CAM Posted December 9, 2012 Posted December 9, 2012 I'm finding little tricks for making the Windows 8 interface nicer to use. Post them here to share with your fellow geeks, I'll try keep the first post updated with them. WinKey+X - Show a small menu where Start used to be to access tools such as Event Viewer, Control Panel and other administrative tools. Up Key for Fast Unlock - Press the Up arrow key to quickly hide the lock screen instead of dragging it up with your mouse. Administrative Tools in Start - Open the Charm bar on the Start screen, select Settings then Tiles to show tiles for Administrative tools such as Computer Management. Post more!
mattx Posted December 9, 2012 Posted December 9, 2012 I would personally boot any Windows 8 device into a DOS box and using GDISK: gdisk 1 /y /del /all That is my top tip for Windows 8
bossman Posted December 9, 2012 Posted December 9, 2012 @mattx: Do you think @DosBox would mind? He might get a little tetchy if everyone did that! hehe! P.S. Good to see your still alive hehe! 1
sted Posted December 9, 2012 Posted December 9, 2012 I'm finding little tricks for making the Windows 8 interface nicer to use. Post them here to share with your fellow geeks, I'll try keep the first post updated with them. Up Key for Fast Unlock - Press the Up arrow key to quickly hide the lock screen instead of dragging it up with your mouse. any key/mouse click works
CyberNerd Posted December 9, 2012 Posted December 9, 2012 I'd quite like to learn the command line names for common configuration tasks such as network properties, printer properties etc if anyone could post them. I find it quite difficult to find them as they appear to be buried 5miles below the interface.
Arthur Posted December 9, 2012 Posted December 9, 2012 Up Key for Fast Unlock - Press the Up arrow key to quickly hide the lock screen instead of dragging it up with your mouse. No need to press Up. The "any" key will also work (as Sted said).
RabbieBurns Posted December 9, 2012 Posted December 9, 2012 I'd quite like to learn the command line names for common configuration tasks such as network properties, printer properties etc if anyone could post them. I find it quite difficult to find them as they appear to be buried 5miles below the interface. control ncpa.cpl Do you just mean the control panel commands or something more?
CyberNerd Posted December 9, 2012 Posted December 9, 2012 control ncpa.cpl Do you just mean the control panel commands or something more? as many as possible. I'm getting really slow making config changes to windows these days compared to mac or linux. I want to memorise as many as possible.
RabbieBurns Posted December 9, 2012 Posted December 9, 2012 appwiz.cpl bthprops.cpl desk.cpl FlashPlayerCPLApp.cpl hdwwiz.cpl inetcpl.cpl intl.cpl irprops.cpl joy.cpl main.cpl mmsys.cpl ncpa.cpl powercfg.cpl sysdm.cpl telephon.cpl timedate.cpl wscui.cpl However GodMode still works that might make it a one-stop place for finding things? http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-7/47395-windows-7-god-mode.html 2
RabbieBurns Posted December 9, 2012 Posted December 9, 2012 Im going to add this as a 'Tip and trick' even though its not really, but it might give some of you 'haters' a reason to like Windows 8 StartIsBack - real start menu in Windows 8 Its not free but for $5 for a 5 machine license, ive sorted out my entire fleet of computers.
Arthur Posted December 10, 2012 Posted December 10, 2012 A few more... Create your own "Refresh your PC" image. If you want to create a baseline image of your Windows 8 PC once everything has been setup exactly how you want it, open an elevated Command Prompt and then type the following... mkdir C:\RefreshImage recimg /CreateImage C:\RefreshImage recimg /SetCurrent C:\RefreshImage recimg /ShowCurrent When you Refresh your PC, Windows will revert to the image you took above. If you don't feel like typing in the commands above, there's a free app called RecImg Manager (Download) that acts as a front end to RecImg (and does some additional things too). Boot into Safe Mode. Hold down the SHIFT key and press F8 while booting up. Alternatively, open the Charms bar, hold the SHIFT key, tap/click Power and then select Restart while still holding the SHIFT key. Change the default lock screen image. Make sure you have KB2770917 installed, open GPEdit.msc and then Enable the policy below. Computer Configuration » Policies » Administrative Templates » Control Panel » Personalization » Force a specific default lock screen image Alternatively, create the following registry entry and change the image path. Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Personalization] "LockScreenImage"="C:\\Pictures\\LockScreen.jpg" Disable the lock screen completely. Copy and paste the following into Notepad, save it as DisableLockScreen.reg and double-click it. To re-enable the lock screen, change the 1 to a 0 or delete the NoLockScreen registry value. Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Personalization] "NoLockScreen"=dword:00000001 2
GAS Posted December 10, 2012 Posted December 10, 2012 Check this website for Windows 8 Windows 8 How-To Articles, Tips, and Guides :: How-To Geek
RabbieBurns Posted December 10, 2012 Posted December 10, 2012 [*]Change the default lock screen image Is this diffrent to the change the lock screen image you get from charms -> settings -> change pc settings -> personalize-> lock screen ?
Arthur Posted December 10, 2012 Posted December 10, 2012 Is this different to the change the lock screen image you get from charms -> settings -> change pc settings -> personalize-> lock screen ? It's the same actually. The only difference is that prior to KB2770917 you couldn't change the lock screen image via Group Policy. There was also the issue mentioned below. Microsoft recently release the November 2012 Cumulative Update for Windows 8/2012 that enables you to configure the default lock screen image for Windows 8 (See quote below). Enable enterprise customers to customize the default lock screen. You may have thought that this image was customisable by the users in the control panel already however this would only configure the image of the lock screen after the user had logged on to the computer. Meaning you were always presented with the Seattle Space Needle cartoon image every time you logged off or rebooted your computer. This image is nice to look at but this is definitely something the would be changed in most corporate environment to display their own corporate logo or a perhaps some disclaimer text. (Source) 1
Arthur Posted January 23, 2013 Posted January 23, 2013 Here's another good tip. If you are running Windows 8 on a laptop and want to check its battery capacity or charge history run powercfg /batteryreport from the Command Prompt. Windows will generate a report like the one shown below. Windows 8 includes a very useful feature for laptop users that lets you see the charging history and capacity of your battery. Over time batteries hold less and less of a change so this report is very helpful to identify if it is time to buy a replacement. Generating the report is very simple, just open up a command prompt, type in powercfg /batteryreport and hit Enter. (Source) http://i.imgur.com/Jr83I8s.png 3
Gatt Posted January 23, 2013 Posted January 23, 2013 WinKey+X - Show a small menu where Start used to be to access tools such as Event Viewer, Control Panel and other administrative tools.Right clicking the bottom left corner does the same as well Up Key for Fast Unlock - Press the Up arrow key to quickly hide the lock screen instead of dragging it up with your mouse. Can be disabled if you force the use of CTRL+ALT+DEL Administrative Tools in Start - Open the Charm bar on the Start screen, select Settings then Tiles to show tiles for Administrative tools such as Computer Management. Post more! WIN+I - Easy access to the Settings side bar - great for shutting the PC down or rebooting, etc 1
jmak Posted January 23, 2013 Posted January 23, 2013 From the (lovely?) Start screen, you can just start typing the name of programs you want to open... assuming you haven't bypassed it yet 1
Gatt Posted January 23, 2013 Posted January 23, 2013 From the (lovely?) Start screen, you can just start typing the name of programs you want to open... assuming you haven't bypassed it yet You could do that in the Win7 start menu too.. Everyone keeps point this out for Win8 as if its a new feature, but its not really...
jmak Posted January 23, 2013 Posted January 23, 2013 You could do that in the Win7 start menu too.. Everyone keeps point this out for Win8 as if its a new feature, but its not really... Windows 7 didn't have a start screen? Probably wasn't clear from my post, but I meant the place with the lovely tiles. No box to type in - you just start typing which then opens the search box - which then works exactly like the search on the Windows 7 Start menu
Gatt Posted January 24, 2013 Posted January 24, 2013 (edited) Not on this forum - no.. Edited January 24, 2013 by Gatt
CAM Posted January 24, 2013 Author Posted January 24, 2013 You already have the answer in your post. Whip out your credit card and click the Download & Buy button...
Gatt Posted January 24, 2013 Posted January 24, 2013 Not sure why anyone would want to try and crack Win8 considering that its only about what - £50 for the Media or £25 online. Much better than the £250+ it used to be!
CAM Posted January 24, 2013 Author Posted January 24, 2013 The £25 version is only if you have a legitimate copy of Windows to upgrade from. Even then, I picked up System Builder version to install from scratch for £60 from KSN (link is in this forum somewhere). But back to tips and tricks! 1
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