By MellowD / Tips and Advice / • • • • • • • • • / 0 Comments

Optimize And Speed Up Windows 10 in 10 Steps

Hi everyone in this tutorial dedicated to Windows 10 we will talk about setting up privacy options, disabling telemetries so all of those services that communicate your personal information to Microsoft and third parties, then we will set up default apps and remove all the pre-installed apps in the system finally we’ll discuss performance optimization also with regards to system services and hard disk management.

As you can see I set up a virtual machine so I can show you all of the mods in a clean way directly from the stock state of the system.

I advise you to watch the video in full screen and at the highest definition so that you can clearly see all the details and all of the input text.

I’ll prepare a text document which will be linked in the description below, in that text file I will recap all of the operations included in the tutorial, I will also provide useful links as well as all of the text commands so you can copy and paste them in your own terminal.

So we can now get started, we are in the pre-configuration window of Windows 10, the system has just been installed.

In case your system has been set up already you can skip to the next step which will be the first login to the desktop.

My advice is not to set up with Express settings but instead to click customize in fact by clicking customize we’ll have access to the pre configuration mode of Windows 10 privacy settings so that we can mod part of them in advance and then we’ll be able to set up the rest once we login into our system.

Here we have options regarding the communications of your pc usage habits to Microsoft for research purposes and I just advise you to turn them all off, so we’ll turn off system access to contacts and calendars we’ll turn off advertising ID, we’ll also turn off app access to the same contacts and calendars, we’ll turn off position and geotagging services and so on and so forth.

Then we’ll turn off automatic access to any kind of wi-fi network and we’ll also turn off automatic sending of diagnostics.

We’ll also turn off the smart screen filter which will communicate our browsing habits to Microsoft and we’ll also turn off all of the additional browser capabilities.

Another thing we will turn off is peer-to-peer updates which I will later explain you in detail, so this was it for the pre-configuration, we’ll wait for the system to load.

Here we will select that the pc is ours and not business owned or shared, Microsoft will prompt us for the creation of a Microsoft account but we will ignore this and favor the creation of a local account by clicking “skip this step”, so for the sake of this video I will call the user “test” and we can now access our desktop.

The first step will be the continuation of our privacy set up, but first a little premise.

My goal would be to turn the system into a classic desktop system that just uses classic desktop software and not modern apps, so I will deactivate everything regarding modern apps so for instance if you want to use Windows 10‘s integrated email system you must not turn off options regarding the email system itself on the other hand if you use any web mail or any desktop software you’ll be fine.

That being said we will get into start menu, settings and privacy and pretty much turn off anything we don’t feel comfortable about.

we’ll see that part of the settings have been disabled already in fact we did that in the pre configuration phase not long ago and now we’ll just disable the rest so we will disable app access to our camera and our mic, here we will see settings for Cortana and we won’t click “get to know me” so the program won’t start collecting information about us but we will see how to disable Cortana later.

we will then disable app access to our accounts and in addition, to our contacts we will disable app access to our calendar, to our calling history, to our mail, we will deactivate access to our messaging, to the radio and to third party devices.

In the feedback window we will set “never ask for feedback” and “collect basic diagnostics” but we will later see how to disable the feedback function entirely.

In the background apps window we’ll turn off everything because we don’t want any unwanted app to keep working in the background but we just want the software that we actually asked to start to work in the background this also serves to save resources for the system.

so we’re done for this section and we can go backwards.

still in settings we’ll select updates and security > windows updates > advanced options and finally “choose how updates are delivered”.

here we are looking at peer-to-peer updates, the option on which I ran on before.

I personally agree on the option of receiving windows updates automatically but I don’t like the fact that by default my pc would be turned into a peer-to-peer node sending and receiving updates from and to other PCs, sucking up at my bandwidth.

so I kept the option of automatic updates but I turned off peer-to-peer updates.

we can now get back to our desktop and we can see how to first just turn off Cortana but we will see how to actually eradicate and delete the service for good.

we will click on the search bar and select settings but we will see that Cortana is already off because we turned it off in the pre configuration settings but we can still turn off search history and search online.

We’re getting to the step of telemetries blocking, little bit of a disclaimer now.

I’m warning you that we’re going to modify the system registry so proceed at your own risk although I have to clarify that I personally did apply this mods to both of my windows 10 PCs and as well as many other users who did the same, I didn’t run into any kind of problem afterwards so we can move on and if you don’t want to get this mods done you can just skip to the next step.

first thing, we’ll need the command prompt so we’ll search for “cmd” in the search bar and we have to run it as administrator so right click, run as administrator.

we need to enter the command “sc delete diagtrack” and hit enter if we did everything correctly the system will report the service has been deleted and this was the first telemetry service.

as for the second telemetry service we need to type in “sc delete dmwappush service” and hit enter.

this time as well the system should notify the service has been deleted successfully so we can now close the command prompt.

we have an extra step in blocking telemetries which only applies to users of Windows 10 professional edition or enterprise edition so you can skip to the next step if you’re a Windows 10 home user.

we have to look for gpedit.

Msc in the search bar and open it as administrator we then have to look for the key: computer configuration > admin templates > windows components > data collection and preview builds > allow telemetry, we’ll then click on that, hit disable and then apply and ok also if you’re not a onedrive user we can also disable the onedrive service by looking for computer configuration > admin templates > windows components > onedrive and hitting disable, apply and ok.

we will now conclude the telemetry blocking with the setup of the software SpyBot AntiBeacon which automatically blocks the most harmful registry keys associated with telemetries.

spybot antibeacon has been produced by the same producer which designed the popular Spybot Search and Destroy so we’ll now google for spybot antibeacon and set up the latest version.

be careful to leave the option “check immunization after each system restart” ticked, in fact it is always advisable to check spybot at each system update because it is possible that windows would have reactivated all telemetries or even introduced new telemetries and also it is advisable to check spybot yet at the next system restart so we will launch spybot and notice that despite all the modifications we introduced up to now, the greatest part of the telemetries are still working so we’ll hit immunize so the software can block automatically all of the desired registry keys.

additionally, in the optional tab we will be able to block additional services, i personally blocked everything here too but you have to be careful not to block services you actually use for instance I don’t use either onedrive or bing so I blocked both of them i also blocked office even if i do use it and i can assure that every version of office can be safely immunized without getting problems to the use of the software itself, after all spybot just blocks the telemetries associated with the services and not the actual softwares themselves.

we can now close the program but I remind you that it’s a good habit to check spybot at the next system restart from now and also to check it at every system update in fact it is possible that the windows updates could have had unblocked telemetries or introduced new ones.

Our next modding step regards appsm first we’ll enter in settings > system > notification and turn off all notifications except app notifications in fact it is a rumor that specifically notifications regarding windows suggestions can cause system bugs and overloads.

next we’ll be able to set our favorite default apps in the default apps section, we’ll be able to do a macro edit by assigning each specific app to each specific file typology for instance i set up Firefox as a default browser, VLC media player as a default Media Player, the old windows photo viewer software as a photo manager, and so on.

as a little performance optimizer we can get into personalization and deactivate transparencies for both the start menu and the dock bar, we will then be able to customize the content of the start menu and you will set it up as you wish, I personally like to turn off windows suggestions and leave the counter for most frequently used software on to optimize my workflow, we’ll then be able to fine tune all the present or absent menus from the start menu but we will encounter this again later.

the next step will be the removal of all preinstalled apps and we will need windows powershell for that so we’ll look for windows powershell and run it as administrator so right click, run as administrator.

the command we need to enter to remove windows store plus all the pre-installed apps from all users simultaneously and in one single step would be “Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage” and we will enter however in the text file link in the description i will provide several options including commands to remove single apps or commands to remove apps from just one user.

once we enter the command we have to wait for the terminal to completely stop working I have to remind you that windows powershell won’t be able to remove special apps such as edge, microsoft feedback or cortana, in fact we will need appropriate scripts we will be downloading in a while.

at the end of the process we can close powershell and check that all pre-installed apps have been removed excluding traditional system software and the desktop apps we set up ourselves so the list in the start menu should be way less populated than before.

as mentioned before we’re left with those special software we can’t eradicate in any other way than with a dedicated script such as edge, feedback but above all cortana.

so we will now see how to remove those.

to remove those apps we will need specific scripts downloadable for free from the website winaero.

Com.

all the needed links are in the text file linked in the description.

those scripts will come in separate zip files containing self executable scripts we will run as administrator and they will take care of the removal process automatically.

another disclaimer here, about the removal of Cortana: first, removing Cortana will make the service permanently unavailable that means forever so updates won’t bring it back and second removing Cortana will permanently bug both the present search bar and the present windows start menu so they won’t work anymore.

the solution for that which we have to do absolutely before removing Cortana is to download and setup classic shell which is a substitute start menu which includes the search bar that is fully customizable and will accompany us from now on so let’s Google Classic Shell and set it up we’re now in the setup phase and amongst all the software components we can just install classic start which is the extension we actually need, and the updater if you wish at the end of the setup we will notice by clicking start that we won’t get the windows 10 menu anymore but instead Classic Shell pops up with the configuration wizard.

we will be able to fine tune classic shell as we wish, I personally chose the windows 7 style menu with no skin both for aesthetic and performance reasons.

available options are really broad in number and I remind you that from this moment on classic shell has automatically set up to start at every system startup so you won’t need to worry about your Windows 10 start menu anymore.

finally we will be able to safely remove cortana via the script so we’ll have to unzip the content of the folder and run the script as an administrator so right click, run as administrator.

we’ll wait for the script to stop elaborating and as suggested we will need to reboot the system and this will be the procedure for each script.

after rebooting the system we’ll notice that the search bar is now bugged so that’s the sign we correctly removed cortana.

we’re not able to notice that the start menu would also be bugged because we’re already covered by classic shell we can now move on by removing the residual apps the same way so we’ll execute the script as an administrator and at the end of the mods we’ll reboot the system so we’ll do this for edge and feedback.

as for cortana, we will be able to notice that after the removal of edge and the rebooting of the system its icon won’t be responsive any more so that’s the sign we correctly removed the software.

last step will be then the removal of feedback and another reboot.

the next step regards setting up hard disk management and we will need to enter the control panel which is now completely listed at hand in Classic Shell.

we will need to get into power options and select advanced options so that we can set up hard disk management.

we will set up turn off hard disks at least after 20 minutes on battery in fact less than 20 minutes is too much often and can put mechanical stress on our disks and we will select never on plugged in or as you wish.

then we’ll look for usb selective suspend or selective sleep, we’ll surely turn it off for battery and for plugged in as well if you wish.

this will prevent windows from standbying external hard drives when in use, as well as any other USB powered device.

next step of our mods is the optimization of system services so we’ll need the task manager we’ll open the task manager and notice the system is pretty much over loaded now but this happens since i’m on a virtual machine so basically my pc has to bear two OSs at the same time.

we’ll now take care of solving the system bug that puts your hard drive use at one hundred percent for no apparent reason and usually the cpu too.

if you maybe experienced this, this is a system bug caused by Windows 10 on some machines and I personally had this happening on one of my two windows 10 PCs, the solution for this is to selectively turn off and disable some system services that are actually unnecessary and can cause overload to your system.

preliminarly, we’ll step back for a second and check that in settings > system > notifications all notifications have been turned off except for app notifications.

it is a major rumor in fact that the single notification “show suggestions from windows” can cause system bugs and overloads.

we’ll then check back into our task manager and select services so we’ll need task manager > services > open services and we have to check that all system services that are not of our interest or that are linked to the default apps we removed before are disabled and turned off.

a practical example of service disabling can be that of disabling xbox related services so since we removed preinstalled xbox related software before and assuming you won’t need those services, we’ll double-click the service hence opening its properties, we’ll stop it if it’s running and then set disable, apply and ok and we’ll do this for each single service we want to disable.

in case you’re experiencing the previously mentioned bug, the constant a hundred percent usage of your hard drive, we can safely disable these two services: windows search and superfetch.

despite the name disabling the windows search service won’t cause any issue to the use of the windows search function so for the sake of this video we’ll search and disable both services windows search and superfetch.

additionally i have to inform you that in case you’re suffering from this overloading problem and you have an nvidia graphics engine, if you’re not into online gaming and direct streaming you can safely turn off those free services: nvidia streamer service, nvidia streamer Network Service and nvidia streamer user agent.

however i’ll add more information about this the text file linked in the description.

another useful information is that some people have experienced overloading bugs coming from the use of skype and google chrome.

I personally didn’t experience any of that so modifications on skype and google chrome won’t be shown in this tutorial but i’ll provide additional information on this topic in the text file linked in the description as well.

so we now stumble into bits which would stand for “background intelligence transfer service”, some people advised to disable bits in case you are experiencing the hard disk overloading bug but I strongly suggest not to since bits is directly linked with windows update and with the updating process in general so by disabling bits you’ll risk not receiving any more updates or not being able to install them so I heartily recommend not to disable bits.

at the end of the mods on services we’ll notice that in the task manager the hard disk usage is a little better off but before actually checking on that i would suggest rebooting your pc so that the modifications can actually fall into place.

last big step in our modifications regards performance optimization.

first we’ll take care of taking some weight off of our pc’s capabilities by disabling all visual effects.

i personally disabled all of those and to do that we’ll need to go into control panel > system > advanced options and finally hit the performance tab.

once in the performance tab we need to set the system to best performance but leaving the ticks on show thumbnails instead of icons and smooth font edges.

by clicking apply and ok we’ll be left with a system which is now really lightweight in performance but it’s still aesthetically pleasing in fact it won’t look as ugly or empty as windows 98 or windows XP did on the same settings.

we’ll also be able to check that in the Task Manager system performance should be a little better off.

we are getting to the last step of our modifications which is the system cleanup.

we’ll need to open this pc, right click on the system disk, hit properties and then hit disk cleanup.

we’ll wait for the software to elaborate we can also clean up system files, i personally won’t clean up the disk now this was just to show you how to do that and I remind you that you can do the same process with the classic ccleaner software as well.

we have come to the end of our modifications in windows 10 and we can reboot the system but before doing that, as an additional step of optimization you can also defrag your disks by looking for the command defragment and optimize drives, clicking analyze and optimize on your system disk.

we actually concluded our modifications and we can now reboot the system and come back for a last checkup.

if you had any doubts in the procedure feel free to ask me by commenting below.

so the mods have ended and we have to check that all the details have come to the desired result, for instance we can click on Microsoft edge’s icon and check it isn’t active any more so we can remove the icon from the bar.

same, we can remove the search icon which was originally from Cortana and is now replaced by Classic Shell so we’ll hit right click, search and hidden.

then we will quickly check that all the privacy options we set up have remained unchanged, I advise you to do this at each system update in fact it is possible that windows would have changed your privacy settings or introduced new ones for instance here we can notice that edge is still active as a background app but we removed it so we can turn this off with no worries.

as I repeated a few times we’ll check back on spybot anti beacon to see if any telemetry has been re-enabled, so everything’s alright.

at this point all the modifications i suggested are done so the tutorial is over, again if you have any doubts or questions feel free to comment below and we can now turn off our pc.

 

By MellowD / Tips and Advice / • • • • • • • / 0 Comments

Windows 10 Tips and Tricks for Cortana

Cortana can perform context-based search and to illustrate exactly what that means, imagine you’re working on a PowerPoint presentation you save it and right when you need it you just can’t find it maybe it’s not saved in the place you thought it would be.

Rather than searching through file explorer you can actually just ask what Cortana to show you PowerPoint presentations from today if you have a Windows Phone or even an Android phone with Cortana installed, Cortana can send SMS text messages.

That’s right, actually use phone number to send messages from your phone.

All you have to do is say “send an SMS message to” and the name of the recipient a box will pop up for you go ahead and enter your message If you’re sitting at a local Starbucks and a song comes on and you wanna know who plays that song so you can add it to your collection you can actually asked Cortana to identify the song for you.

You can either verbally give her these instructions by saying “what song is this” or you can click on the microphone icon and then the musical icon to have her start listening Beyond identifying songs, Cortana can also play any artist, album or song that you have in your Groove Music collection.

“Here’s Supremacy” Now even if you’re not a Groove Music subscriber you can import your music into the groove music app, so you can use this functionality.

If you want to play a song or artist or album that is not in your groove music collection, Cortana will still give you different options that you can use to play that song.

In addition to finding music and then playing it, Cortana can also pause and resume music using voice commands.

“Pausing” Cortana can also change a number of different settings in Windows.

So if you can’t find where the Bluetooth setting is in order to turn it off or on you can actually just ask for Cortana to turn off or on for you.

“Bluetooth is now off”Rather than opening your web browser and then typing an address into the address bar to navigate to that website, you can actually just type the full web addresses into Cortana hit enter and then that website will launch for you.

There are also a number of shortcut keys that you can use to launch different Cortana functions Windows key + Q will show the Cortana home, Windows key +S will allow you to immediately start typing into Cortana.

Windows key + C will send Cortana into listening mode so you can provide voice commands.

There’s no need to perform complex conversions on your own.

All you need to do is ask Cortana to convert.

Now, you can do things like convert dollars to euros or feet to meters right in Cortana.

In addition to conversions, Cortana can also do all kinds of simple calculations.

So rather than opening up the calculator app to perform a calculation, just go ahead and type the whole calculation into Cortana and she’ll do that for you.

Cortana is also a built in dictionary so rather than having to go to dictionary.

Com or something like that to find the definition of a word, just go ahead and type define and then the word that you need defined,and Cortana will give you the answer.

You don’t need to go to fandango.Com to find out when James Bond is playing.

Just type movie times and then the name of the movie that you wanna see and Cortana will show you times in your area.

 

By MellowD / Uncategorized / • • • • • • / 0 Comments

Windows 10 – Beginners Guide [Tutorial]

Have you recently upgraded to Windows 10 ? or are you planning to If yes then this video will help you get the most out of it In this video you will see the new features of windows 10 Some nifty tips and tricks to boost your windows 10 experience and ease your transition from windows 7 to windows 10.

The Windows 10 boot screen has the new windows logo with the revamped boot animation.

Microsoft has redesigned the look and feel of windows based on the principles of minimalist, clean and simple user interface But there is more than a UI change in windows 10 Now Windows can also be cloud synced using the Microsoft account This is like IOS or Android operating system and allows you to sync your settings in the cloud Let us now log in to our system Unlike the Windows 8 which showed the start screen after login In Windows 10 we login straight into the desktop environment just like Windows 7 Also, the start button has been restored Let us click it this new start menu is a kind of a mashup between the Windows 7 start menu and Windows 8 start screen But I feel it is even better than both of them because of the sheer amount of customization that Windows has allowed its users to make Not only we can resize the start menu like this we can change the size and switch from live ties to a static one by right clicking on them like this It also allows us to completely remove a tile again we will right click on the tile and select unpin from start If you do not want any of the tiles on your start menu you can remove all the tile one by one By removing all the tiles it will look similar to the Windows 7 start menu But that’s not all folks for those who like the windows 8 style start screen they can turn it on from the settings It looks like Microsoft has finally learned its lesson It is best to leave the user the flexibility to choose from There is also some new functionality in the start menu Let us, click on the apps button over here this is similar to the all programs button in Windows 7 Like Windows 7 it lists down all the programs that are installed in the system and we can scroll through them Here is a quick tip to simplify your program search Click on the letter over here and this menu will pops up when you click on another letter let’s say C it scrolls back straight to that letter Using this feature you can filter through your applications alphabetically One more tip to improve your productivity Right-click on the start button and this menu pops up Using this menu you can access those features that were earlier present on the original Windows 7 start menu Like Run, Search, Control Panel but besides that it adds several commonly used system tools Like the device manager disk management computer management which you can access with just a single click This feature is also available in Windows 8.

1 The best attraction of Windows 10 in my opinion is Cortana,  Cortana unlike many other personal assistants like Siri, Google Now has a character of its own From chatting with you to telling you a joke to singing for you It will do everything with a human-like personality And what I mean by that can be seen clearly by these couple of commands To give a voice command to cortana click on this mic button over here Hey Siri Shirley,you’re not siri-ous Okay Google Google is okay, but this is Cortana.

There are several other commands to which Cortana replies wittily But don’t mistake it to be just as a source of entertainment It can set your calendar add reminders, set alarms, send an email, play your favorite music, get your directions for your next visit tell facts, track your flights, provide statistics and many other functions You can customize these to your interest using the notebook section.

By clicking over here so like this you can customize cortana to your own interest Not only that using cortana you can run a voice-activated search so for that click on the microphone button find a PowerPoint file that I created 2 days ago As you can see it is trying to search my computer for a powerpoint file that was created 2 days ago since I don’t have any such files it is not showing me anything but you get the idea Now let’s look at the file explore The file explorer has not changed much except a ribbon menu has been added to the top section This is quite like the Office ribbon menu using it you can copy, paste create a new folder, check the properties, and other features.

These features were available in Windows 7 by right-clicking and on the top menu Just like Windows 7 Windows 10 also provides side-by-side window placement functionality, so if you have got more than two windows open you can drag a window to one corner of your screen and it will automatically resize it so that it gets fixed on the half part of the screen Not only the Windows sticks to the side but also it provides a suggestion to fix other Windows So as you can see now in my case it is showing me whether I want to fix this users folder so when I click on it it automatically adds this in the second half of the screen.

Also now you can fix four Windows to a single screen For that you drag a window to the corner of the screen like this and now it automatically resize to one fourth of the screen To further improve your multitasking experience Windows now packs in the virtual desktops Now you can open many windows on different virtual desktops and switch between them This provides a great way to reduce the clutter To create a new virtual desktop click on this icon on the taskbar it is called task view On clicking it it will show the currently available desktops at the bottom section you can see there are two desktops available desktop 1 and desktop 2 to add new desktop click on this plus sign over here new desktop and boom a new desktop will be added to your system you can continuously keep adding multiple desktops And To switch to a particular desktop just bring your mouse over that desktop and click on it and here you go you get a new desktop without all the windows that were present on the previous one The task manager has also undergone a significant upgrade To open the task manager right click on the taskbar and select task manager This is the new task manager as you can see this is the process tab and it now categorizes the process in three different types that is apps background process and windows process and in the app history you can track the resources used by an app since a particular date as you can see in my case it is showing these are the resources used by an app since 6, 8, 2016 Also, you can check what all programs are configured to run on startup By clicking on the startup tab but if you don’t like the new look of the task manager You can see the Windows 7 style task manager by clicking on the details tab The single biggest change to Windows is the addition of apps Now just like the Playstore in Android and App Store in IOS Windows has added the Windows Store to manage your apps You can open the Windows store by clicking on this icon on the taskbar The number of apps that are currently available in the Windows store is less compared to Android or IOS However, you can find some popular apps Like facebook candy crush Netflix and its improving day by day Finally, Microsoft has ditched Internet Explorer to start from scratch with the edge browser.

You can open it by clicking on this icon on the taskbar The features of the edge browser are not up to the mark with the likes of Chrome or Firefox.

In fact it is not fully developed and so Microsoft has kept internet explorer as a backup option which you can open by clicking on this icon and then clicking on open with internet explore But given its early days it’s a step in the right direction There are a couple of unique features like the on-page annotation which allows you to quickly add a comment, highlight, and markups to any web page and share it instantaneously with anyone Let us check that feature out let’s go to Google news to add annotations to this page click on this icon over here make a web note ok now these five six tools are available this is a pen so we can change the color let make it to orange ok Dallas shooting security forces ok you can also use a highlighter and add your own comments very bad and then you can also clip a particular page like we want to show only this much there you go One more cool functionality that the edge browser has inbuilt is the the read view functionality to activate the read view click on this book icon that you can see on the address bar as you can see it just trimmed down all the other cluttering items on the page and just kept the article that we were reading this feature is also available in other browsers One more new feature added to Windows 10 is the notification and action Center Click on the bottom right corner on this icon to open it On this icon The notifications and action Center not only have the notifications that were originally seen on Windows 7 Like that of the maintenance or any error related or update reminders.

But now you can also have email alerts and any custom alerts generated by a Windows app.

In my system as you can see I have got an email alert I have also got an alert from cortana app that I had installed on my android phone this is a very neat feature it automatically transfers notification from my phone to my windows system there are some tips there is a security and maintenance alert this is again quite like what is present in android and IOS On the bottom there are a couple of toggle buttons This button the tablet mode when switched on makes all the apps full screen and instead of the desktop we see the start screen Let’s toggle it on and here you go now we are in touch optimized environment and this is particularly useful if you have a convertible system were when you remove your keyboard it will automatically converts to this tablet mode I believe this feature is the best way to bring the best of both worlds Allowing your system to perform both as a tablet as well as a personal computer The next toggle button is this rotation lock this allows you to fix your orientation or keep it on auto rotate this is relevant if you are using a tablet the note button allows you to opens the Microsoft’s one note software There is a project toggle button which allows your computer to share your display to a projector or other monitors connected The quite hours toggle button silence the notification center so that you won’t be distracted between the time period of 12 AM to 6 AM The connect button allows you to connect a wireless display and audio devices that are supported by Windows 10 On switching it on it tries to search if there are any device available on the same network If you have a VPN connection you can activate it using the VPN toggle button The location button allows you to switch on and off Windows location tracking feature If your system has got Wi-Fi or Bluetooth then from here you can toggle them also on and off.

The settings button allow you to open up the all-new Windows 10 settings panel.

I will open it up.

This new settings panel tries to bring all the settings at a single place that were before available in separate menusin Windows 7 It is kind of a mini Control Panel.

The old menus are still present in Windows10 but it has been hidden down within the settings panel Let us look at the first setting that is the system settings under this the display and power & sleep settings are the ones which are quite like what we had in Windows 7 The display allows us to change the orientation, brightness, text size and other advanced display settings While the power and sleep changes the idle times for your computer to go to sleep and to turning off the display The notification and action settings allow us to customize the notification panel as well as the taskbar It allows us to select which icons should appear on that taskbar and which notification should be shown on the notification and actions panel Again, here Windows provides a lot of customization of the user experience which is quite helpful.

The apps and features section is kind of the program and features dialogue that was present in Windows 7 Control Panel The only difference is that this allows us only to uninstall apps and not the desktop applications You can also add or remove some optional features by clicking on manage optional features The multitasking settings allow us to customize the behavior of autosnap in and virtual desktop functionality.

Tablet mode allows you configuring how the Windows should behave when you toggle to tablet mode.

The storage setting shows the current disk consumption of your Windows system It also allows you to change the default location for saving your apps, documents, videos, music and pictures One tip if you wish to separate your personal files from windows system drive you can change the storage drive in this settings panel Off-line map section provides a new feature of saving Bing maps on your computer Default app settings allow you to select apps for common functionalities like email, maps, music player, photo browser,video player and web browser.

A handy tip if you wish to change the default browser to let us say to chrome you’ll have to change it from this settings panel The about panel gives us the system information you can view the previous menu that was visible in Windows 7 by clicking on system info over here Now let us go back The device settings provide the option to add common hardware components like a printer, scanner, monitors, Speaker,and microphone.

It is kind of a trimmed down version of device manager which is still available in the Control Panel The network and Internet settings panel provide an easy interface for changing a couple of settings like proxy, VPN, Ethernet settings and adding a new internet connection A neat trick to keep track of your data consumption you can check the data usage section here The personalization settings screen provides configuration options for the background,lock screen, themes and the start menu A quick tip if you don’t like the default windows 10 dark theme color You can change it to any other color by changing the accent color That can be done by clicking on colors and here changing it to any other color let say reddish color now as you can see the entire system changed its color If you want to activate the start screen by default you can toggle this use start full screen to on and then when you will click the start button your start screen will pop up instead of the start menu like this.

The accounts section in the settings panel provides the options to change the Microsoft Account to which you want to sync.

You can add or change the account using this settings section Time and language provide options to change your date time settings as well as the region and language settings.

Plus it allows you to change your microphone and speech configurations settings The ease of access settings provides accessibility settings for Windows10.

You can change the options for narration, magnification, high contrast, keyboard,mouse and closed caption.

Under the privacy settings there is a ton of options Unlike Windows 7 Windows 10 collects a lot of data.

This data is used by third-party apps and Microsoft for performance improvement and feature development.

The amount of data that you want to share can be controlled by using this privacy settings.

You can toggle off sharing of data about your location, camera, microphone, speech, typing, contacts, calendar, account information, email, messaging, feedback, diagnostic, device information, and other general settings.

A tip to boost the windows startup time.

In the background app settings section you can toggle off those app that you are not using In the Update and Security section you can control your Windows Updates, Windows Defender, Backup and Recovery and Windows Activation related settings.

I hope this video helped you in easing your transition from Windows 7 to Windows 10

 

By MellowD / Tips and Advice / • • • • • • • • • • • / 0 Comments

Using Two or More Monitors with One Computer in Windows 10

This video shows how to use multiple monitors with one computer in Windows 10.

Dual monitors can create extra screen space and allow for multiple windows to be shown at once.

To connect the second monitor, make sure that your computer has at least two video ports; one for the main monitor and one for the secondary monitor.

Connect the monitor to the computer using the video connection cables.

Two common types are VGA and DVI.

Turn the monitor on, then turn on the computer.

To customize monitor display settings, firstright-click anywhere on the desktop.

Click Display Settings.

Use the Multiple Displays drop-down menu to select one of the following options.

Duplicating the desktop displays the same image across both monitors.

Extending the Windows desktop expands thework area across both monitors.

Showing desktop only on 1 will display on1 and show nothing on display 2.

Showing desktop only on 2 will display on2 and show nothing on display 1.

Choose your display option, then click Apply.

Click Keep changes to keep the setting you chose.

 

By MellowD / Tips and Advice / • • • • • • • • • • • • / 0 Comments

Top 20 Best Windows 10 Tips and Tricks To Improve Productivity

20 ultra-fast Windows 10 Little Tricks to help you be more production in your routine works.

So, let’s get started!

1.

If you are working in several apps and want to minimize all windows except the active one, then just grab the Title Bar of the window that you want to remain open and shake it back and forth.

After a few shakes, all other windows will minimize leaving only that window open which you are shaking.

2.

If you often see file or folder properties, then you no longer need to right-click and choose Properties from the context-menu.

Just hold down the ALT key and double-click ona file or folder to open the object’s Properties menu, and if your hands are on keyboard then you can also press ALT+Enter Key.

3.

You can also pin the Recycle Bin icon tothe Start menu to access it more conveniently.

4.

When exploring through All apps sectionof the Start menu, click the numbers or alphabetical section to open a jump list and then click the letter or number to jump to that section of the Start.

5.

In Windows 10, the most useful keyboard shortcuts are :

Windows Key + I for Settings menu, Windows Key + A for Action Center, Windows + E for File Explorer, Windows + X to open Power Start menu, F2 to rename the selected file or folder, Alt+F4 to close active app or window, and if you don’t already know, Ctrl+Shift+N to create a New Folder.

6.

A quick way to clean up your desktop when you want to remove all the clutter from your desktop and want to texture the desktop background, right-click on an empty space of your desktop,point to View, and then uncheck Show Desktop Icons option.

7.

When you need to concentrate on your work or when watching a movie and don’t want Windows to disturb you through notifications, then press the Windows+A key to bring the Action Center window and then click on Quiet Hours.

Later, press Win+A key again and turn off Quiet Hours option.

8.

If you often access a particular section within from the Settings app, then keep in mind that you can Pin any specific section of the Settings app to the Start menu, just by right-clicking and then click Pin to Start.

You can also pin your favorite folder or website when using Edge browser to the Start menu.

9.

If you ever wish to open an additional instance of an application like Word, Excel,Chrome, FireFox or any application which support multiple instances, then use the middle button of mouse (or the scroll wheel) on the app button from Taskbar.

10.

When searching for particular contents using Windows Search, you can click on MyStuff link, if you want to get a richer search experience with filters, sorting capability and better results.

11.

You can also use Taskbar Search for Calculations and Conversion and you don’t need to open the calculator or go online to perform a conversion.

Such as you can type the math equation or conversion formula in the search bar, and you can get an instant result or conversion right into the search result.

12.

Hold down the Windows Key and then press Print Screen to quickly capture the entire screen and then automatically save it to Screenshot folder under Pictures.

13.

When ever you need to restore or maximize a window, just click and hold the title bar and drag it to the edge of your screen, or pull out to restore.

14.

As you might know that you can create multiple Virtual Desktop in Windows 10 by clicking Task View icon and then clicking New Desktop.

As you can open different apps over different virtual desktop to save yourself from cluttered desktop but not only that but you can move running apps between the Virtual Desktop, by right-clicking on app icon in Task View and then click move to.

15.

From the Performance tab of the Task Manager,you can know the exact system up time.

16.

In Windows 10 and 8.

1, to reduce the boot load time you can enable Fast Startup option through Control Panel, Power Options.

If the option is missing, then you can open the command prompt in admin mode and then type powercfg -h on.

That’s it and there you have the Fast Startup and Hibernate.

17.

As a power user, if you have to use Command Prompt several times in a day to work inside different folders then right-click on an empty area within a folder while holding down the shift key and there you have a new option,Open command window here, which save you on time when you need to open command prompt and move to that particular folder.

18.

Right-click on an empty area of the Desktop,point to New, and then click Shortcut.

In the location box type, slide to shutdown, click Next, and type a name like Slide To Shutdown.

Click Finish and here you have a new interesting way of shutting down your PC.

19.

If you move several items using the Send To command, then next time hold down the Shift key while right-clicking and then point to Send To and there you have several more locations to use, and if you customize the Send To menu by adding your favorite place in Send To menu, then type Shell:SendTo in the address bar and hit the enter key.

Right-click Point to New and then click Shortcut.

In the location box, type your favorite folder path inside the Quotation.

Click Next, name the new Send To item and the click Finish.

Now, next time you can move or copy items to your favorite folder by just right-clicking and pointing to Send To.

20.

If you are the only user who use the system and you don’t want to see any login or lockscreen during system startup and want directly login to windows, then open the Run command,type CONTROL USERPASSWORDS2 and hit the enter key.

Select the user from the list to which you want automatically login into, and then uncheck the option “User must enter a username and password to use this computer”.

Type the current password, if there are any and the next time upon boot up you will not be asked for any user credentials and no loginor lock screen will display.

 

By MellowD / Tips and Advice / • • • • • • • • / 0 Comments

How to Speedup Windows 10 Tips and Tweaks

How to Speedup Windows 10

1.

Reduce Animation Type Windows Key + X Click on System Click on Advanced system setting Check Adjust for Best Performance Click Apply

2.

Disable Startup Application Type Ctrl+Shift+Esc on keyboard Click on Startup Right click to Disable unwanted application while startup

3.

Uninstall program you don’y use Search control panel>click on uninstall program Or Go on My computer and click on my Pc Click on Uninstall or change a program and then just click on application to remove

4.

Fast Startup Right Click on Power icon on right bottom side of window click on power options click on Choose what power button do Click on change settings that are currently unavailable Check the Turn on Fast Startup click on save changes

5.

Check for viruses and spyware If you don’t have any antuvirus use windows defender search windows defender scan once a week to avoid virus and spyware which slowdown your pc or laptop

6.

Turn Off Search Indexing Type services.

Msc on Run Find windows search Right click and click on properties On startup type select Disabled Click on apply.

By MellowD / Tips and Advice / • • • • • • • • / 0 Comments

How to Convert MP4 to MP3 in Windows 10

OK, recently I got asked about converting.

Ugh, converting video files you know like MP4 to audio files – MP3s (Sigh) Yeah, first it’s best to understand what the hell you’re talking about so here’s some geek speek.

MP4 is a newer file format and supports video encoding.

Compared with MP3 which is older and isonly for audio files.

MP4 is a multimedia container and can technically support not just audio and video but, also text and images oh boy.

So why would you want to convert an mp4to an mp3? The most reasonable answer would be for conserving drive space.

Although smartphones and dedicated music players can handle MP4s no sweat, it’s often far easier to convert the files to mp3 to lighten their footprint.

I mean really, if what you want to do is listen to the audio you certainly can talk about the unnecessary excess baggage! Ahh and this one cracks my ass up.

No matter what anybody tells you, changing the file extension from mp4 to mp3 in Windows Explorer is not I repeat not converting the file.

It’s just renaming it.

It might work in apinch, but you still have this huge-ass file and all you really need or want is the Damned audio.

Okay so enough talk already let’s convert the files for free.

In the App Store for windows 8 or 10, you really should move up to 10, you need to search up “mp4 to mp3”

First you want to make sure your system meets requirements.

Most likely it does, but it never hurts to check.

Click “Get the App” and it will take you to the download page in the App Store.

Click”Free” Gotta love free! Then when it’s done installing click “Open”.

It doesn’t take long to install and it’s so easy to use, you’ll think you messed up.

Simply select the video and it will start converting and saving it to another pre-selected folder.

Now if you don’t like the folder the program shows – change it – before you convert any files.

But once you’re happy with the folders, select your video and watch out fast it starts converting it right away and save it to another folder without losing your original.

So simple even us old farts can do it.

Now there are other free converters out there, but this one is by far the simplest and quickest and since it comes from my billionaire buddy Bill Gates, I’m reasonably certain that doesn’t have any viruses or malware.

 

By MellowD / Tips and Advice / • • • • • / 0 Comments

Windows 10 Tips & Tricks

Today I’m gonna go ahead and show you some tips and tricks that you can use on Windows 10.

Whether you upgraded or not yet you might just be curious and here’s some of the stuff that after playing with it for a few days I found out that you can do.

Multitasking is great on Windows 10! Not only will you be able to snap like your familiar with before.

Lets say we want to put our store on one side and our Steam store on the other side.

You can use hot keys for that.

The WINDOWS key either direction while your in a program will work for that.

Windows to one side and then you’ll see snap assist pops up on the other side here saying, “What do you want to put on the other side?” Oh, we changed our minds,we’re going to play a little bit of Minesweeper.

Yeah, Minesweeper is back.

That’s pretty cool.

But say you want to snap more than one thing at a time you can also use WINDOWS-UPand DOWN to snap up and down.

Or you can take it and pull it into the corner.

Lets pullit into our bottom corner; it snaps into that corner.

Lets go ahead and snap this rightup here just kinda so you can see multiple things at the same time.

And lets put thatthere, that there and we’re still hanging out on Steam over here.

So, you have all these different options.

Again, those hot keys are WINDOWS-UP, DOWN, LEFT and RIGHT.

But not only can you switch between apps that way, ALT-TAB, the good ol’ faithful is still there unchanged from prior versions of Windows.

The tried and true.

You also have Windows TAB now, will take you into task view.

Task view is a new thing you’ll see just downhere on the task bar.

You can either take that on or off of the task bar, it’s upto you.

But it shows you everything you have open in one spot.

And you’ll see down here desktop one and desktop two; now that’s because I’ve chosen to open multiple desktops which is also an options here in Windows.

So it’s like, “Aw, look at this nice clean desktop that I have.

” And if you want to swap between desktops you’ll do WINDOWS-CNTRL,and the other direction.

So you can work on multiple desktops at a time, you can work on multiple apps at a time and really increase your functionality that way.

And the hot keyto switch between desktops again is WINDOWS-CNTRL, and then LEFT or RIGHT.

If you want to make a new desktop thats, WINDOWS-CNTRL-D.

If you want to close a new desktop it’s, WINDOWS-CNTRL-F4.

And swapping between, if you’re like, “Oh, I have only Hearth Stone on this desktop,”and I want to go into task view and say, move one of these messier things, perhaps from one desktop to another.

So lets go into that and say, “Lets put Minesweeper in the same desktop,” you can literally just click it and drag it down there.

Also, new in Windows 10 there are Universal Apps.

These are basically to make the experience the same whether you are on a tablet, whether you’re on a phone, etc.

But if you’re like, “Hey, but Trisha what if I don’t have a Windows’ phone or Window’s tablet?” Well you’ll be happy to know in the Start Menu, yes the Start Menu is back, it includes a little live tile love over here.

You will see Phone Companion, which I am going to pop open for you.

Phone Companion basically lets you have that Universal App experience if you want those apps on aphone that is not a Windows’s phone.

So, if you have an Android phone or and iPhoneor and iPad or and Android tablet, etc, you can still get those.

So lets go ahead and say I wanted to link my Android phone up to some of the things I was really enjoying on Windows 10.

You can put the new Windows’ Photo app, you can put your Windows’ Musicapp, you can put one note on there, you can put Skype on there, etc.

And this is justa really easy way to do all that in one spot.

So thats kinda fun.

Something else new onWindows 10 is Cortana, Cortana’s in everything.

And before you get all, “Wait, voice recognitionis not that good.

I’d rather just type it.

” You can ask Cortana by just typing and that’ssuper easy.

Or you can ask her things like lets.

She’s good at trivia lets try, “What’sup?” Oh, she says, “A brilliant star during World War II, Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarrco-invented a secret communication system that can change radio frequencies to keep enemies from decoding messages.

Used today in cell phone technology, very cool.

Thankyou so much Cortana.

But thats not all that Cortana can do.

Cortana is also in MicrosoftEdge if you’ve played with the Edge browser.

So let me go ahead and “merp, merp” get rid of those and lets maximize this so we can look at Edge.

So I’m in Microsoft Edge and you can see Cortana is already up here in the address bar saying, “I got directions, hours andmore!” Let’s go ahead and click that.

And she puts all that stuff right there onthe side so I don’t even have to go away from the page and she’s gotten it togetherfor me which is a very, very cool feature to have in my opinion, I like that a lot.

Also if there’s something you don’t understand on the page, let’s say, “I have no idea what, blue agave tequilas are.

” I can highlight, “blue agave tequilas,” and then click,Ask Cortana.

And right here in the side again without having to open up a new tab and search for it, Cortana will tell me via Bing what I need to know about tequila.

Edge also introduces,Inking.

So when you’re on the page here you can see just up here it looks like a littlepen writing on a notepad.

It says, “Make a Web Note.

” So you can ink, I feel like,“Oh, no he made me ink,” from Finding Nemo.

But you can ink all over whatever you want.

You’re like, “Hey, welcome.

” And if you want to send it to you’re friendslike, “We’re going here for dinner.

” You can either save it or share it right fromhere, theres also highlight if you want to highlight, add a type note.

You can take a clip of it if you want to save that to something else.

That’s an option built right intothe browser.

Alright, now screw Edge lets go ahead and get to gaming.

Windows is actually coming around and talking to the gamers now.

Yay! There’s improved support for DirectX12in Windows 10 which is great and they give you the ability to stream your Xbox gamesto you Windows 10 computer through the Xbox app.

I tried to dig into my sources to seehow long we would have to wait to stream PC games to the Xbox and they were not allowedto tell me anything about that but, “It’s in the works,” was kind of the unofficialanswer.

Fingers crossed that we get that soon because I like my PC collection.

I have amuch greater PC collection than Xbox collection and I’d love to be able to play those onmy living room couch.

You can also use the Xbox app to record gameplay now within Windows which is cool.

Lets go ahead and bring up Hearth Stone.

We’re gonna launch it, we’regonna pretend that I’m going to play.

I know, sadly I can’t play right now, buteven it tells me press, WIN-ALT-R to start or stop a recording.

So those are just a few of the tips and tricks that I’ve learned in the past couple days using Windows 10.