Sergey Tkachenko, Author at Winaero

How to disable Metro toast notifications on the Desktop

With Windows 8, Microsoft has introduced a new notification system: instead of balloon tooltips in the tray, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 use toast notifications, which appear on the right side of the screen and fade away after some time.

Such kind of notifications perfectly fit the Modern UI of Windows 8, which has a flat and touch friendly design. However, the classic Desktop is another story. These new toast notifications look out of place on the Desktop. In this article, we will look at how we can disable Metro toast notifications on the Desktop.

Download Disable toast notifications registry tweak

Disable toast notifications registry tweak.

Registry tweak to disable Metro toast notifications on the Desktop.
Leave a comment or view the full description

5 must-have addons for your Firefox fresh install

For many years I used Opera as my browser. As Opera Software decided to kill their very own desktop browser and replaced it with a featureless Chrome-based clone, I switched to Mozilla Firefox. Out of the box, Firefox is not perfect for me, but installing a few add-ons changes the situation. I have hand-picked 5 must-have add-ons which improve the Firefox experience. Add-ons are the real power of Firefox and have been for a long time. Today, I would like to share with you this list of my favorite add-ons, and who knows, maybe you will find them useful too!

Make your desktop Firefox touch-friendly with the Finger Friendly theme for Firefox

If you are the lucky owner of some Windows based Tablet PC and also prefer to use Firefox over Internet Explorer, then you might want to be able to control your Firefox browser easily with a touch screen. Although Mozilla provides a Metro (Modern UI) version of Firefox, it has limitations comparing to the regular Desktop version. Modern apps in Windows 8 run in a sandbox, so they are feature limited and restricted by design. Recently, I discovered a theme for the desktop version of Firefox which helps you to control the browser with a touch screen by making controls larger than the default.

Base – black theme for Windows 8.1

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Professional giveaway results and winners

Our EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Professional giveaway on Winaero has come to its conclusion. As promised, we have picked three random winners from people who participated. Here is the list of winners:

Black theme for Windows 8.1 with white titles

Here is a black theme for Windows 8.1 with white titlebar text created by deviantart user x0lis.

While you can apply the black color of window frames using Personalization, Windows 8.1 does not allow you to change the font color, so it stays black and unreadable.

How to boot into Windows 8.1 safe mode

By default, Windows 8.1 and Windows 8 have a new graphical environment for various recovery actions including an automatic repair engine due to which Microsoft has hidden the Safe Mode feature. When the system does not boot, it tries to analyze and fix startup problems automatically on its own without user assistance. However, you might need to enter Safe Mode for several purposes, i.e. to troubleshoot some issue with drivers and apps. In this tutorial, we will review three simple ways to get the Safe Mode feature back in Windows 8.1 and Windows 8.

Enable the full keyboard (standard keyboard layout) in the touch keyboard of Windows 8.1

Windows 8.1 (and its equivalent Windows RT edition) includes a touch keyboard for computers and tablets with a touch screen. When you touch any text field on your tablet, the touch keyboard appears on the screen. If you don't have a touch screen, then you have two options to run it. By default, it appears with a limited set of keys and lacks Function keys, Alt, Tab and Esc keys. In this article, we will look how to enable those missing keys in the touch keyboard, and, as a bonus, we will look for two possible ways to launch the touch keyboard.

Disable Windows 8.1 store upgrade offer prompt

While Microsoft is strongly recommending everyone to upgrade Windows 8 to Windows 8.1, not every user would like to go ahead with this upgrade. If you are too busy to upgrade your OS and are happy with Windows 8 while it still remains supported, then there is no reason to upgrade right away. However, by default, it is not possible to decline the offer because it has no options in the user interface. It will be displayed every time you visit the Windows Store. In this article, we will see how to disable the Windows 8.1 store upgrade offer if you don't want to upgrade yet.