Today, while playing with the leaked Windows 8.1 Update 1, I discovered a new registry tweak, which allows hiding the 'Microsoft Confidential' message from the Desktop. That huge watermark which Microsoft started to use since Windows 8 development can be hidden. Windows 8.1 Update 1 can also force the watermark to be shown even if the OS is activated.
Category: Windows 8.1
How to change the Charms bar hover timeout delay
The recently leaked Windows 8.1 Update 1 build features some hidden tweakable settings. Amongst these are settings to control the Charms bar hover timeout which in my opinion, is a killer improvement. You can finally prevent the Charms bar from accidentally displaying when the mouse pointer goes to the screen corners. Let's see how it can be done.
Translate text to and from other languages offline using Bing Translator app for Windows
If you have a business need to translate text in international languages regularly, there are plenty of free online services today as well as paid app solutions for desktop and mobile. Google Translate is one of the most popular ones and also has Android and iOS apps. Microsoft Translator has also been long available. For Windows 8, Microsoft has an app called Bing Translator. I explored some of its features.
[Review] What’s new in Windows 8.1 Update 1
Today, a preview build of Windows 8.1 Update 1 leaked to the Internet. Windows 8.1 Update 1 is a rollup of several updates as well as some new features which Microsoft plans to offer to Windows 8.1 users. While this update has nothing new of significance for regular Desktop users, it contains few notable changes to the Modern UI, the way it integrates with the Desktop and to Internet Explorer 11. I have successfully installed the leaked '6.3.9600.16596.WINBLUES14_GDR_LEAN.140114-0237' build inside the latest VirtualBox and would like to offer you a brief overview of the new features in this build.
Get the classic Open With dialog on Windows 8.1 and Windows 8 using OpenWith Enhanced
In Windows, when you double click a file, it opens in the default program which is registered to handle it. But you can right click that file and choose Open With to choose another program to open it with. Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 made some changes to the Open With dialog and turned it into a floating Metro style window. Let us see how we can get the Windows 7 style classic Open With dialog back.
How to tell if Windows 8.1 runs in UEFI mode or in the Legacy BIOS mode
Many modern PCs run the installed OS in UEFI mode. But almost all of them have a fallback mode which allows the hardware to be configured in the legacy mode called 'BIOS' mode. Here is how you can tell which mode exactly is used on your Windows 8.1 PC.
How to clear the Windows Event Log from the command line
Often when you want to troubleshoot issues or keep a general check on your system health, you have to use Event Viewer. Event Viewer shows you all the Windows events that get logged such as Information, Errors, Warnings, Critical and Verbose. But there are so many events here including completely normal activities that get logged that it becomes harder to spot events related to things that aren't working as expected or are causing errors. So from time to time you may need to clear the Event Log. In this article, we will see how you can clear the Event log automatically or from the command line.
How to backup and restore activation for Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7 and Windows Vista
Ever since Microsoft introduced product activation in Windows XP, there has been a need to back up the activation so you can restore it later should you need to format your disk drive and reinstall Windows again on the same hardware. Unfortunately, it's not easy to do this manually although not impossible. Plus, with each Windows release, Microsoft makes some changes to the licensing and activation technology to thwart piracy. Let us see how to backup your Windows activation. This is perfectly legal as long as you have a valid activated license.
FIX: Windows does not reconnect to mapped network drives
If you have a home or work network set up for your Windows PC, you may also be mapping network shares to drive letters. Mapped drives are very convenient as they allow accessing network files and folders just like a regular local drive. However, in modern versions of Windows, there is a problem that mapped drives do not always automatically and reliably reconnect at logon. So any program that tries to access resources on the mapped network drive fails. Let us see how to fix this issue.
