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A few people have experienced this problem when upgrading from Windows 8 to 8.1. Somehow the Registry and permissions are set incorrectly after the update and need to be corrected. We found a couple of solutions to th e problem and you can read a rather long and complicated one at bit.ly/apps. However, we’ve also found a slightly shorter solution. On the Start screen, type command, right-click Command Prompt in the search pane and select ‘Run as administrator’. In the command prompt window, type:

That’s one command, all on one line. Press Enter, then type:

Th ere’s no space between the first two quotes. Close the Command Prompt window and you should find that you can access the Windows Store, and your apps are updated and working.

A This problem is most likely caused by software or drivers that aren't fully compatible with Windows 81. You'll have to use trial and error to find out which one is the culprit. Press Windows+R and type msconfig to launch System Configuration. Select the Services tab, tick 'Hide all Microsoft services' and clear the ticks against everything that remains. Apply the changes. Right-click the taskbar on the Desktop and select Task Manager. On the Startup tab, select each entry and click the Disable button. Now try restarting Windows without all the usual extras that load with it. If Windows starts normally, the problem must be with one of the items that was disabled. By enabling items individually and rebooting each time, you should discover the culprit. If it still won't start the first time, it is likely to be a driver. Go to the manufacturer's website of the video card, printer, webcam and anything else you have installed, and look for updated software.

The charging problem you describe has indeed been reported on numerous occasions and the response you received from Asus, to pay for a repair, could be jumping the gun and also potentially ignoring what may be a hardware issue. You also mentioned that you managed to get to 100% by using Blu-tack, which would suggest to us that there is an issue with the charging port, but then we consider that you can get the device to 40% so this adds more confusion. Here are some steps to run the battery down to 0% – make sure you have backed up your data first.

Charge it overnight and run it down to 0% again. This may help the software understand the true battery level better. Next, go to the Data Usage section in Settings, or install a third-party app that can do this, and check to see if any apps are using an extreme amount of data. Certain apps have been known to drain batteries very quickly and to even inhibit the charging process. If you are still stuck, borrow a new charging cable and see if that helps or risk buying an original spare from www.asusparts.eu. Outside of these options, you may have to consider the repair, but we would advise taking a firmer stance with Asus as well to see if that reaps rewards.

Although it’s not strictly a web secret, we have to mention the Easter Egg tucked away inside each version of Android. Go to Settings, ‘About phone’ (or ‘About tablet’) and tap ‘Android version’ several times. If you have Android KitKat installed on your device, a big ‘K’ will appear. Press down on this to see the word Android in a KitKat ch ocolate-bar style logo, then press down on this to launch a game that fills your screen with colourful tiles representing previous version of Android (Donut, Eclair, and so on). If you’re using Jelly Bean, a big red jelly bean will appear; long-press this to launch the secret jelly bean game. Older versions of Android also have Easter eggs that you can access by the same steps. For example, on Ice Cream Sandwichd evices, you’l get an animation of flying Android logos wearing ice cream sandwiches.