. Link to anything here freely, and quote a short passage with credit and a link if it's useful. Please don't republish whole articles, or feed the library wholesale into something that reprints it as its own. Some images come from other people under their own licences; where that's the case, the credit and licence are printed under the image and those terms govern that image, not these.

Links out

Guides link to manufacturer documentation and other sources so you can check my work. I don't control those sites and a link isn't an endorsement. Windows, macOS, and every other product name mentioned belong to their respective owners; naming them doesn't imply any affiliation or sponsorship.

Changes

These terms can change; the current version is always the one on this page. Continuing to use the site means the current version applies.