Control Panel as we know it today, has been in Windows since Windows 95. It houses all the Windows settings in one place. As with previous versions of Windows, in Windows 10, Control Panel is a special virtual folder. You can open Control Panel to change the appearance of your Desktop, Start menu, update hardware drivers, manage scheduled tasks and do many other things. In this article, I would like to review all the ways to open Control Panel in Windows 10, so you can pick the most convenient method which works the fastest for you.
Enable or Disable Windows Defender in Windows 10 (Microsoft Defender)
How to Enable or Disable Windows Defender in Windows 10 (Microsoft Defender)
Microsoft Defender, also known as Windows Defender, is the default antivirus app shipped with Windows 10. Earlier versions of Windows like Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7 and Vista also had it but it was less efficient previously as it only scanned spyware and adware. In Windows 8 and Windows 10, Defender is based on the Microsoft Security Essentials app which offers better protection by adding full blown protection against all kinds of malware.
How to disable the new drop-down search UI in Firefox 34
In Firefox 34, which is in beta at the moment, Mozilla has introduced a new Search UI. Unlike the previously available search box where you had to explicitly choose a different search provider if you wanted to search with it, the new interface shows you a drop down allowing you to select the search provider while you are typing the search query. As you are typing, the search box now shows a list of installed search providers, allowing you to send a request to another service besides the default one. For instance, you can instantly search with Wikipedia, even if the default search provider is Google.
Personally I like this new option, but some users don't and would like to get rid of the new search UI. Here is how it can be disabled.
Open command prompt fullscreen in Windows 10
In previous versions of Windows, you had the ability to enter fullscreen mode for the command prompt. Windows XP was the last version where this worked. In Windows Vista, Microsoft removed the fullscreen mode leaving us with a small black window. Recently, I covered that in Windows 10, the command prompt has been improved significantly by adding lots of new features. Now, with build 9879 of Windows 10, Microsoft has restored the ability to go fullscreen for the command prompt. Let's see how.
All ways to open the command prompt in Windows 10
In my articles, I often refer to command line tools and console utilities. Previously, I wrote how to open an elevated command prompt in Windows 10, but today I would like to share with you all the ways to open a regular command prompt.
Get the HTML color code of any web page element in Firefox
Previously, we covered how Mozilla has added an extremely useful command line feature to their Firefox browser. Let's continue exploring more useful built-in commands available in Firefox. The command line functions are very helpful and save you time. We already saw the screenshot command which allows you to take a screenshot of a web page or the entire browser window, and also the folder command which can open any folder from Firefox directly. Let's take a look at another brilliant command, eyedropper.
Windows 8.1 November 2014 update rollup is out
There is good news for all Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 users. The November 2014 update rollup is out and available for download. This update rollup is a big package and brings some improvements to Windows 8.1 besides resolving a number of issues. It also includes all previously released updates since the last major update in April 2014. Let's see what the change log includes for this update rollup.
Microsoft to block Classic Shell in Windows 10: here is why
If you read Winaero regularly, you might be familiar with the awesome Classic Shell application. It became famous thanks to an excellent Start menu implementation with several styles from classic Windows 95-like to modern Windows 7-like. Classic Shell also provides a number of very useful fixes to significantly improve Explorer's behavior and revive its must have features like customizable toolbars or status bar size. Users who have already installed Windows 10 Technical Preview 3 Build 9879 are facing a strange issue that Classic Shell cannot be installed. The operating system simply does not allow the installer to do its work!
Windows 10 features new text to speech voices for Narrator and Cortana
New versions of Windows often add new text-to-speech voices. Windows Vista added Anna which was retained up to Windows 7. Windows 8 also had new voices, David, Zira and Hazel. Windows 10 features a set of additional voices in Technical Preview. In the current build 9879 of Windows 10, enthusiasts have discovered the following new voices in the US English version : Microsoft Mark Mobile and Microsoft Eva Mobile, and a special test voice designed for Cortana. The older Windows 8 voices are also present. It is possible to unlock the "Eva" voice and check it out if you're interested. Here is how.
Get free disk space back after upgrading to Windows 10
If you installed Windows 10 over a previous Windows version like Windows 8 or Windows 7, you might have noticed that free disk space on your disk drive was considerably reduced. This is nothing new. For modern versions of Windows it is the default behavior. When you do an in-place upgrade from a previous version of Windows, setup saves a lot of files from the earlier installed OS during the upgrade and fills your hard drive with files that you might never need again if your upgrade is successful. The reason setup saves these files is so that if something goes wrong during setup, it can safely rollback to the earlier version of Windows. However, if your upgrade was successful and you've got everything working perfectly, then there's no need to keep these files. You can reclaim all the wasted disk space by following these simple instructions.
