Sergey Tkachenko, Author at Winaero

Security tip: Protect your Windows product key from being stolen

Did you know that when Windows is installed, it continues to store your product key in the registry. This may be useful, if you don't remember which key you used on your current installation. Also if you lost your product key, this can be useful for recovering your product key with some third party tool or with a simple PowerShell script.

But at the same time, your Windows product key is at risk of being stolen. If you are concerned about your product key being stolen (i.e. with some malicious software), you might want to remove it from the registry permanently. This operation is safe and will not affect your OS activation status. Follow this simple tutorial to learn how you can erase the stored product key in Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 7 and Windows Vista.

Daily Bing #17 theme for Windows 8

Nature HD#11 theme for Windows 8

How to get the Windows product key without using third party software

If you lost, cannot retrieve or forgot where you had stored the product key of your Windows 8.1, Windows 8 or Windows 7 OS, do not despair. I would like to show you a simple solution to extract your product key from the OS installed on your PC without using any third party software.

How to invert colors in Paint in Windows 7 and Windows 8

Inverting colors in Paint is not something I do frequently. But when you do need this feature occasionally, I have the point of view that Paint is the best tool for such basic image editing. Few days ago, I needed to create a header image for my Youtube channel with a line of inverted colors. I am a Windows power user, yet I was really confused by the user interface of the modern version of MS Paint (I use Windows 8.1).

Starting with Windows 7, the Paint application ships with the Ribbon UI. It looks fancy, but when you need to invert colors of your image, you will not find the appropriate command on any tab of the Ribbon nor in the File menu.

Daily Bing #16 theme for Windows 8

Power user tip: Add global hotkeys to launch your favorite applications in Windows 8.1

Since Windows 95, we have an amazing feature: native global hotkeys for every installed application, yet it seems not many people are aware of it. Have you seen the following text box in the shortcut properties?:

This is where you are able to specify a combination of hotkeys which will be used to launch the shortcut. If you have set those hotkeys for the shortcut in the Start menu folder, then they will be available in every opened window, every application. The secret is the Explorer shell - as long as the Explorer shell is loaded: hotkeys will work globally regardless of the active application. That is very handy!
But Windows 8.1 does not have the Start menu any more, so you can be a bit confused how to assign hotkeys. Today we will learn how to add global hotkeys to launch your favorite applications in Windows 8.1 and use them like a Pro.

How to install and apply third party themes in Windows 8.1

We here at Winaero love Windows customization and we post several custom 3rd party visual styles and themepacks from time to time. We have a HUGE and amazing collection of themes for changing the look-n-feel of Windows. But Windows doesn't allow 3rd party themes by default, so we need to unlock Windows to be able to use those themes.

Note: If you are not a Windows 8.1 user, please refer to the following article.

With every new Windows release, Microsoft makes some minor changes to the theme engine and/or its format. This leads to the situation where for every single release, you need a special software (a so called UXTheme patcher) which supports that new release. Windows 8.1 is no exception.

To use third party themes in Windows 8.1, you should follow these simple steps.

Nature HD#10 theme for Windows 8

How to set a connection as metered in Windows 8.1

Windows 8 introduced the "metered connections" feature. If you enable it, it can reduce the amount of data you send and receive via your limited data plan and help you save money or avoid bill shock. Some Internet service providers can charge by the amount of data used (the amount of data sent and received by your PC). The service provider monitors your Internet connection data use.

With programs and services in Windows communicating with the internet almost all the time today, this data limit can be reached quite easily. If you exceed the data limit you might have to pay extra amount or get your download speed reduced until the next month. If you have such a limited data plan, setting your network connection as 'metered' in Windows can help you reduce the amount of data you send and receive. Windows turns off unnecessary transfers while on a metered connection and tries to conserve bandwidth.

Now, in Windows 8.1, Microsoft has completely changed the UI for setting a connection as 'metered'.