Showing posts with label Tips and Tricks. Show all posts

Showing posts with label Tips and Tricks. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Repairing Windows 8 tip windows 8

If Windows 8 stops working at some point (quite likely - it's a very early version) then there are new ways to restore normal operations.

If Windows will start, select the Metro Control Panel app, and click "General". Choose the Refresh option to essentially reinstall Windows while keeping your data. Alternatively, choose the Reset option: this restores Windows but removes your data and applications as well.

Windows 8 won't start? Then boot from your original installation disc, instead; choose your language and keyboard; click "Repair your computer", then select "Troubleshoot". Again, you may refresh or reset your PC. Click Advanced Options, though, and you'll find tools to restore Windows from a previous restore point or system image file, as well as an Automatic Repair option which looks for and fixes some common startup issues.

Or, if you don't like Metro, open the new Recovery applet in the old Control Panel: it has all these options and everything else you need to get your system working again.

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Windows 8 crashes tip windows 8

When Windows 8 has a blue-screen crash it displays a far less intimidating status message than previous versions of the operating system. It also has much less information about the cause of the problem, though if you look immediately below the "now it needs to restart" message you may see something helpful.

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Troubleshoot performance problems tip windows 8

If your Windows 8 system seems sluggish and you don't know why, the new Task Manager may be able to help you uncover the cause.

Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to launch it, or right-click the taskbar and select Start Task Manager,

The Processes tab then gives you a detailed view of what's currently using your CPU time, RAM, hard drive and network bandwidth. The Performance tab gives you a graphical view of resource use, and the App History dialog shows which app is the most resource-hungry.

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Improved file copying tip windows 8

Try copying files in Explorer and you'll see an enhanced dialog which provides more information about what's happening. If there's a problem, you can click the Pause button to stop the operation for a while. And, if there are conflicts, deciding which files to keep and which to drop is easier than ever.

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Quick Access Toolbar tip windows 8

The latest Explorer features a Quick Access Toolbar immediately above the menu, providing easy access to options like "New Folder", "Minimise", "Undo" and more.

This is customisable, too - click the arrow to the right of the default buttons, in the Explorer window caption bar, and choose whatever options you need. And you can include add any other ribbon option on the Quick Access Toolbar by right-clicking it and selecting Add to Quick Access Toolbar.

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An Explorer secret tip windows 8

Windows Explorer now includes a Ribbon interface. This is context-sensitive, which means it displays different sections according to what you're doing - and so until you click on an executable file in Explorer, for instance, you'll never know that it has an Application section. Click this, though, and you'll find options to pin the file to the taskbar, run it as an Administrator, or another user, or troubleshoot compatibility issues if it won't run at all.

Similarly, there's a "Shortcut Tools" which appears when you select a shortcut, although this only has one option: to open whatever folder the shortcut is pointing at.

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Touch Keyboard tip windows 8

By default the Touch Keyboard will try to help you out by, for instance, playing sounds as you type, capitalising the first letter of each sentence, adding a period if you double-tap the spacebar, and more. If any of this gets in your way, though, you can turn the relevant feature off: just go to Control Panel > General and customise the keyboard to suit your needs.

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Simplify Search tip windows 8

By default Windows 8 includes every bundled app in its Search results. If you'll never want to use some of these - the Store app, say - then click Control Panel on the Metro screen, select Search, choose which apps you don't want included, and your search list will be more manageable in future.

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Control Panel tip windows 8

The process of customising Windows 8 starts when you click the new Metro Control Panel tile.

Click Personalise, for instance, and you can change your lock screen image in a click or two. Click User Tile at the top of the screen, though, and you can also change the picture representing your account, including grabbing an image from your webcam, if you have one.

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USB drives tip windows 8

You don't need a large external drive to use File History - a USB flash drive will do. Just connect it to your Windows 8 system, choose "Configure this drive for backup using File History" from the menu, and by default your libraries, contacts, favourites and desktop contents will immediately be backed up. (Use the settings options mentioned above to tweak how this works.)

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Windows 8 File History tip windows 8

Windows 8 includes an excellent File History feature, which can back up your selected files whenever you like. To set this up, go to the desktop Control Panel, and open the File History applet. Click Exclude Folders to decide what you're saving, Advanced Settings to choose the backup frequency, Change Drive to choose the backup destination, and Turn On to enable the feature with your settings.

And once it's been running for a while, you can check on the history for any file in Explorer by selecting it, choosing the Home tab and clicking History.

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SmartScreen tip windows 8

Windows 8 now uses IE's SmartScreen system-wide, checking downloaded files to ensure they're safe. In general this is a good thing, but if you have any problems then it can be tweaked.

Hold down the Windows key, press R, type control.exe and press Enter to launch the old-style Control Panel.

Open the Action Centre applet, and click Change SmartScreen Settings. Here you can keep the warning, but avoid the requirement for administrator approval, or turn SmartScreen off altogether. Make your choice and click OK to finish.

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How to Restore the Start menu tip windows 8

If you've explored Metro but don't like it at all, there's a way to restore a more traditional look.

Launch REGEDIT and browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer.

Double-click RPEnabled, and change it from 1 to 0 to remove Metro, the new Task Manager, Start menu and more.

Alternatively, set RPEnabled to 2 to remove Metro, restore the Start menu but keep most of the other improvements.

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How to Shutdown shortcuts tip windows 8

The fastest way to shut down your PC is via a suitable shortcut.

Launch the desktop app, right-click an empty part of the desktop and click New > Shortcut.

Enter

shutdown.exe -s -t 00

to shut down your PC,

shutdown.exe -h -t 00

to hibernate it, and click Next.

Type a shortcut name - Hibernate, say - and click Finish.

Right-click the shortcut and select Pin to Taskbar, or copy the shortcut to the C:\Users\<AccountName>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs folder.

Hold down the Windows key and press F to open Search.

Type the name of the shortcut, click Apps beneath the search box, and it should appear on the left.

Finally, right-click the app, select Pin and it should appear on the far right of the Metro screen - just drag it wherever you like.

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View all installed programs tip windows 8

Windows 8 no longer displays a Start menu, which means you can't easily see all the non-Metro programs on the system.

Unless, that is, you hold down the Windows key, and press F to see the Search dialog. Click Apps and you'll be left with an alphabetically-sorted list of installed apps and applications - just click one to launch it, or right-click one and select Pin to add it to the Metro screen for easier access later.

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Log in automatically tip windows 8

Tired of manually logging in every time Windows 8 launches?

Hold down the Windows key, press R, type netplwiz and press Enter to launch the User Accounts dialog.

Clear the "Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer" box and click OK.

Enter the user name and password of the account that you'd like to be logged in automatically, click OK, reboot, and you shouldn't be prompted for your login details again.

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Check the Weather tip windows 8

Many of the bundled Metro apps can be reconfigured, and this usually starts with a right-click.

By default the weather app will show the current conditions in Anaheim, California, for instance, but if you'd prefer to view conditions in your local city then click Weather to launch the app, right-click and select Add City, type the name of your nearest city, and choose it from the list, when it appears.

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See more apps tip windows 8

Metro apps normally run full-screen, but if you're using a touch interface it's possible to view two at once: just swipe from the left, drop the thumbnail onto the screen, and one app will display as a sidebar while the other takes the rest. (You can swap these by swiping again, but it's not possible to have each app take half the screen.)

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Metro Internet Explorer tip windows 8

Click the Internet Explorer Metro pane and a full-screen version of the browser will appear. This is touch-friendly, and has some pluses for mouse users: right-clicking lets you pin a site to your Metro screen, for instance, or open a new browser tab or switch to an old one.

But if you prefer the old-style IE interface, that's available, too - open the desktop and launch it, or just hold down the Windows key and press 1.

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Task switching tip windows 8

The Metro screen doesn't have a taskbar, so you'll soon lose track of the apps you've run. To see what's running, though, just press Alt+Tab. Pressing Win+Tab will switch from one running app to the next, and on a touch screen, swiping repeatedly from the left also cycles through running apps.

You could also simply launch an app again and, if there's another copy running, that one will be displayed.

If you have a keyboard, repeatedly pressing the Windows key will always toggle you between the Metro screen and the last app.

And if you have a mouse, move its cursor to the far left of the screen (roughly in the centre, vertically) and a thumbnail of the last app you used should appear. Click this to relaunch it.

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