Advertisement

FIX: Windows plays no sound for tray balloon tips (notifications)

Windows has played sounds for various events for a long time now. Windows 8 also introduced some new sound events such as Metro toast notifications. But in Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows Vista, no sound is played for desktop notifications it shows in the system tray area. In Windows XP, it played a popup sound for balloon tips in the notification area so that even if you were away from the PC or the display was turned off, you would come to know that the system was notifying you about something via balloon tips. In modern versions of Windows, balloon tips are displayed silently. Well, luckily this can be fixed quite easily.

How to manage wireless networks in Windows 8.1 and Windows 8 using Classic Shell

Previously, we wrote about how to manage wireless networks in Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 from the command prompt. However, the command prompt and netsh are a very cumbersome way to change their priority, delete network profiles or rename them. Instead, you can manage wireless networks from the GUI if you use the Classic Shell Start Menu. Let's see how.

Turn on Xmouse active window tracking (focus follows mouse pointer) feature in Windows 8.1, Windows 8 and Windows 7

Ever since Windows 95, the operating system has had a feature called Xmouse where the focus of windows can follow the mouse pointer, meaning, as you move the mouse pointer around, the window which is under the mouse pointer becomes the active window. This feature is disabled by default. Let us see how it can be turned on.

Download Winaero XMouse Tuner

Winaero XMouse Tuner.

Allows you to control the hidden options of XMouse behavior in Windows 8 and 7.
You can change the following options:

  • enable or disable window activation option by mouse hover.
  • change the window activation timeout when the mouse pointer hovers it.
  • enable or disable window raising when it is hovered.

This app has been superseded by Winaero Tweaker and is no longer being maintained. Use the following options from Winaero Tweaker:

You can download Winaero Tweaker here: Download Winaero Tweaker.

Avoid accidental and automatic shut down or restart with ShutdownGuard

Microsoft has always allowed applications to shut down or restart Windows programmatically. Installers of various desktop apps, or the apps themselves as well as various Windows components such as Windows Update can automatically shut down or restart your PC on demand or on a schedule.  If you do not like this behavior, thankfully, Windows has a way to avoid it. Using a simple, third party tool called ShutdownGuard, we can stop automatic shutdown, restart, and logoff without affecting manual ways to do it.

The complete list of the keyboard shortcuts of the Mail app in Windows 8.1

Windows 8.1 comes with a modern application, Mail, which serves as the replacement for the good old Outlook Express, Windows Mail and Windows Live Mail. This new Mail app was designed to be used on touch screen devices, but many Windows 8.1 users are classic desktop PC users who do not have a touch screen. Those users may want to control the Mail app with keyboard shortcuts. In this article, I would like to share the complete list of keyboard shortcuts for the Mail app in Windows 8.1.

How to change the default Shut down power action in Windows 8.1 and Windows 8

Windows 8 made it more cumbersome for PC users to shut down the PC by increasing the number of clicks it takes using the mouse and keyboard. There are actually a dozen ways to shut down so you can use any method you like. One of them is the classic Shutdown dialog which appears when you press Alt+F4 on the Desktop. It is a good way to shut down as it can do a hybrid shut down and it doesn't show the Metro UI. However the default action in that dialog is no longer changeable from the Taskbar Properties in Windows 8 because of Start Menu settings going away. Let us see how we can change this action.

transparent
css.php
Using Telegram? Subscribe to the blog channel!
Hello. Add your message here.