Windows 8/8.1 tips and tricks - post them here

[Crimson Rain]

Below is the feedback I submitted to Skype/MS regarding Skype version 6.0.0.126. Has anyone else experienced this issue?

"So, I'm running Skype Desktop on Windows 8 but I also have the Skype app install for Windows Design Language (or the new Start Screen or Metro - phew! Confusing!). My issue is that incoming calls ring in both programs and if I answer the Skype app the desktop keeps on ringing. Please straighten this is or a lot of customers will be very mad."

And the Skype app in Windows Phone keeps ringing too!!

(often time 2mins after I receive the call on desktop).

[Valeteck Doon]

Yes I am able to do this are able to provide me your contact information through which I contact you.

[AOXOMOXOA]

The best thing you can do for windows 8 is install

http://www.classicshell.net/

[Faizaan Khan]

Refresh your PC- Try using this feature will refresh Windows 8 without losing any app.

[DevonT]

One thing I did for one of my clients who has Windows 8, is put all of this favorites on the Start Screen by making website shortcuts and putting them in the Start Menu folder.

He uses Google Chrome, so he couldn't pin the website to the Start Screen.

http://myitforum.com/myitforumwp/2012/11/20/creating-your-own-windows-8-start-screen-shortcuts-tiles/

[techbeck]

Just got these emailed to me.  Thought they would be helpful for some....

 

Shortcut Keys
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByIpb-YSESOzNjJEQ2dOSFB0akE/edit?usp=sharing
GUI Features
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByIpb-YSESOzREJjTkxpbFlmeGs/edit?usp=sharing
Internet Explorer
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByIpb-YSESOzSmlLRUJBcHhPU2M/edit?usp=sharing

[NightScreams]

Here is some registry that will add a shutdown menu to your right click for those who don't like the default method of shutting down or having to put shortcut tiles in your start menu.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DesktopBackground\Shell\Shut Down]
"MUIVerb"="Shut Down"
"SubCommands"="restart;|;shutdown;hybridshutdown;|;sleep;hibernate;|;lock;logoff;switch"
"Icon"="shell32.dll,215"
"Position"="bottom"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell\restart]
@="Restart"
"Icon"="comres.dll,4"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell\restart\command]
@="Shutdown -r -f -t 00"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell\shutdown]
@="Shut Down"
"Icon"="SyncCenter.dll,5"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell\shutdown\command]
@="Shutdown -s -f -t 00"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell\hybridshutdown]
@="Shut Down (Hybrid)"
"Icon"="shell32.dll,137"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell\hybridshutdown\command]
@="Shutdown -s -f -t 00 -hybrid"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell\sleep]
@="Sleep"
"Icon"="powrprof.dll,2"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell\sleep\command]
@="rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState Sleep"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell\switch]
@="Switch User"
"Icon"="imageres.dll,220"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell\switch\command]
@="tsdiscon.exe"

[Sergey "hb860"]

Format any drive with modern ReFS file system:
How to format

[Sergey "hb860"]

For those who decided to remove all personal data from the Microsoft Cloud / Skydrive, the following tutorial: How to delete your personal settings from SkyDrive in Windows 8.1

[Sergey "hb860"]

A tweak to restore the Last Known Good Configuration feature in Windows 8.1

[Ian S.]

Here's a tip: If you have 2 modern UI applications snapped, move your mouse to the top (like if you were to quit the app) and do a double click. That will expand the app to fill the entire screen. Also if you go to the app switcher (move your mouse to the top left corner. It will allow you to "resnap" the app.

[BavonWW]

What would the settings be if i wanted it to reset instead of a shutdown?

 

shutdown.exe /g /t 

This restarts computer and restarts any registered applications once booted

 

or

 

shutdown.exe r/ /t 0

This restarts the computer.

[BavonWW]

Can someone explain what the -s and t 0 represent in "shutdown.exe -s -t 0" Also the r in "shutdown.exe -r -t 0 "

 

/s           Shutdown the computer.

 

/g            Full shutdown and restart the computer. After the system is

              rebooted, restart any registered applications.

 

/r             Full shutdown and restart the computer.

 

/t xxx       Set the time-out period before shutdown to xxx seconds.

              The valid range is 0-315360000 (10 years), with a default of 30.

              If the timeout period is greater than 0, the /f parameter is

              implied.

/f              Force running applications to close without forewarning users.

              The /f parameter is implied when a value greater than 0 is

               specified for the /t parameter.

[Atomic Wanderer Chicken]

Here is how to make Windows 8 like Windows 7 on your laptop/desktop

 

 

1.  Uninstall all the metro apps, except apps like SkyDrive which can serve some use in the future and any other Metro apps you feel are important also.

 

2. Right Click on taskbar properties

 

3. Click on the navigation tab

 

4. Uncheck - "When I point to the upper-right corner, show the charms"

 

5. Uncheck - " When I click in the upper-left corner, switch between my recent apps" 

 

6. Check - "When I sign in or close all apps on a screen, go to the desktop instead of Start"

 

7. Check - "Show all Apps view automatically when I go to Start" and make sure the "search everywhere instead of just my apps when I search from the apps view"

 

8. Check - "List desktop apps first in the Apps view when it's sorted by category"

 

Now Windows 8 will work almost like the Windows 7 did!

[Ian S.]

Why are you running both at the same time?

I think s/he is trying to say that Skype should be able to sync the experience between all UIs. Same thing happens with the plugin for outlook.com, answer a call in one of the apps and the outlook.com skype plugin keeps ringing. It would be nice if they do that.

[PGHammer]

I just upgraded an HP TouchSmart 310 (originally comes with Windows 7) to 8.1 - and ran into several nice surprises.

 

1.  The proprietary software that Windows 7 needed is not needed by Windows 8.1 - at all.  You can literally touch your way through everything - even things that would not normally support touch - like desktop software installs.  What is hilarious about this is that the TouchSmart line of PCs are AIOs - desktop AIOs in particular.  (You can use keyboards and mice as normal, of course - and you can team them up with the touch support as well.  So much for having to do one or the other.)

 

2.  This particular TouchSmart is driven by an Athlon II x245e - which also supports Hyper-V.  This is showing that AMD's support for this particular Windows feature is more ubiquitous than it is on the Intel side of things.

 

3.  I'm used to driving Windows (even 8.1) with keyboard and mouse - and this is a touch-screen desktop.  I'll be posting a more in-depth dissection on the TouchSmart/8.1 tag-team later this evening.

[Nodiaque]

One nice workaround I did find is to go to C:\Windows\ and search for "Shows Desktop". You can then copy that shortcut to C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup Doing that means that Windows 8 will, in a fashion, boot directly to the desktop so you can bypass the Start Screen initially.

Also an old favourite of mine still works. Hit Win-key + R then type "control userpasswords2" and hit enter. This will bring up a dialog where you can choose to bypass the login process allowing your PC to fully boot into Windows without interruption.

So you know, there's a built-in feature in 8.1 for that. Check in the taskbar option ;)

 

For closing metro apps, simply slide from top to bottom (when then mouse is on top, it changed to a hand, click and slide the apps down).

[LambdaLambdaLambdaFn]

Force close/restart an app

 

Windows 8.1's default behaviour is to suspend an app when you close it via drag top-to-bottom.  If you go to task manager, you'll see it's still there after a close.  It's pretty harmless since it doesn't take up resources, but sometimes files may be locked by the app.  If you want to close the app and terminate or restart it:

• Drag from top to almost the bottom (but not all the way) as if you were close the app
• Hold it there for a second or two
• The image of the app will "flip"

If you move your finger/mouse back up toward the top after the flip, the app will force close then restart.  If you move your finger all the way down, it will terminate the app completely and free any locks.

[Turk.]

[Punk 32]

If you select a tile in start menu using cursor keys and press space bar then it will draw up the context menu like there was in win 8

[smsabbir480]

You can view the minimized windows by pressing alt+tab and can resize your browser by pressing windows+arrow keys.

[bonilia]

I just put it there because it looks nice. I prefer the start screen

 

------------------------------------------

[canprince]

I have recently been struggling with an issue where my NTFS gets corrupted and requires a chkdsk at each boot.  After several weeks/tries of formatting and reinstalling Windows, and trying different hard/solid state drives to rule out any hardware issue, I discovered the culprit and wanted to share in case anyone else is interested.  The issue is the Fast Boot Option in Windows 8.

 

My system is dual boot (Windows 7 on one drive, and 8.1 on the other).  Each version of Windows was installed separately.  By that I mean, I only have one hard drive plugged in at a time until they were both installed.  I chose this method only to maintain control of my OS and not have them linked by a multi-boot configuration.  If ever I need to reinstall, I can just wipe the one drive clean without impacting the other drive.  This is when the problem started.  Once both drives were connected (running 2 different versions of Windows), anytime I boot into Windows 8, then reboot into Windows 7, I get NTFS errors, corrupt files, and chkdsk prompts for errors.  To be honest, it had me stumped until all my efforts on Google searches suggested that I disable the Fast Boot option in Windows 8.  From what I understand, Windows 8 actually creates a hibernate file at time of shutdown to help start faster, which inadvertently affects files from the other drive.  As soon as I disabled the fast boot option (which I didn't need anyway as I am running SSD's and clean systems), the problem disappeared.  I am only sharing this because it took me weeks to figure out the issue, initially suspecting hardware issue (either hard drives or RAM defect), and hoping to raise awareness of potential issue a little tick mark makes.

 

Please see the following link:

 

http://winaero.com/blog/how-to-disable-or-enable-fast-startup-in-windows-8-1/

 

[Draggendrop Veteran]

That  "fast boot" got me as well, disabled it and all is well...sure was a pain in the neck....Cheers

[whs37]

I made a Windows 8 to go on a USB stick. Maybe that is interesting. Here is how:

 

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/5349-windows-8-go-setup-usb-flash-drive-usb-disk.html