System Protection, which was introduced as System Restore in Windows Me, is a very useful feature which exists in all modern versions of Windows and allows you to have a snapshot of important system files, installed apps and registry settings. If something goes wrong, you can use this feature to restore your PC to a working state. In Windows 8.1, System Protection is turned on by default for the drive that Windows is installed on. If you don't use it, you can turn it off. Alternatively, you can adjust the amount of disk space used by System Protection.
Turn Task Manager into a widget with the Summary View feature
The Task Manager app in Windows 8 comes with a feature called "Summary View", which allows you to modify the appearance of the app completely. When Summary View is enabled, the Task Manager looks like a desktop gadget. It shows CPU, Memory, Disk, and Ethernet meters in one compact window. Let's see how to activate this mode.
Nature HD#42 theme for Windows 8
How to add Copy as Path button to the Classic Shell Explorer toolbar
As a Windows user who is forced to use Explorer very often in Windows 7 and Windows 8, I am trying to make it more convenient than it is out of the box.The main issue with Explorer is that it's not customizable, as it was in Windows XP. Even though Windows 8 has the Quick Access toolbar, it has very small icons and does not allow any custom buttons. While it is possible to add any desired command to the command bar of Explorer in Windows 7, they can only be text buttons, without icons. So I decided to install the awesome freeware, Classic Shell.
How to make the echo command without new line in Windows
By default, the echo command adds a new line character to its output. For example, if you print some environment variable, the output will be appended with an extra line. The extra line can create a problem if you wish to copy the output to the clipboard to be used in another command. Today we will see how to get rid of the new line character in the echo command output at the command prompt.
How to see names and values of environment variables in Windows 8 and Windows 7
Environment variables in an operating system are values that contain information about the system environment, and the currently logged in user. They existed in OSes before Windows as well, such as MS-DOS. Applications or services can use the information defined by environment variables to determine various things about the OS, for example, to detect the number of processes, the currently logged in user's name, the folder path to the current user's profile or the temporary files directory. In this article, we will see how to view environment variables defined on your system and their values for the current user, for specific processes and the system variables.
Why so many svchost.exe processes are running in Windows
When you open the the Processes tab of the Task Manager in Windows 7 or the Details tab of Task Manager in Windows 8, you will be surprised to see that a large number of processes are named svchost.exe. Today, we will see why Windows needs so many instances of the SVCHOST process and how to identify which svchost process runs which groups of services.
Fix: Notification area (system tray) icons are messed up in Windows 8
After using Windows for a while, and installing/uninstalling programs, you may end up with many unwanted icons showing up in the Customize Notification Area Control Panel. There is no way to remove these icons from the list; certain icons remain there even if you have already removed their app. Another issue which users commonly report with the notification area (system tray) is that System icons like Network, Sound, Power get turned off and the 'Behaviors' dropdown which allows turning them on is greyed out. Let us see how to fix these two problems - both issues have one solution.
Nature HD#41 theme for Windows 8
