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Saturday, October 8, 2016

How to Hack Secret Settings in Windows 10

By now you’re probably quite familiar with Windows 10, even if you waited until the end of the free upgrade period to start using the new operating system. We’re also willing to bet that there are things you don’t like about it, or that you think could be done better or more like they were in a previous version of Windows. The good news is that you don’t have to put up with these niggles, because you can easily tweak Windows 10 to elevate it from a good operating system to a great one.

You won’t need to pay for extra hardware or software, or (aside from one tweak) mess around in the Registry, either. In this feature, we reveal the most useful hacks for improving and customising Windows 10. Over the following pages, you’ll learn how to change the way Windows 10 looks and works, disable features you hate and restore functions that you miss. 

                                                

                      RESTORE THE FEATURES YOU MISS 


                                           
Floating Desktop gadgets were last seen in Windows 7, but you can bring them back by installing 8GadgetPack.


Bring back Desktop Gadgets 
Windows 7 lets you place floating gadgets, such as clocks, calendars, photos, news feeds and system monitors, on your Desktop. This feature was removed from Windows 8 onwards due to what Microsoft describes as “serious vulnerabilities”, but lots of people liked gadgets. If you’re one of them, you can get the feature back by installing the third-party tool 8GadgetPack (8gadgetpack. net). Despite its name it works fine with Windows 10, although, annoyingly, some of the 50+ gadgets available aren’t compatible with the Anniversary Update at least until 8GadgetPack itself is updated. 

Another alternative is Gadgets Revived (gadgetsrevived.com). Download the sidebar and then choose some gadgets to put in it. You’ll find a Control Panel option for Gadgets Revived under ‘Appearance and Personalisation’, Desktop Gadgets.

   Benchmark your PC to find out how well it performs, and how your various components measure up.

Restore the Windows Experience Index 
Windows Experience Index, or WEI for short, is a basic benchmarking tool in Windows 7 (and Vista) that rates the performance of your PC and gives it an overall score out of 10, as well as individual scores for your computer’s processor, memory, graphics, gaming graphics and primary hard drive. WEI isn’t the most informative benchmarking tool around, but it helps you identify which areas of your system are the weakest and would benefit most from an upgrade.

Microsoft dropped WEI from Windows 8 and later versions, but you can perform the same function by installing ChrisPC Win Experience Index 4 (www.chris-pc.com). Download the software and run it to find out how your system performs – but make sure you decline the bundled RelevantKnowledge junk during installation.


                             You can restore Windows Media Center to Windows 10 by installing WMC

Get back Windows Media Center
Microsoft dropped Media Center from Windows 10, replacing it with an optional, expensive and very basic DVD player. However, you can restore this useful software by installing an unofficial new release called WMC for Windows 10. This is available to download for free from Google Drive in 32-bit (bit.ly/2dSEFEM) and 64-bit (bit.ly/2dBkT5J) editions. Because the WMC files are rather large, Google Drive can’t scan them for malware, so before you install either version it’s worth checking the download with your antivirus program or VirusTotal (www.virustotal.com) to make sure it’s not harbouring anything nasty (both were clean at the time of writing). 

Extract the WMC folder to your system drive and open it. Right-click _TestRights.cmd and choose ‘Run as administrator’. Then right-click Installer. cmd and select ‘Run as administrator’ again. Exit when prompted. When you want to run the program, you can either search for ‘Media Center’ or launch it through Windows Accessories in the Start menu. For easier access, pin WMC to Start or your taskbar.



                      CHANGE THE WAY WINDOWS 10 WORKS 

                              Stop Windows 10 sending data about your activities to Microsoft

Limit Microsoft’s data gathering 
Windows 10 spies on its users in two ways. The first is that it collects data about how you use the operating system (how you speak or type, for example) to improve the way Windows responds. However, it also reports ‘telemetry’ data back to Microsoft. This includes details of your hardware, how long you spend using Windows, details of any crashes and other information that could prove useful to the company.

If you don’t like the idea of your data being collected like this, you can limit the amount of telemetry information Windows passes back to Microsoft by clicking Start and opening Settings. Open the Privacy section and scroll down to ‘Feedback & diagnostics’. Here you can set how and when Windows asks you for feedback, and change what device data it sends to Microsoft. This option will probably say ‘Full (Recommended)’ by default. You can’t disable it completely, but you can switch it to Basic, which stops your PC sending diagnostics data and ‘enhanced insights’ about how you use the apps installed on your PC and how stable they are. If you want even greater control, you can use Spybot Anti-Beacon (bit.ly/antibeacon407) to adjust a host of hidden telemetry settings in Windows 10. See our Mini Workshop below to find out how to use the program.

                O&O ShutUp10 makes it easier to find and change your privacy settings in Windows 10

Stop Windows 10 spying on you 
As well as addressing Microsoft’s telemetry gathering, you might want to take control of other details Windows 10 records. The Privacy section of Settings contains lots of options that you can enable or disable, but they’re spread over numerous categories. This confusing arrangement makes it much harder to find everything, let alone work out what you should be changing. For total peace of mind, you’ll want to make sure you don’t miss anything important. Thankfully, there are plenty of third-party apps that gather all the privacy settings together, making it easier to find and disable those you don’t like. Try O&O ShutUp10 (bit.ly/2dBlMLA) or Windows 10 Privacy Fixer (bit.ly/2dBmoRl), both of which list all the privacy options from across Windows 10 in one place.

Skip the Windows 10 login screen 
If you’re the only person who uses your PC, you can save time by setting it to bypass the Login screen and boot to the Desktop. Open the Start menu and type run. Press Enter, and type netplwiz into the Run box. Click OK and highlight your account. Untick ‘Users must enter a username and password to use this computer’. Click Apply, then enter your password twice and confirm it. To check that it has worked, reboot your PC and it should go straight to the Desktop. If you want to restore the Login screen, repeat the process but tick the ‘Users must enter a username and password to use this computer’ box.


                     CHANGE THE WAY WINDOWS 10 LOOKS 

Customise the Start menu 
There are several ways to customise Start in Windows 10, but the easiest is to use Windows’ own settings. Click Start, open Settings then click Personalisation and select Start. From here you can change the number of tiles that appear in Start and toggle ‘suggestions’ (essentially adverts) on or off. You can also show your ‘most used’ and ‘recently added’ apps, and switch between a Start menu and a Start screen. What’s more, you can choose which folders – such as File Explorer, Settings, Downloads Pictures, and Network appear on Start.
                           An easy way to hack the Start menu is to change Personalisation settings

If you want to make more advanced changes such as replacing Windows 10’s Start menu with a Windows 7-style version the excellent Classic Shell tool (www.classicshell.net) is ideal. This free program lets you apply dozens of customisations read our Mini Workshop on the right to find out how to use it. Other useful customisation tools include IObit Start Menu 8 (bit.ly/2dBn9cV) which, despite its name, is fully compatible with Windows 10 and the highly sophisticated Start10 (bit.ly/2dBnpJ6), which costs $4.99 (£3.82). A free 30-day trial is available, but make sure you reject the offer to install Fences when installing the software.

                       Windows 10 gives you greater control over the taskbar than ever before

Tweak the Windows 10 Taskbar 
There are plenty of changes you can make to the Windows 10 taskbar too. To access Windows’ own controls, right-click the taskbar and go to Settings. The window that opens includes options to lock the taskbar, hide it in Desktop or tablet mode, use small taskbar buttons, show badges on buttons (to indicate that you have unread messages, for example) and choose a different location for the bar (left, right, top or bottom). You can also combine taskbar buttons, choose which notifications appear and if you have more than one monitor attached to your PC specify which screens the taskbar appears on.

                         Make more extensive changes to your taskbar using 7+ Taskbar Tweaker

If you’d like to go further than Windows 10’s options allow, try 7+ Taskbar Tweaker (bit.ly/2dBmvft). This free program was originally designed for Windows 7, but it works with all later versions of Microsoft’s operating system, including Windows 10 Anniversary Update. All the program’s tweaks are presented on a single screen, with categories that include Taskbar Items, Grouping and Combining, and Other. You can use the program to apply a range of advanced hacks, such as hiding the Start and Show Desktop buttons, and reserving empty space on the taskbar.

                         Windows 10’s new dark theme gives the OS a smarter, if more sombre, look

Enable the dark theme 
Windows 10 Anniversary Update comes with a dark theme that completely changes the look of the operating system, including the Start menu and apps. To switch to this smart new theme, click Start and open Settings. Click Personalisation, then click the Colours option on the left. Scroll to the bottom and you’ll see an entry that says ‘Choose your app mode’. Change this from Light to Dark, then turn off the options ‘Make Start, taskbar, and action centre transparent’, ‘Show colour on Start, taskbar, and action centre’ and ‘Show colour on title bar’. This change isn’t applied to every program or feature in Windows – some, such as File Explorer, remain in light mode. But it certainly looks stylish.

                                         

                  DISABLE THE FEATURES YOU HATE 

Remove Cortana from your PC’s Lock screen 
The Windows 10 Anniversary Update puts Cortana on your Lock screen so that you can use the personal assistant without needing to sign into or unlock your PC. If you never use Cortana, this change will seem pointless and perhaps even annoying, but disabling the feature is easy. Just click the Cortana button next to Start, choose Settings and flick the ‘Lock screen’ toggle to Off.

Disable Cortana completely 
Microsoft’s personal assistant Cortana is useful for lots of things, such as searching the web, setting reminders, identifying a song that’s playing, performing calculations and checking the weather, but if you have no use for it, or you prefer to search for things in the more traditional way, you can disable the feature. In the Anniversary Update, Microsoft made Cortana much harder to kill by removing the ‘Off’ switch in ‘Cortana and search settings’, but you can disable it anyway using the Group Policy Editor. This is available in the ‘professional’ versions of Windows 10 but not the Home edition.

To curtail Cortana in the professional versions, click Start, type gpedit.msc and hit enter. Navigate to Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Search. Locate the Allow Cortana option and double-click it. Select Disabled, then click Apply and OK to turn off the feature. Windows 10 Home users will need to apply a Registry tweak (the only one in this feature!) instead. Click Start, type regedit and press Enter. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search. Right-click Windows Search and select New, Dword (32-bit) Value. Call this AllowCortana, then double-click it. Set its value to 0 and click OK.

Hide the Windows Defender icon Some users who upgrade to the Anniversary Edition report seeing a new icon for Windows Defender appear in the System Tray. If you don’t want it there you can get rid of it in one of two ways. The first is to right-click the.

Uninstall unwanted apps 
Windows 10 comes bundled with some apps you’re never likely to use, such as 3D Builder, Groove Music, Candy Crush Soda Saga and Feedback Hub. To remove any you don’t want, go to Start, Settings, System and select ‘Apps & features’ on the left. Select an unwanted app and click the Uninstall button for it. You can remove unwanted apps in bulk by using IObit Uninstaller 6 (bit.ly/2dBoHUk). Select Windows Apps on the left, then click the Windows Apps heading and pick the ones you don’t want. Click Uninstall to remove them all. We’ll be taking a closer look at uninstalling unwanted software in next issue’s cover feature.

Hide the Windows Defender icon 
Some users who upgrade to the Anniversary Edition report seeing a new icon for Windows Defender appear in the System Tray. If you don’t want it there you can get rid of it in one of two ways. The first is to right-click the taskbar and select Task Manager. Click the More Details button, then click the Start-up tab. Select the ‘Windows Defender notification’ entry, click the Disable button and restart your PC (or log off and back on again). When Windows restarts, the icon will be gone. The other option is to click Start and type icons. Click ‘Select which icons appear on the taskbar’ and disable the icon from there.

                            Nothing on the agenda today? Then why not get rid of the agenda altogether?

Remove your empty agenda from the clock 
If you click the taskbar clock in Windows 10 Anniversary Update, you’ll see a calendar and daily agenda below that. If you don’t use the calendar app and never schedule events in Windows, the feature serves no purpose, and being reminded of your empty agenda every day may even prove depressing. You can easily banish this element by clicking the ‘Hide agenda’ option in the bottom-right corner, or if you prefer you can remove it entirely.

To do this, click Start, Settings and select Privacy. Click Calendar on the left-hand side and, in the right-hand pane, toggle ‘Let apps access my calendar’ to Off. Now when you click the clock, the agenda will be gone. It’s worth pointing out that some apps, including People, require access to the calendar to work properly, so bear this mind if you use any of them

                          You can hack Windows 10 to stop it downloading updates automatically

Pause automatic updates 
Windows 10 automatically downloads updates in the background. Thankfully, the Anniversary Update lets you set Active Hours to stop the OS installing updates and restarting your system while you’re busy. Open Start, and click the Settings button, then go to ‘Update & security’ and specify your Active Hours there. You can also pause updates through the Command Prompt. Rightclick the Start button and select ‘Command Prompt (Admin)’. Type net stop wuauserv and press Enter, then type net stop bits, and press Enter again. Finally type net stop dosvc. Press Enter, then close the window. To resume downloads, open Command Prompt (Admin) and type net start wuauserv, and Press Enter. Type net start bits and press Enter again. Finally, type net start dosvc, press Enter and close the window.
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1 comentarios :

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