The new Windows 8 Explorer focuses on three tabs at the top: Home, Share,
and View.
Another reason for embracing the new ribbon can be seen in this interesting screenshot
below, check out the approximate popularity
of the various file operations.
If you want to find one of the Apps. Assuming that you are at the
Metro UI, just press a letter on your keyboard! Here is a
screenshot of what happened when I tried 'i'. (No need to launch
Explorer or bring up the Charms and Search).
Bring up the 5 'Charms', then select 'Settings'. Seek out the Power
button, from there you can Shut down or restart Windows 8. Incidentally, one way of
getting the 'Charms' is to press Winkey +c.
Create a Windows 8 Metro Tile
Create a shortcut to your favorite App / command and paste it into this
folder: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs
The combination of Winkey +c brings up the five 'Charms' see above
screenshot. You may already know that the Windows key on its own
switches to the classic desktop. Also if you are in an App then Winkey
acts as return. See more
Windows 8 keyboard shortcuts.
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Libraries are slow to gain acceptance in Windows 7, let us hope that a
tiny change - the ability to change the icon will kick-start interest in
this useful feature.
My Windows 8 tip is to right-click a custom library, then seek the Change
library icon... See Windows 8 screenshot. to the right.
Note: I have not found a way of changing the icon for
built-in Windows 8 libraries.
View Hidden Files
Go straight to the Control Panel --> Appearance and Personalization, then
'Show hidden files and folders'.
I have yet to find a setting on the Explorer Ribbon that toggles 'View
hidden files'. However, you could launch PowerShell and run this instruction:
Rather than complain about the UAC's nagging,
head for the Action Center in the Control Panel and select a less intrusive the setting.
Another way of finding out how to change the user setting control is call
for Help and support then type 'UAC'.
Instructions to Adjust the UAC
Control Panel\System and Security\Action Center
Change User Account Control settings.
One option is 'Never'.
Plan B Control UAC through Group Policy
The purpose of this tip is to alert you to different User Account Control
settings for administrators and ordinary users.
Launch Secpol.msc, and yes do remember the .msc extension.
Golden Oldie Tip - 'Run As Administrator'
This is not so much a Windows 8 tip as remembering a golden oldie that saves
error messages when you run built-in troubleshooting programs. There a
quite a few programs that benefit from a right-click and 'Run as
Administrator'. Naturally, you have to be in troubleshooting mode
before you launch programs such as cmd.exe, regedit, gpedit.msc or
secpol.msc. with elevated privileges that come with 'Run as Administrator'.
The idea of Hyper-Visor is to enable guest OS to
run concurrently on a Windows 8 host. The advantage is that it saves
space and
hardware costs.
You can install Windows 8 Hyper-V from the Control Panel, seek out 'Turn Windows features
on or off' and remember to tick the box, reboot and Hyper-V is ready.
The first job for a Virtual Machine manager is to create a virtual switch
so that your child OS can connect to other machines. The second job is to
create a Windows 8 virtual machine from an .iso file.
Get your free Hyper-V monitor for
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displays the CPU and memory utilization for each node.
It's easy to install and to configure this virtual machine monitor, all
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The first reason for adjusting your Windows 8 library is to specify which
underlying folders contribute to 'My Music, Pictures, Videos and especially,
Documents'.
The second reason is to make sure that your commonly used files are
indexed, thus search quickly.
If you want to add folders from the c: \ drive or even another drive, go
to that folder, right-click and select Include in library, finally, decide
whether to include into the Documents sub-library or one of the other
predetermined categories.
To narrow down your search in Windows 8 use AND, for example Guns and
Rifles. The benefit it reduces the results to items containing both
words. No I am not shouting! A N D needs to be in capitals.
Windows 8 search treats Guns and Rifles differently from Guns and Rifles.
Check the Index settings in the Control Panel. I tend to keep
adding more and more locations, however, my friend Mick is constantly
whittling down the areas on his Windows 8 machines that are indexed, that's
because he's a gamer and wants his machine to run as fast as possible.
Me, I am more interested in being able to find files quickly.
Windows 8 thrives on the latest hard drives with SSD (Solid State
Drives). They are innately faster because unlike conventional disk
drives, there is no wait for
spinning and no head seek delay. It seems that for laptops benefit
from lower energy demands, thus longer battery life. As they have no
moving parts, I can believe claims that they are more reliable than the old
disks, especially as I have had 3 HDD failures in the last 2 years.
Partition Your Disk What ever your disk type I suggest you segment the disk; divide and rule
your data. With today's massive disks I find it convenient to have 3
or 4 different partitions to store my data away from the operating system on
the C:\.
To partition, or leave as one big drive is the subject to fashion.
After years of no partitioning, it now seems fashionable again to at least
have a D:\.
This freeware utility is designed to adjust settings that are not
available, at least in Build 8102 of Windows 8. It works for both 32
and 64-bit versions.
Disable the new Metro Start Screen. This function requires editing a
System File. It does not remove the file.
Disable Metro Ribbon. Disables only the Metro Ribbon UI.
Disable the Metro Start Menu and Ribbon UI, Metro Task Manager
UI and the Lock Screen.
Enable Metro Start Menu and Ribbon. Reverses the above action.
Add Power Options to the Metro Start Screen. Adds Logoff, Switch
User, Lock, Sleep, Restart and Shutdown tiles.
Add your selection of Applications to the Metro UI Start Screen.
Allows you to add those apps and files that may not be normally
available to you to the Start screen.
The Windows 8 Metro Tweaker will be updated with more tweaks from
time to time .
So far, my favourite Metro UI emulator to see Windows 8's Metro UI is Mosaic.
From its live widgets you can run your Windows 7 applications, thus get a
preview of Windows 8 desktop.
Using the arrow (see screenshot) you can add more of your current
programs to the Mosaic Windows 8 UI emulator.
Note, you also need Microsoft .NET
Framework 4.0. Naturally, this does not turn your Windows 7 machine
into Windows 8, but it does give you a look and feel of the new user
interface.
You could also get the Omnimo 4 skin, which brings a replica of the Windows 8 Start
screen to Windows 7.
The Omnimo screen is rather like that of a Windows Phone 7. Not
only with this app mimic Windows 8, but also it will transform your desktop
into new productive area.
Each tile is interactive and gives you customisable information.
