If you changed your Windows 8.1 user account picture, that is, the avatar several times, the images you used will be shown on the right side of your user account settings.
If you don't plan to use them again, there is no reason to keep them there. But Windows 8.1 provides no way to remove unused user pictures. Here is very simple way to delete unused user images.
Author: Sergey Tkachenko
Create a shortcut to open Location settings of Privacy in Windows 8.1
Location settings is a part of Privacy options in Windows 8.1, which allows you to customize which apps will have access to your location data. Here you can turn off the location detection globally or customize settings for specific apps.
The good thing about Windows 8.1 is that it allows you to create a shortcut to open these settings directly with one click.
Daily Bing #26 theme for Windows 8
How to disable automatic repair in Windows 8.1 and Windows 8
One of the new features introduced in Windows 8 during startup is the automatic repair feature which tries to fix booting related issues automatically. If your PC crashes twice consecutively or fails to boot, it will launch the automatic repair procedure and will try to fix the issue which caused the crash. It runs chkdsk and also runs System File Checker (sfc.exe) to restore any corrupt files.
While this feature can be useful for the average user, in some situations, this automatic repair can annoy you very much. For example, if you have modified any Windows files for tweaking such as the custom boot screen for Windows 8.1, then all your changes will also be reverted by automatic repair. Sometimes, it has also been known to get stuck in a repair loop. Another most important reason that you wouldn't want this is because Windows tells you nothing about what exactly it is doing while it's repairing. So it's better in such cases to not let Windows do any automatic repairs.
Let's see how we can disable automatic repair. It's quite simple
How to avoid two reboots with Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 dual boot
If you have installed Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 in a dual boot configuration and have set Windows 8.1 as the default OS to boot into, you probably noticed that the new bootloader of Windows 8 performs an additional reboot every time you select Windows 7 in the boot menu.
This is a really annoying behavior and just a waste of your time. In this article, I will share two simple tricks to get rid of the additional reboot required and boot to the desired OS directly. This article is also applicable to Windows 8 RTM.
Nature HD#23 theme for Windows 8
How to create a shortcut to open Privacy options in Windows 8.1
For any PC user, privacy can be a concern. Privacy options in the PC Settings application allow you to specify which data will be shared with Modern apps and sites you visit using Internet Explorer. Here you can prevent apps from accessing you personal data, advertising ID, turn off the Smart Screen filter and some other settings.
Let's create a shortcut to open these useful settings with one click
StartIsBack giveaway results and winners
Well, friends, our first giveaway on Winaero has come to its conclusion. As promised, we have picked four random winners from people who participated. Here is the list of winners:
Diwali theme for Windows 8
How to set different icons for the open and closed folder in Explorer
With Windows Vista, there was a little change in Explorer which has remained the same in Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 or Windows 8: it shows the same icon for open and closed folders.
In earlier releases of Windows before Vista, when a folder was expanded in the navigation pane of Explorer, it used to show a different icon. This change makes it more difficult to see which folder you are viewing by just looking at the icons. This change also affects the tree view in Registry Editor and in the Windows 7 Start Menu All Programs view.
If you preferred having distinct icons for open and closed folder states in Explorer, then there's good news for you - it can be done. I will show you how to set the folder icon for a closed folder in Explorer of Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 7 and Vista. The method is the same for all these operating systems.
