Microphone privacy settings is part of the PC Settings application which allows you to customize the privacy of your microphone. Here you can prevent installed apps from using the microphone or specify which apps are able to use it.
The good thing about Windows 8.1 is that it allows you to create a shortcut to open these settings directly with one click.
Author: Sergey Tkachenko
Nature HD#24 theme for Windows 8
How to remove previously used user picture avatar images in Windows 8.1
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.
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:
