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Tech News and Commentary
Dave and the team discuss AT&T spinning off its TV business, a 110 inch Samsung TV selling for $156k, the Perseverance rover running on an old processor, Instagram hiding likes by accident, and more.
Donald in Franklinton, North Carolina listens on Newsradio 680 WPTF and asked: “I have Windows 10 and I’ve been using Hello Face to login, and all of a sudden it stopped working. So I went out and bought a new camera after upgrading the Windows 10 software and that did not seem to resolve the issue. I’ve tried Googling and tried 10 or 20 different things to try and get it fixed and it’s still not working. When I try to go and set it up, I get a message that it is not able to open the camera.”
Donald, it sounds like your issue is with the way Windows is accessing the cameras themselves.
There are a few potential sources for that problem. It could be drivers, it could be explicit permissions, or it could be some software thats blocking access.
The permissions are the easiest to check, so well start there. Go to Start and Setting and you should see an option for Privacy. Within Privacy there should be an option for Camera with a switch to mark whether or not you want to allow apps access to the camera. Make sure thats turned on and that access is allowed.
Drivers can get a little trickier. The easiest first thing to try is to go to Updates and make sure youre fully up to date, if youre not, update and restart, and try again.
Failing that you can go to your Start menu and search for Device Manager.
Look for a branch called Camera or Imaging Devices and expand it. Within it, you should be able to see your cameras. If you cant go to the Action menu at the top of the window and click on Scan for Hardware Changes and see if its picked up. If it does you should be able to install the drivers and get it working.
There could also be software, like an antivirus or antimalware app, blocking your camera from working. You should check your antivirus to see if theres a well meaning privacy option blocking access to your camera. If thats the case, just turn it off.
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