With any luck, you’ve been able to take advantage of what summer we’ve had this year to recharge your batteries. Regardless of if you travelled abroad or stayed in the UK, take that time to rest and recuperate – especially as a busy business owner.
Sometimes, we forget that the tech we use day to day, sometimes needs to have that reset to help it run smoothly and efficiently.
You probably know yourself well enough that you can recognise signs tell you that it’s time for a reset, but what about the tech you use? Today we look at some signs and times when it would be sensible to reset your IT.
Firstly – what do we mean by a reset?
A reset is a specific term in IT and computing. A reset is the act of stopping the current processing activity that a machine is undergoing, especially if that processing is resulting in errors. The reset clears all errors or pending errors, and brings the system back to a normal condition.
Resets typically fall into two categories. Soft resets and hard resets.
When to use a soft reset
If you’re experiencing issues with the software that you’re using, such as a glitch with the programmes being used or applications freezing or not opening a soft reset is probably the way to go.
The way to perform that on most devices is to simply go through the process of restarting the device. This shuts down all the applications being used and will clear the RAM. Typically you will not lose any data with a soft reset outside of anything unsaved when the reset is performed.
When to use a hard reset
If there is a deeper lying problem that a soft reboot won’t fix, it may require a hard reset. This is probably best done after discussing the issue with an IT professional.
The hard reset will basically reset the machine to factory settings, how this is done will vary from device to device. Whilst it is likely that this may resolve any problem you have, it does come at the expense to deleting a lot of data – which is why we recommend this being done in consultation.
So wait… is this just switching it off and on again?
The answer is both yes and no. Essentially a soft reset is usually done by turning a computer off and then on again. As we’ve said before, yes this is an IT cliche, but it’s an IT cliche because it works.
You can learn about when it’s a good time to turn your machine off and on again in
this popular blog we wrote a little while ago.
If anything in this blog has struck a chord, and you think that beyond a reset, your IT might need a complete refresh, then WebbyTech is here to help.
You can find a full run down of the services we offer here or
contact us directly for a no obligations conversation.
