At the edge of tweaking
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Windows 8.1 comes with one really annoying feature: it shows removable drives, optical drives and hard drives in one group together. This is one of the the worst changes made to Windows. Sadly, the OS does not offer you any option to the ungroup drives logically so local drives are in one group and the rest in another.
Today, I am going to share with you a simple tutorial on how to ungroup and display hard drives and removable drives separately in This PC.
I decided to write this article, because lots of people are still trying to use my Skip Metro Suite, which was not designed for Windows 8.1 and isn't actually required on Windows 8.1 any more. Windows 8.1 already offers you a native way to skip the Start screen and boot directly to Desktop! Let's see how to activate this useful feature.
Despite the Charms Bar being an annoyance on the Desktop, in Windows 8.1, Microsoft has only decided to allow users to disable the top left corner (also known as Switcher) and the top right corner, so when you point your mouse pointer to those corners, the Metro Charms Bars will not annoy you. However, the bottom right corner remains. If you find no use for the Charms Bar especially on the Desktop, you might be interested in disable that bottom right corner too.
In this article, we will look how to use settings in Windows 8.1 to disable active corners. Also, we will look at a workaround to disable the bottom right corner.
The Win+X menu is one of the handy features of Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 on the desktop. When you press the Win+X hotkey on the keyboard, it appears in the bottom left corner.
It contains quick links to the main control panel items, some administrative tools and provides quick access to the command prompt or PowerShell. Additionally, in Windows 8.1 it allows you to quickly sign out, shutdown and restart.
On a tablet with a touch screen, you might need to open that Win+X menu, but without a keyboard or a mouse, you may not be aware how to access it. Here's how to access it.
The developer of the famous Start Menu, StartIsBack, has written another app called OldNewExplorer and as the name indicates, it aims to restore some of the Windows 7 Explorer features to Windows 8's Explorer. The name appears to be a play on the famous blog, OldNewThing, by Microsoft's Shell developer, Raymond Chen. OldNewExplorer brings a couple of very interesting features back to Windows 8 Explorer. Let's see which.
Windows 8's completely new Task Manager has many changes compared to the Task Manager in Windows 7 and below. Now, it features a simplified mode, and the advanced mode has more detailed performance information. There's added management of startup apps with a very useful "startup impact" calculation feature. But one of the real improvements is that you can now easily copy detailed information of an application or service with the modern Task Manager of Windows 8.1/8 with a quick and easy keystroke. Let's see how.
Sometimes, while using Windows, you need to copy the text from the some message box which appears on your screen. For example, some application may show you an error message or crash details. In such a scenario, you would want to copy its text to the clipboard so you can paste it in Google's search box or into your Instant Messaging software to discuss it with your friend or support engineer. Well, here's a trick that you may not be aware of.
Skydrive Metered options in Windows 8.1 is a set of settings which allow you to control Skydrive's behavior when you are on a metered connection. You can enable or disable one or few settings to prevent SkyDrive from using your metered connection as it can be expensive. For example, you can disable file upload and synchronization while you are roaming. These settings are a part of the Modern PC Settings application, but you can create a shortcut to open them directly with one click.
Yesterday I discovered a bug in Windows 8.1. It is not a critical bug, but a bit annoying. After doing a specific sequence of actions, the Desktop turns black and does not show the wallpaper. This bug is related to the "Show Desktop icons" feature. Here is how to reproduce this bug.
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you probably saw my tutorial "how to close Modern apps", which I posted recently where I explained that apps no longer close when dragged from the top to the bottom - you have to drag and hold the apps to fully close them. Today, I would like to share with you an exclusive tutorial for Windows 8.1 which will improve your Modern app closing experience by leaps and bounds. I discovered some hidden secret parameters which will allow you finally to fine tune the way Modern apps are closed in Windows 8.1. Also, I will share with you my new revived tool, CloseThreshold for Windows 8.1!
