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Showing posts from January, 2017

Disable Fancy Features for Better Performance

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Windows includes all sorts of little visual enhancements that make it more pleasant. However, this eye candy takes up system resources. You can turn these features off if you prefer performance over visuals. To do so, type performance into the Start Menu and click Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows . You’ll see a list of animation elements that you can toggle on or off. By default, most of them are on; you can click Adjust for best performance to disable them all at once. This disables small bits like windows moving in real time when you drag them and pop-up animations of windows. After a day or two, you probably won’t even notice these are missing.

How to Give Windows 10 a Dark Theme

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A lot of people prefer light text on a dark background, particularly when navigating through menus on their  computers. Some visually-impaired users also find find a "dark" or high-contrast theme much easier to read. By default, Windows 10's widgets, menus, email client and Edge browser all have black or blue text on a white or gray background. However, by tweaking a few settings, you can give the entire operating system a dark theme. Edit Themes in the Registry 1. Open the registry editor by hitting Windows + R and typing "regedit" in the run field. 2. Navigate to  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes by opening the tree in the left side of the window. 3. Create a new key by right clicking in the window pane and selecting New -> Key 4. Name the key "Personalize" and open it. 5. Create a new DWORD (32-bit) value by right clicking in the right pane and selecting New > DWORD (32-bit).

How to Change the Default Font in Windows 10

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If you're not a fan of the default font in Windows 10, Segoe, you can change it to your preferred font with a simple registry tweak. This will change the fonts for Windows 10's icons, menus, title bar text, File Explorer, and more. First we'll back up your registry settings, so you can reverse the changes in case you don't like them later. Then we'll simply update the registry with a .reg file. 1. Press Win+R. 2. Type in regedit and press Enter. 3. Go to File > Export… to save the registry file somewhere on your hard drive. 4. Open Notepad and copy and paste the following into it: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts] "Segoe UI (TrueType)"="" "Segoe UI (TrueType)"="" "Segoe UI Black (TrueType)"="" "Segoe UI Black Italic (TrueType)"="" "Segoe UI Bold (TrueType)"="" "Seg

How to Add Another Column to the Windows Start Menu

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Windows 10 by default shows three columns of tiles in the Start menu. There's a hidden fourth column, though, that can show you more apps and info at a glance when you click the Windows button. Here's how to enable it. 1. Open Settings. You can do this from the Start menu. 2. Click Personalization. 3. Click Start in the left menu and then toggle "Show more tiles" to on. The Start menu will now have an extra column of space, which you can drag tiles into. Bonus tip: If you drag the right edge of the Start menu to the right, you'll get another 4 columns of tiles to rearrange and organize to your heart's content.

How To Disable Cortana in Windows 10

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1. Open regedit  the registry editor, from the search box on the taskbar. If asked, allow the program to make changes to your computer. 2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search But wait! Windows Search might not be there. It wasn't for us, so we had to create it. 2a. Right-click the Windows folder and choose New>Key. Call it "Windows Search." 3.   Right click "Windows Search" and choose New > DWORD (32-bit Value). 4. Name the DWORD "AllowCortana." Click it and make sure the value is "0." 5. Restart the computer (or log out and log back in) . Cortana will be replaced with a regular search bar. While Cortana is gone, it's still hiding. You may find the program running in the background, but you might as well leave it there. When we tried killing the program, Cortana kept popping back up like a weed. When PCWorld managed to kill the process, they couldn't search for a

How to Change the Size of the Taskbar Icons

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If you want to change the size of the icons in your taskbar, there's a different setting for that, which will also change the size of text, apps, and other items across Windows 10. 1. Right-click on an empty space on the desktop. 2. Select Display settings from the contextual menu. 3. Move the slider under "Change the size of text, apps, and other items" to 100%, 125%, 150%, or 175%. 4. Hit Apply at the bottom of the settings window. Windows might ask you to log out and log back in for a more consistent experience. This will not only make the icons in the taskbar a bit larger, but it will also make text bigger in apps like Microsoft Edge and Calendar, as well as in Windows 10 notification windows.

How to Change the Icon Size in Windows 10

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1. Right-click on an empty space on the desktop. 2. Select View from the contextual menu. 3. Select either Large icons, Medium icons, or Small icons . The default is medium icons. On my laptop with a native 1600 by 900 pixels display, the large option looks huge, the small size is too small, and the medium size looks just right (as Goldilocks would say). Your mileage might vary depending on your screen's display resolution. Changing the size of the icons on the desktop doesn't affect the size of the icons elsewhere in Windows 10, but there are ways you can change those too. http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/change-icon-size-windows-10

Wise Hotkey v1.16 was updated

Wise Hotkey keeps on its improvements, and the newly released notes are as follows: Increased the number of shortcuts keys. Fixed the issue of failing to display the system tray icon upon bootup. Updated various translations. More about Wise HotKey Download Wise HotKey

Wise Video Converter v2.11 was released

Wise Video Converter keeps on its improvements, and the newly released notes are as follows: 1.Updated the conversion engine 2.Added the feature of shutdown&hibernation after finishing the conversion. 3.Minor GUI Improvements. Download Now

How to Make the Recycle Bin Empty Itself Every So Often

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Unless you use the Shift + Delete to bypass the Recycle Bin every time you delete a file, you’re always going to end up with a bunch of trash that needs to be taken out once the Bin becomes too full. But using Task Scheduler, you’ll never have to do this by hand again. Start by opening the Start Menu, searching for Task Scheduler, and launching it. Once you have the Task Scheduler open: Click Create Basic Task on the right. Name it Recycle Bin Cleanup . Enter a description if you wish. Select a frequency. Monthly or Weekly are probably the best options — you don’t want it to be too frequent. Select the starting date and the day of the week on which you want the task to repeat. When prompted for an action, select Start a program . Under Program/Script, enter cmd.exe and under Add Arguments, enter /c “echo Y|PowerShell.exe -NoProfile -Command Clear-RecycleBin” Click Finish. That’s all. Starting now, your Recycle Bin will clear itself on the date that you set and

Wise Disk Cleaner 9.41 was updated

Wise Disk Cleaner keeps on its improvements, and the newly released notes are as follows: Optimized the feature of skipping browsers to scan and clean. Updated various translations. Minor GUI Improvements. More about Wise Disk Cleaner Download Wise Disk Cleaner

How to Automatically Open the Most Recent Document in Microsoft Word for Windows

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Maybe you don’t want to add yet another shortcut to your desktop. In that case, you can open the most recent document in Word using either the Search/Cortana box or the Run dialog box. To use the Search/Cortana box, click the Cortana search icon on the Taskbar (or the Search icon, if you’ve disabled Cortana) and enter the following into the box: winword.exe /mfile1   winword.exe /mfile1 To use the Run dialog box to open the most recent document in Word, press the Windows key+R and enter the same command ( winword.exe /mfile1 ) in the Open box. Then, click “OK”. To automatically open other documents in the MRU (Most Recently Used) list, use a different number after /mfile in the Target edit box or in the command entered on the Search/Cortana box or the Run dialog box. For example, to open the next-to-last file you used, add /mfile2 instead of /mfile1 .  

FAQ about Wise Program Uninstaller

How to uninstall a program by Wise Program Uninstaller? Open Wise Program Uninstaller->click the program you want to uninstall->click Safe Uninstall button-> follow the wizard to uninstall the program, when the uninstallation process complete, Wise Program Uninstaller will scan the leftovers (files/registries) of the uninstalled program, then click Remove button to remove the leftovers. What are the differences between Safe Uninstall and Force Uninstall? Safe Uninstall is to use the original program to uninstall, then scan and clean the residues. Force uninstall is to search all related files as well as the register list and delete all of them. It is recommended to use Safe Uninstall which is a safer way. Please choose Force uninstall only when safe uninstall fails and a backup for your system before that is recommended. Why do I use Wise Program Uninstaller to uninstall a program? The uninstalling programs of some programs co

Convert Video Formats with Wise Video Converter

At some point, you may need to change the formats of video files. For example, when you want to compress it to save disk space; when you want to view them on a mobile device; when you upload to the internet, you need a video converter to the format, size or frame rate of the video files. Wise video Converter is an efficient video and audio conversion tool. Wise Video Converter enables you to do any of these tasks in a short time. In the main interface of the program, you can easily choose which kind of device you want to play the video files on. So even if you have little knowledge of video formats, you can use the tool without effort. It will help you choose the format automatically. And the settings button also allows users to edit the format, size, bitrate and other parameters. There is a watermark button next to settings button. Users can add watermarks to protect copyright. Users can import multiple video files at once. Since it will take a period of time, you can choose shut

How to Reset the Windows Registry to Default

The Windows Registry contains a ton of values that make your operating system (OS) run in a certain way. Many times, for cool customizations or fixes to issues, editing the Registry is the only way to make the change. However, if you accidentally screw up when editing the Registry, you can cause some serious problems with your system. This is why it’s a good idea to make a restore point before you make any Registry edits. You can also back up Registry entries so you have a copy to restore if the operation goes south. However, if you’ve done neither of these things and damage your system, you’re probably looking for a way to reset the Registry. While there’s no official way to “reset” only the Registry, you can use Windows’ built-in refresh tools to get everything back to normal. Type  Reset  into the Start Menu and click  Reset This PC  to enter the appropriate menu. You’ll find several options for getting a clean start with Windows here — the  Reset This PC  header is the one

How to Hide the Second Monitor Taskbar on Windows 10

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As soon as you connect a second monitor to your Windows 10 computer, you’ll notice that both screens have the taskbar at the bottom. Maybe you like this — and that’s totally fine — but maybe you don’t, in which case you can turn it off. Windows 10 settings aren’t always easy to tweak, but this one is. Open the Start Menu, search for the Settings app, and launch it. Navigate to Personalization > Taskbar and scroll down to the section labeled Multiple displays . If you have a second monitor connected, it should not be grayed out (but will be if you don’t have a second monitor attached). Simply toggle Show taskbar on all displays to Off and the taskbar will only appear on the main display. To change your main display, go back to the Settings app main page, navigate to System > Display , click on the monitor you want as your main, scroll down and check Make this my main display . Done.

How to Play a CD or DVD in Windows Media Player

In Windows Media Player, you can play audio CDs, data CDs, and data DVDs that contain music or video files (also known as media CDs). You can also play video CDs (VCDs), which are similar to DVDs, although the video quality isn't as high. If you have a DVD drive and a compatible DVD decoder installed on your computer, you can use Windows Media Player to play a DVD-Video disc—this is the type of DVD that movies are distributed on. If you encounter an error indicating that you are missing a DVD decoder, select  Web Help  in the error message dialog box to determine how to obtain a decoder. To play a CD or DVD Insert the disc you want to play into the drive. Typically, the disc will start playing automatically. If it doesn't play, or if you want to play a disc that is already inserted, open Windows Media Player, and then, in the Player Library, select the disc name in the navigation pane. If you inserted a DVD, select a DVD title or chapter name. Note If you star

How to Kill Unresponsive Programs Without the Task Manager

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It’s frustrating when programs crash. Everyone has clicked on something in an application, only to have the window gloss over and see the dreaded Not Responding text. Your first move to kill these frozen programs might be to open the Task Manager, which is perfectly fine. However, if you’d like to do this even faster, you can create a shortcut to instantly kill any unresponsive programs. Here’s how. To kill off programs without touching the Task Manager, we can use the taskkill command. Typically, you would type this at the command prompt to kill a specific process. However, it’s clumsy to open up the command line every time a program stops responding, and typing the command every time is a waste. We can do this better with a shortcut. First, right-click space on your desktop and choose New > Shortcut . You’ll be asked to enter a location for the shortcut. In that box, paste the following command: taskkill /f /fi "status eq not responding" This command i

How to Check Network Data Usage on Windows 10

We usually think of saving internet data usage as a problem for mobile phones, but some people might have this concern on Windows devices, too. Whether you have a data cap on your home internet usage or often travel using a limited connection, there are plenty of times you need to manage how much bandwidth Windows 10 uses. With system updates, streaming media, and games downloads, it’s easy to forget how much data you’re using. Thankfully, Windows 10 has a tool for this built right in. To access it, open Settings , then go to Network & Internet , followed by the Data usage tab. You’ll see a ring representing how much data you’ve used on both wireless and wired connections in the past 30 days. For more details, click the Usage details link underneath the ring to open a detailed list of which apps are sucking up data. If you need to check this information often, you can save a few seconds with a shortcut. Right-click on the Data usage entry on the sidebar, and choose