20 must-know Windows 8 tips and tricks - stewartowereve

Windows 8 is plethoric with features and behaviors that conspire to perplex even the most experienced PC users. Non entirely of them are bad, per Se, but some of them are immediately intuitive. Making matters worse, the OS was primarily designed for relate control, and as a result, many sneak out and keyboard commands feel equal tacked-on afterthoughts.

But help is on the way.

We've assembled a list of our favorite Windows 8 shortcuts, tricks, and workarounds. Many a focus connected making the most of the OS on a traditional desktop Microcomputer, so if you're interested in touch gestures, please check out our article that focuses directly on the Windows 8 adjoin experience. Now net ball's start our journey of discovery with a look at well-situated-to-function (though often tough to remember!) Windows 8 hotkey commands.

Employ the hottest hotkeys we have a go at it

In these paint combinations, hold down the Windows key (unremarkably located between Alt and Ctrl) and another key, as described on this heel.

• Press the Windows key to enter the tiled Start screen.
• The Windows key + M minimizes everything that's screening connected the desktop.
• The Windows Key + E opens Explorer for quick access to folders.
• On the Bulge screen, press the Windows key + D to instantly get over to the background.
• The Windows key + Tab opens a list of currently running programs.
• The Windows key + Print Screen takes a screenshot and saves IT in a Screenshots pamphlet nested in your Pictures folder.
• To take a screenshot happening a Windows 8 tablet, simultaneously beseech the Windows button and the volume-down releaseon the tablet chassis.
• The Windows key + Q opens a global hunt card. Type what you're looking for and where you would the like to look.
• The Windows describe + W opens a seek in your system settings to quickly locate and change system properties.
• The Windows key + F opens a file and leaflet search.
• The Windows samara + Intermit opens the system properties page to show you a quick rundown of your specs.
• The Windows key + "," (that's the Polygonia comma sign!) makes every last current windows cobwebby, handsome you a peep at the desktop as long-run as you hold down the Windows key.
• The Windows key + "." (the period) snaps a windowpane to the right or left side (toggling apiece time you press ".").
• The Windows key + R prompts the Run command—useful for rapidly launching apps and other routines with a command prompt.
• The Windows important + X opens the Quick Access Menu, exposing system functionality such atomic number 3 the Command Prompt, Harrow Direction, File Explorer, Run, and more. Alternatively, you can decently-detent on the bottom rectify corner of the screen to spawn the Quick Access Card.
• The Windows key + I opens the settings menu, giving you quick access to the Control Empanel, Personalization, and your Power button, among other features.
• The Windows key + O locks orientation on devices with an accelerometer.

Zoom in tight

See all your tiles and groups at once with linguistics zoom.

The Start Screen is rotund of nice, big, chunky tiles that represent completely your apps. The tiles are easy to see in small groups, but what if you have hundreds of apps installed? Most will atomic number 4 hidden from view, unless you lack to do a lot of scrolling. Enter the newfangled linguistics rapid growth feature. If you're using a feeling display, squeeze the Set off screen with deuce fingers to get a bird's eye view of your entire screen contents. And the feature is also available to mouse and keyboard users: Simply hold down the Ctrl button, and utilize your mouse wheel to zoom in and out.

Categorise your apps

Start screen customization for the organized.

Your Embark on riddle can become a cluttered mess if you collect too many another apps and other elements that have been pinned to the screen as tiles, soh take advantage of collective-in organization tools that let you divide everything into tagged groups.

First, drag all the tiles you wish to allot to a single grouping to the far right-hand side of your Start screen in empty territorial dominion; the Atomic number 76 should sequester the tiles unitedly. Once you're satisfied with your assembly, expend semantic zoom (described above) to get a bird's centre view of your desktop. Now right-click the radical (OR just bear down on it), and take the "Name group" option on the left-hand of the stop that appears below. Type in the name, and enjoy your newly organized Start sort!

Adjacent an application

Last an app sounds simple enough, only you'll quickly notice that close buttons are adamantine to find in Windows 8. That's because Microsoft encourages us to run apps in the background where they'll take up minimal resources, but still be accessible at any time.

Nonetheless, if you importune on being rebellious, you fanny closemouthed an app by dragging it with your mouse or finger from the summit of the screen wholly the way down to the bottom. As you cart, the app will miminize into a thumbnail, and when you reach the bottom, it will disappear from view. Alternatively, you can still close apps via EL + F4 and through the Task Manager.

Use centralized, contextual seek

Search for anything in any app from one place.

The Search function located on the Charms bar is packed with power, letting you search the directories of not only your Windows 8 auto, but also the greater Windows ecosystem. Plainly choose the bucket of data you want to sift through—information technology could be all your installed apps, your arrangement settings, your files, your send messages, operating theater tied an outward service like the Windows Stash awa or Bing Maps—type in a keyword, and hit Participate. The Search function will then bring back the results, dead contextualized for the database you've addressed

Oh, and how's this for cool? You don't even need to hit the Charms bar to access Search. From the Offse screen out, simply start typing, and you'll constitute quickly whisked to the text-entry field for hunt queries. Stress it. It works!

Adjust privacy settings

Customize your privacy settings to your liking.

A lot of apps tap into very personal information by default. So, your pictures, location, and name are liberally woven throughout the system, and like many users you Crataegus laevigata not be comfortable trusting your machine with that much sensitive information. To adapt the settings, bid the Windows key + I, and go to Change PC Settings. Select the Privacy option, and personalize the settings for your personal information there.

Adjust SmartScreen settings

Prefer your own level of refuge with SmartScreen.

SmartScreen warns you before running an unrecognized app or file from the Cyberspace. While IT's helpful to be aware of a lodge's author, constant warnings can also arrive a little pestiferous. Away default, you need an decision maker's permission, only this canful easy be adjusted to just a warning or no denotation at all. Using the magic search function described supra, character "security" at the Get down projection screen and find the "Gibe security condition" in the Settings tab. From this area, you can set various protection settings, including the Windows SmartScreen.

The secret Start button for force users is hidden at the nates-left.

Right-clicking on the depress left of the screen—whether you're in the Windows 8 Start screen or in the desktop—will name the Quick Entree Menu, which enables a direct line to many a key out organisation management chores, including Magnetic disc Management, Task Manager, Twist Manager, and Control Panel.

Use Windows 8 apps and your desktop at the same time

Because the Windows 8 get is rip 'tween new Windows 8 Store apps and old-school desktop apps, the operating system is prone to some weird behaviors. Case in point in time: When running a multimonitor setup, Windows 8 apps will take up your of import concealment, leaving your incident screen operative the screen background. This arrangement would seem to allow complete-screen multitasking among both types of apps—a stylish app along the left side, a desktop app connected the right side—but this isn't the case. Indeed, as soon as you begin using the screen background on your secondary screen, the new-style Windows 8 app disappears, and your essential sieve begins squirting the desktop.

But Here's a workaround. On your primary winding projection screen, use the new Windows 8 split-screen "snapping" function to fly the coop the desktop and a new Windows 8 Store app together. The desktop can take up the left-hand sliver, patc the Windows 8 app consumes the majority of the screen. Right away use your second display for a full desktop view. In this organisation, you can fully multitask between new-style apps and desktop apps, and both windows testament be largish enough to be useful.

Attend Task Manager for Inauguration items

Task manager is to a greater extent usable than ever.

You no longer take up to run the MSConfig program to change startup items. Startup items now come out in a tab on Task Manager. Just press Ctrl + Elevation + Del and select Task Manager. Flick the "More details" tab at the bottom and regain the Inauguration yellow journalism at the top.

Play with the Plowshare charm in all app.

Windows 8 is Microsoft's first social-media-remindful PC operational system. Using the Share button located on the Charms bar, you can pick whatever number of elements from your Windows 8 Depot apps—say, a location from your Maps app, a news story from the Finance app, or a even a contact from your People app—and then propagate that point to friends via other Windows 8 programs.

Perhaps most handily, you stern quickly share a photo via email or Twitter, or to your own SkyDrive or Windows Ring. The Partake push button is contextual, and the more you use it, the more you'll discover which apps share with each former, and which don't. (Touch: No of your background apps offer sharing opportunities through the Charms menu.)

Create a see password

A fun way to protect your system.

Victimisation a envision password is a fun way keep your device secure while non having to remember a complex countersign. To enable it, press the Windows key + I to get to the settings appeal. Click "Change PC settings" at the merchant ship rightish, and go around to the Users tab. Nether "Sign-in options" bequeath be the "Create a picture password" button. This will give you the option to choose any picture, and then define three gestures anywhere on the project. Your gestures can be circles, swipes and clicks.

For example, to set a picture countersign for the image above, you could chink on the highest palm tree, draw a revolve around the island, and then hook down from the lens flare in the pep pill right. Retributive beware: The direction of from each one gesture matters! After confirming it a couple times, your ikon password will be set.

Iron boot to the desktop without an app

Skip the Start block out and get right to the Screen background.

One of biggest complaints about Windows 8 is that it boots straight to the Jump projection screen—an annoyance for numerous committed background users. The Start8 utility helps you stave off this indignity (among other chill features), but you can actually boot straight to the desktop without installing anything surplus.

Attend the depart screen and type in "schedule" to search for Schedule Task in Settings. Click happening Project Scheduler Program library to the left, and select Create Task. Epithet your task something like "Boot to screen background." Straightaway select the Triggers tablet, choose New, and habituate the drop-down box to select starting the job "At log along." Click OK and go to the Actions tab, choose New, and enter "adventurer" for the Computer program/Script appreciate.

Press OK, save the task, and restart to trial run it out!

Log on without a username or countersign

To hie astir the log on serve, you may want to disable the username and password backlog-in screen. You can do so by opening the Run window (press the Windows key + R) and typing in "netplwiz" to access the User Accounts panel. Uncheck the boxful near the top that says "Users must enter a user name and word to wont this computer." Clack OK, and enter the username and password one last clock to confirm your choice, and you are all set for soft access to your system.

Freshen up your PC

Enjoy a fresh PC without losing everything.

If your system is feeling a immature sluggish, IT may live time for a refresh. In the past we would get to find our copy of Windows 7, back up all of our data, and perform a fresh put in to enjoy that back-to-manufacturing plant-fresh feeling. But now Windows 8 allows you to do a fresh install from inside Windows without losing any information.

Ready to perform the refresh, go to Settings and click the Change PC Settings yellow journalism neighboring the bottom. Select the General tab and find the "Refresh your PC without affecting your files" section near the middle (you may as wel select "Hit everything and reinstall Windows" to get the true manufactory settings treatment). Select "Baffle started" and conjur "Refresh." After a few transactions the Personal computer will restart, and you will have a fresh transcript of Windows 8.

Start in Safe Mode

Innocuous Mode is a eager fashio to pay back into your arrangement when something South Korean won't allow you to start up normally. Troubleshooting becomes a breeze when corrupted drivers and files aren't plastered that prevents a system from functioning. It secondhand to be as easy as pressing F8 when the system starts up, but doing so with Windows 8 leave necessitate you to Automatic pistol Repair Mode. The fob to getting back to skilful old fashioned Safe Mode? Hold down the Shift key and pressing F8 while booting up.

This takes you to the Recovery mode. Select "high options," then "troubleshoot," then the "progressive options" again (on that point are a lot of civilised options). Take Windows Startup Settings and finally the Resume button. This bequeath reboot the computer and give way you the option to boot into Safe Mode.

If you need to tangle with Safe Mode from within Windows, open the panel (the Windows key + R) and type "msconfig" (no more quote Marks). Select the Boot tab and check the Innocuous boot box. The system bequeath continually boot into Safe Mode until you get back and uncheck the box.

Turn Live Tiles on and turned

Use the In play roofing tile option to customize what you want to understand.

When looking at the plethora of tiles on your Start screen, the take i can generate stagnant, despite all the beautiful colors.This is where Untaped Tiles move in. They offer really-time information right connected your Start screen, and you don't postulate to open any apps. For example, the Endure tile will she you the current conditions, and Get off will show you the discipline of the latest message you've received.

You butt customize which apps are live and which aren't by right-clicking on the tiles. A settings blockade on the buttocks will pop with an option to turn the Unfilmed Roofing tile on or off. Simply select the preferred option, and you're all exercise set. Note, however, that not all apps take in a live, time period data-streaming option.

Find the Windows games folder

Presently, the games folder used in Windows 7 isn't present in Windows 8. Fear non; if you install some current-generation PC game that would regularly save to this folder, the folder is mechanically created. For a ready way to find it, honorable-click connected the game icon on the Start block out and take "Open file location" at the tooshie.

Activate Family Safety

Let your kids play without having to worry.

Want to avoid some nasty surprises on your credit card? Create a separate, measure account on the device for your kids (Family Safe can't be applied to an decision maker account). You buttocks trip Kinfolk Safe by active to the Control Panel, Drug user Accounts, and Family Safety, and selecting the news report you would like to apply it to. From these settings you tin get reports on the account's activenes; hardening a level off of Web filtering; set time limits; and enforce Windows Lay in, game, and app restrictions.

Close with one click

Easy to create clitoris to shut down.

Windows 8 hides the Power button in the Settings menu, forcing a multistep march just to closed pull down one's PC. But thanks to a knavish cutoff trick, you can pin a Shutdown push button the right way onto the bottom of your background. Here's how.

Create a cutoff on your desktop (right-click, go to Newfangled, then Shortcut). Enter "shutdown /s /t 0" (with no quotes, and, yes, that's a 0 not an "O") as the location of the point, and compress Next. Now name the shortcut (prefereably "Shutdown") and press Finish.

Right-tick the shortcut, and navigate to Properties. Choose Convert Icon in the Shortcut chit, and so Sooner State to pass on the monition box. Choose an icon of your choice from the list. In the screenshot preceding, you'll see we chose a Power button.

Right-tick the shortcut again, and choice Pin to Start. You can place the icon happening your Start screen wherever it's convenient. Clicking IT wish instantly close up your computing machine.

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• Windows
• Infinitesimal and Medium Business
• Windows 8

Alex covers desktops, everything from fancy to practical. He's also an avid (addicted) gamer and loves following the industry.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/461744/20-must-know-windows-8-tips-and-tricks.html

Posted by: stewartowereve.blogspot.com

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