Launching Windows 8 Performance monitor

There are various ways to open Performance Monitor in Windows 8. Some of the methods are given below:

1. Go to Run (Windows Key + R) and type perfmon. This will open Performance Monitor immediately.
2. Go to Settings Search (Windows Key + W) and search for “performance” and select Performance information and tools. Under Advanced Tools, select “Open Performance Monitor”



3. You can also open Performance Monitor by going to Control Panel (Windows Key + X + P) -> Search for performance and Select Performance Monitor under Performance Information and Tools.

Using Performance monitor to trace performance data

The first screen of Performance Monitors a system summary which includes some technical stats about the CPU and memory.

You will need to go to Performance Monitor under Monitoring Tools in order to set your own data counters. By default, CPU counter is shown in real-time.

You can add more counters by pressing the plus button or using “Ctrl + N” shortcut key. The performance counters are categorized into several action categories, making it easier for the user to find the exact counter he’s looking for. For example, if you want to monitor your laptop battery stats like charging and discharging rates, remaining capacity etc., you can expand the “Battery status” category, select the counters you want to monitor and click the “Add” button.

Each counter will be represented with a different color. You can check or uncheck counters in order to show the graph of selective counters.

If you are unsure of which counters to monitors, a few pre-defined system monitors are also available. You can go to “Data Collector Sets -> System” and select the collector set of your choice, right click it and select Start to start the monitoring process.

The default system monitors will run for 60 seconds only. If you want to monitor certain aspects of your computer regularly, you can create a new Data Collector Set by right clicking “User Defined” under Data Collector Sets and create a new set. Go to its properties to add new counters and set a schedule for running this performance counter.

Some uses of Performance Monitor

Now that we have learned how to capture performance data using Windows 8 Performance Monitor, let’s go through some interesting uses of the Performance Monitor.

Generating system health reports

To generate system health report, open Performance monitor and go to “Data Collector Sets -> System -> Right click System Diagnostics” and select start. This will start a 60 second monitoring. When the performance monitor has completed its process, head towards Reports -> System -> System Diagnostics and select the appropriate report. In the right hand pane, you can view detailed health reports about each hardware and software component of the computer.

Analyzing system performance

You can use the Performance Monitor to analyze system performance. The system performance monitor is pre-defined data collector set and can be run under “Data Collector Sets -> System -> System Performance”. This will also generate a 60 second performance report. If you want to run the performance reports for much longer interval of time, you will have to create your own custom data collector set and set its schedule in Properties.

Checking reliability of the system

Performance Monitor can be used the check the reliability of the system by running the following command: perfmon /rel. This will analyze the event logs and display information, warnings and errors in a graphical format. The overall system stability is assessed from a scale of 1 to 10.

Running Performance Monitor like Task Manager performance tab

Windows Task Manager performance tab comes with a default set of resources to monitor. If you want to check the performance counters of specific resources, you can run Performance Monitor as a standalone tool and configure your performance counters. To run Performance Monitor in standalone mode, use the command perfmon /sys

By following this guide, you will be able to monitor the performance of your system properly and identify the factors that bog down your system.

What other tools do you use to monitor the performance of your system?

The post How to Use Windows 8 Performance Monitor to Analyse Your System Performance appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Difference between active and passive sniffing

Sniffing is a technique for gathering network information through capturing network packets. There are two types of sniffing – active sniffing and passive sniffing. In active sniffing, the packet sniffing software sends requests over the network and then in response calculates the packets passing through the network.

Passive sniffing does not rely on sending requests. This technique scans the network traffic without being detected on the network. It can be useful in places where networks are running critical systems like process control, radar systems, medical equipment or telecommunication, etc.

Please note that a packet sniffer can work only on a common collision domain. That means you can only use a packet sniffer on a network that you’re a part of. This implies that a packet sniffer can’t be used for any hacking attempt from outside the network.

Preparing to run NetworkMiner

NetworkMiner is a host centric network analysis tool with passive sniffing capabilities. Host centric means that it sorts data with respect to the hosts rather than the packets (this is done by most active sniffing tools).

The NetworkMiner user interface is divided into tabs. Each tab provides a different angle of information of the captured data. The following are the steps to running NetworkMiner for it to analyze network traffic:

1. If you are running Windows 7 or Windows 8, you will need to run NetworkMiner.exe with administrative privileges.

2. Select the network interface for which the data has to be captured.

3. By default, the Hosts tab is selected. You can sort hosts by IP address, MAC address, hostname, Operating System etc.

Press the start button to begin the sniffing process.

Analyzing data in NetworkMiner

On the Hosts tab, you will see a list of hosts connected to the network. You can expand any host to see detailed information like its MAC address, hostname, Operating System, TTL, Open ports, packets sent, received etc. A good network admin always has an overview of what data is being transmitted to and from his network. The list of hosts will give you a better idea of what type of network traffic you are using.

If you find a suspicious host, you can always block it through your firewall. The firewall should be the one from where all network traffic passes before reaching the destinations. If you block the host on your system firewall, it will only be blocked on your system.

If you are using any other network sniffer that can save the PCAP file, NetworkMiner can also analyze the PCAP file and let you go through the data offline.

One clever feature of NetworkMiner is that it can reassemble the files transmitted through the network and then download them in complete form. This can be done from the Files tab. You can also capture and download images from the network traffic from the Images tab.

Sending passwords in clear can be highly dangerous for the network as a whole. If you want to check if any host is transmitting passwords in clear text, you can see it in the Credentials tab.

Conclusion

NetworkMiner can be highly useful for Wifi networks that are constantly open to new threats. It can audit and analyze network traffic regularly in order to block vulnerabilities and weak areas.

If you are running a network, which packet sniffing tool do you use to check your security? Does it analyze and audit? I had been using Wireshark but have fallen in love with NetworkMiner because of its simplicity and ease of use.

Image credit: Crawdad Network-Reuters coverage

The post How To Capture And Analyze Network Traffic Using NetworkMiner appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

ServiWin is a portable tool which can help manage Windows drivers and services by displaying a list of what is installed. It also gives the status of the service whether it is stopped, started or disabled. The list of information ServiWin provides is quite long. The information further includes Startup type, Error Control, dependencies, file version, company, file location, command-line etc.

Since ServiWin is a portable utility, you only need to extract the executable from the zip file and run it. The interface of ServiWin is quite simple. Upon running, it will automatically display a list of drivers installed in the system. The information is quite in-depth compared to the Windows Device Manager.

ServiWin also displays a list of Windows services. You can switch between the list of drivers and services using F7 and F8 shortcut keys or from the View menu.

ServiWin marks the services and drivers using colors. The color coding is as follows:

• Blue: These services are currently running in the system.
• Red: These services are currently disabled.
• Purple: These services start automatically on Windows Startup but are currently stopped.

You can start, stop, pause or restart a service or driver. To apply these actions, just right click the appropriate service and select the appropriate action from the Change Status submenu. To make it easier, the shortcut keys for these actions are as follows:

• Stop -> F2
• Start -> F3
• Restart -> F4
• Pause -> F6
• Continue -> F9

You can also search for a specific driver or service by its name on Google Search. For this, you will only need to right click the driver and select “Google Search – Executable name” or “Google Search – Service name”.

An HTML report for the selected items of all the services and drivers can be prepared as well. For this, just go to the View menu and select the HTML report item.

If you are a network administrator and want to manage the drivers and services remotely, you can do so easily using ServiWin. ServiWin provides remote connectivity function for computers connected to the local area network. For connecting to the remote computer, go to the File menu and select “Select computer”. From the next dialog box, select “Connect to the following remote computer” and enter the IP address or the name of the remote computer.

This tool is perfectly suited for network administrators who want to manage Windows drivers and services remotely. The only thing missing in ServiWin is the ability to install and uninstall device drivers. If this functionality is added to the software, it can easily replace the Windows Device Manager.

How do you manage your devices in Windows? Let us know in the comments area below.

ServiWin

The post How To Easily Manage Windows Drivers And Their Services appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Windows includes a tool called Windows System Information for checking the hardware and software details. You can check the basic details about your computer with it. To open this tool, go to Run and type in msinfo32.

You can also get quick information by opening Computer properties (Windows Key + Break). The DirectX tool can be used to view information about the graphics and sound cards. However, these tools are still basic in nature and will not be able to give complete hardware and software information of the computer.

The following are useful tools to check the system information and get more detailed information about your hardware and software configuration.

CPU-Z

CPU-Z is the most popular system information tool. The graphical user interface of GPU-Z is divided into the following tabs:

CPU – Gives detailed information about the processor including its cores, socket type, stepping, technology, instruction sets supported, cores information, etc.

Caches – This tab gives complete information on the the caches available on the processor (L1, L2, L3 caches)

Mainboard – This tab gives information about the motherboard including its model, chipset, BIOS and graphic interface.

Memory – You can see detailed information about the RAM in this tab. The information includes type of RAM, size, channel, frequency etc.

SPD – This tab displays information about the memory slots available on the motherboard. You can select the slot from the drop-down menu.

Graphics – This will give you information about the GPU installed in the computer.

You have to be careful when installing CPU-Z as it will ask you to install extra software which should not be installed in any case.

Download CPU-Z

Speccy

Speccy is an advanced system information tool by Pirifirm that gives advanced information about the system. The user interface of Speccy is better than CPU-Z. It also organizes information in groups and tabs, but the information is more readable than CPU-Z, and it displays information in real-time. If you see the summary, you will see the CPU and motherboard temperatures along with other information.

Speccy displays information about the Operating System, CPU, RAM, Motherboard, Graphics Card, Hard Drives, Optical Drives, Audio, Peripherals and Network.

Download Speccy

Sys Toolbox

If you want to quickly see detailed system information on one screen, Sys Toolbox is the utility for you. It can be seen as an identical replacement to Windows System Information tool. The type of information includes Operating System, memory, motherboard (only the serial numbers is displayed), Internet connection, battery status, BIOS information, hard drive information, display, time and CPU summary.

Apart from system information, Sys Toolbox also displays a list of active processes. It can kill the processes that are unwanted by the user. Another interesting feature of Sys Toolbox is that it can retrieve the product key of your Windows installation.

If you are using Windows 7 or Windows 8, you will have to start Sys Toolbox with administrative privileges, otherwise it will give you an error.

Download Sys Toolbox

I hope these free utilities will help you to know more about your computer. How do you check the system information? Are you still using the Windows System Information tool? Let us know in the comments area below.

Just a tip: if you are using Ubuntu, you can use i-Nex for the same purpose of checking system information, and if you are using Mac OSX, you can use Mactracker.

The post Better Ways to Check the System Information in Windows appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

There are several situations where we would like to download Windows updates instead of installing them directly. If you are on a Windows network, you can install WSUS (Windows Server Update Services) which distributes the Windows updates throughout the network. This approach can be limited because you need to have Windows Server installed on the network.

Portable Update is a small portable software which can be a great alternative to WSUS without needing to be installed anywhere. In fact, a user can take Portable Update anywhere using any portable medium including a USB Flash drive. All the downloaded updates will remain in the Cache folder of Portable Update.

Portable Update needs to be unzipped in a separate folder where it can create the necessary folders for saving the Windows updates files. When you run Portable Update for the first time, it will download the necessary files that are required to run the utility.

The user interface of Portable Update is quite simple and is divided into tabs. The first tab displays the history of downloaded and installed updates. If you want to find a specific update, you will need to browse through the list in the History tab because there is no search functionality.

The action starts with the Search tab. To search for new updates, go to the Search tab and press the Start button at the top right corner of the Portable Update window. The Search tab will list all the updates for that specific Operating System. You can select whether to download only the ones needed by this computer or download all the updates so that they can be installed on multiple PCs.

The Start button is the only action available on Portable Update. The function of Start button depends upon the active tab. It will act differently for each tab.

You will need to go to the Download tab and download the updates of your choice. These will be downloaded and saved in the Cache subfolder inside the main Portable Update folder. Whenever you take this folder to any computer and run the Portable Update program, you can simply go to the Install tab and press the Start button. This will install all the updates that are not installed in the system.

The last three tabs of Portable Update are informational tabs. The Services tab will display all the services which are needed to install Windows updates. The Settings tab will list all the configurations of the Portable Update utility including OS Version, application path, last update date, etc. The Log tab simply displays a log of actions performed in the update utility. The Start button is used to refresh information in these three tabs.

I have been playing with Portable Update on my home network and have found it to be very useful to download Windows updates. I have tested it on Windows 8 PCs but didn’t have the option to download updates for two different but supported Operating Systems. If you have tried Portable Update on your own network, let us know in the comments below what you think of it.

The post How To Download Windows Updates And Install On Multiple PCs appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Benefits of Virtualizing Windows Applications

The obvious benefit of portable apps is the ability to take the portable apps anywhere using any means like a USB Flash drive or the Internet. There is no need to install apps everywhere. You just have to take the portable app folder which will also take all the settings and data along with it.

A lesser-known benefit of portable apps is that they can be great in preventing the system from getting viruses. Since most portable apps run in their own virtual containers, the corruption will most likely not affect the whole system.

How Virtualization Works

Evalaze scans the system before actually installing the application. It scans for changed and newly-created files including DLLs, executables, and registry changes. The same scan is run after the installation is complete. The data captured during the scan is saved in a single file with an .evd extension.

When you virtualize Windows applications, you can run different versions of the same software without any data conflicts. The virtualized applications run inside a sandbox. This will make the running applications more secure, and the data will not be written to the system. The data is either written in the virtualized application folder or completely disposed of.

Using Evalaze to Virtualize Windows Applications

Evalaze sports a very simple user interface. You can use a wizard to virtualize an application, or do it manually with all the options at your disposal. We will be using the wizard for this tutorial. You only need to follow simple steps to create a virtual app.

Evalaze wizard asks for the application name and capture path where all the settings will be stored. The default path is C:\capture. If you are using Windows 7 or Windows 8, you should not use the system drive for saving output files from Evalaze due to the restriction of the Operating System. The applications may not work well if they are placed on the system drive.

Press the Next button to start the pre-installation scanning. It may take some time to complete the scan depending upon the size of your system drive. The wizard will look for file system and registry changes and save the system state for comparison with the post-installation scanning state.

After the prescan process is completed, you will need to press the “Select setup” button to select the software setup you want to virtualize. In this step, the Evalaze app will work in the background while you install and configure the software. It is advisable to not run any other app while running Evalaze to avoid any conflicts.

When the installation is completed, configure the app so that all your desired settings are recorded in the virtualized app. After configuration, you will need to return to Evalaze and click on Next button to run the post scan.

The post scan process takes quite a lot of time to complete as it has to first scan the filesystem and registry like it did in prescan and then compare the two.

In the next step, you will need to select the executables which will be used to launch the virtualized application. There will be only be one primary application, but you can select multiple executables which can be run from the portable folder.

After you press the Next button, you will be given two choices:

1. Use WriteCopy-Mode
2. Use Merge-Mode

You have to select one mode of virtualization. In WriteCopy-Mode, the application will be fully virtualized and will not be able to interact with the host Operating System directly. Instead, the sandbox will be used to redirect the write operations to the host OS. In Merge-Mode the application will be able to read from and write to the host Operating System. The Merge-Mode should be used when the application needs to change system files and system registry values.

On the next screen, you will be able to change the name of the sandbox container. The sandbox container will have an extension of .evd and will contain all the files necessary for virtualization.

Finally, you will need to run the build process by pressing the Next button. The virtualized application will be available in the folder named “output” inside the folder which you gave in the first step.

Conclusion

I have been using Evalaze to virtualize Windows applications for a few days now. Some applications work perfectly in WriteCopy-Mode while others need to be set to Merge-Mode. You will need to experiment with different apps to make sure that the applications created with Evalaze are portable and can be run on any Windows system.

We would love to hear about your experience with Evalaze in virtualizing your regularly used apps. We would appreciate any comments in the designated section below.

Evalaze

The post Using Evalaze to Virtualize Windows Applications appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Most people will leave just the Windows Action Center alone and let it do its jobs. However, with some simple configuration, you can get it to work more efficiently (and less annoyingly). This article show you how to make effective use of the Windows Action Center.

Opening the Windows Action Center

In Windows 7 and Windows 8, Action Center works quietly in the background. It keeps on running as a service (WSCSVC Windows Security Center) and alerts the users from the system tray. It will show a white flag in the system tray when there is an alert available.

If you are using Windows 8, you can simply search for “Action Center”.

Alternatively, you can open the Windows Action Center from the Control Panel under “System and Security”.

You can also open Action Center using the shell command. Just run the following command through run dialog:

shell:::{BB64F8A7-BEE7-4E1A-AB8D-7D8273F7FDB6}

This can be useful for software developers who want to open the Action Center right from their programs.

Disabling the Action Center Notification

The Action Center doesn’t work well all the times. Sometimes, it can display the wrong information. For example, if you have installed an antivirus which is not detected by Action Center, it will display an alert (saying that you are not protected) even though you have the latest updated protection installed in your computer. In this case, you can configure the Action Center so that it does not alert you for that specific item.

To turn off or disable Windows Action Center completely:

1. Open Action Center.

2. In the pane on the left, click “Change Action Center settings”.

3. Uncheck all the items, or specific items that you want disabled.

4. Click Ok.

One thing to note is that this doesn’t prevent the icon from showing up in the system tray. To remove the icon:

1. Open Group Policy Editor (Run -> gpedit.msc)

2. Go to “User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Start Menu and Taskbar”.

3. In the right hand pane, find and enable “Remove the Action Center icon”.

This will prevent the Action Center system tray icon from appearing again.

Finally, you will need to disable the Security Center service from Windows Services in order to make sure that Action Center is not taking any resources if it’s not running.

Using Action Center to your advantage

Unless you are connected to a corporate network, it is not recommended to turn off the Windows Action Center. However, there are some settings that you can tweak to make sure your computer is running smoothly.

Automatic maintenance

Automatic maintenance includes tasks like software updates, security scanning and system diagnostics. By default, automatic maintenance runs at 3 AM daily. If your computer is not running all the time, you should set the automatic maintenance to run when your system is running. This will make sure that all the maintenance tasks are run properly, and the Action Center will notify you of any problems in a timely manner. To change the automatic maintenance schedule, do the following:

Go to Action Center and click on Maintenance tab. This will open the maintenance tasks. Click on “Automatic Maintenance” to change the settings.

Adjust User Account Control

User Account Control notifies the users of any programs that are making changes to important parts of the computer.

By default, User Account Control is set to notifying only when apps try to make changes to the computer. It will dim the Desktop and display a warning dialog. This can be annoying, but can be adjusted accordingly.

To make appropriate changes, go to Action Center and select “Change User Account Control settings” from the pane on the left. Move the slider to whatever setting you are comfortable with. Just make sure that you are not turning it off, as this will make your computer vulnerable to spyware and other malware. One thing though, don’t over-reliable on the UAC protect your computer, as it can give you a false security.

Trust This PC

In Windows 8, Microsoft has given an option to connect and log in with your Microsoft account instead of the local Windows account. Using the Microsoft account, you can make your PC trustworthy in the eyes of Microsoft. This will make sure that all the user credentials for apps, websites and networks are synchronized in the cloud using SkyDrive. After synchronization, you will be able to use the same saved user credentials if you log in to another Windows computer using your Microsoft ID.

 Conclusion

Windows Action Center can help to monitor your computer and make sure that it is running smoothly without any security threats and other problems. Understanding the use of Action Center and tweaking it a little bit will make you understand your system better, leading to you being able to resolve issues in a timely manner.

Have you ever played with the Action Center? Do you even know its existence?

The post Making Effective Use of Windows Action Center appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Snarl is a free Windows Notifications replacement which can handle all the notifications and also features a centralized configuration. The best thing about Snarl is that it will not steal the focus of the window when showing a notification. Snarl can display several notifications at the same time without cluttering the screen.

The Interface

After installing Snarl, it will show a welcome notification and an hourly time notification.

The default color scheme of the notification dialogs is dark grey with 100% opacity, but you can change the color scheme along with the opacity in the Snarl preferences. There are several color schemes and styles available which come pre-installed with Snarl.

If you have left the computer, Snarl will show the notification when you start using the system again.

By default, after four minutes of inactivity, Snarl will assume that you are away. You can change this duration by going to “Snarl Preferences -> Options -> Presence.”

There are several things that you can configure in its Preferences section. In the Applications tab, you can find all the applications supported by Snarl. You can also configure settings for each application which will override the default configuration.

The Notifications tab is where you can configure the behavior of the notification balloons.

• Appearance – Change the styles, color scheme, opacity etc.
• Behavior – Change the duration, height, interaction, presence properties etc.
• Layout – Especially useful for multiple screens. You can change where the notifications are shown.
• Sounds – Enable or disable notification sounds.
• Advanced – Some advanced properties like automatic URL detection etc.

Snarl can also forward notifications to a remote computer. This is especially useful in case of a network of computers and the system admin has to see all the system notifications. SNP or GNTP protocols are required to be running on the remote computer. The easiest way to do this is to install Snarl in the remote computer.

The history tab will show all the recent Windows notifications in ascending order. There are two sub-tabs – one will show the notifications that were displayed, and the other will show the missed notifications while you were away. You can double click any notification to replay it.

You can right click the Snarl icon in the system tray for more options. You can also stop or start the notifications according to your needs. The notifications can also be hidden or can also be made sticky.

Using Snarl

Using Snarl is quite simple. There is no special configuration required after installing the app. It will start showing the default notifications after installation. By default, Snarl shows the notifications above the system tray. To see the complete details about the notification, hover the mouse cursor over the notification and click on the View button which will appear on hover.

If you click on the notification itself, it will disappear altogether. You can see the current notifications by right clicking the system tray icon of Snarl and selecting Notification center.

If you want to close all the open notifications, right click the system tray icon and select Hide all notifications. You can also make a notification as sticky so that it remains open all the time.

You can select “Do Not Disturb” from the contextual menu to keep all the notifications hidden until you allow them again. You can always go through the hidden notifications from the Notification Centre.

Conclusion

One drawback of Snarl is that it does not fully replace the Windows notifications. It will only show notifications of applications which are registered with Snarl. There is a good list of supported applications which will work after installing their addons. Just download the addon and install it. It will automatically be registered with Snarl.

The usefulness of Snarl purely depends upon whether your required applications are supported or not. For me, it has become a must have app for my system, as I’m able to configure Windows notifications as per my needs. I also love the history feature of Snarl which will let me replay all the recent notifications that I have missed.

The post How to Receive Better Windows Notifications with Snarl appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

1. Make your documents read-only

Microsoft Word 2013 allows the user to make documents read-only so that no one else will be able to edit the document. This is very similar to converting the document to PDF format so that it becomes the final copy without editable content. This feature is called marking the document as final. Follow the steps below to mark the document as final and make it read-only.

1. Go to File -> Info

2. Click on the “Protect Document” drop down button.

3. Select “Mark as Final”

4. Word will ask for a confirmation stating that the document will be marked as final and then saved. You will have to press the OK button.

5. You will get an information box stating the following:

This document has been marked as final to indicate that the editing is complete and that this is the final version of the document.When a document is marked as final, the status property is set to “Final” and typing, editing commands and proofing marks are turned off. You can recognize that a document has been marked as Final when the Mark As Final icon displays in the status bar.

You can edit the document again by clicking on the “Edit Anyway” button displayed with a yellow strip at the top.

2. Password protect your documents

Password protection has been around since Word 2007. In Word 2013, you can password protect your documents with the steps below:

1. Go to File -> Info

2. Click on the “Protect Document” drop down button

3. Encrypt with Password

4. A new dialog window will open asking to enter the encryption password. Enter the password and press OK.

5. You will need to re-enter the password and press OK again.

Whenever you want to open the document again, Word will ask you for the password.

Please note that if you forget the encryption password, Microsoft Word does not give any way to recover the document. You will probably need to use third-party password cracking utilities which are either expensive or don’t always work.

3. Creating forms in Word with editable fields

There are times when you want to add a form to your document. Word 2013 allows you to create forms with editable fields. You will need to enable the Developer ribbon tab which can be done by following the steps below:

1. Go to File -> Options -> Customize Ribbon.

2. Select the “Developer” checkbox which is unchecked by default. You will see a new tab labeled Developer on the Word 2013 Ribbon.

After creating the form, you can follow the steps below in order to make only the form fields active for editing. All other text will not be editable.

1. Open the document with the form fields

2. Go to File -> Info

3. Click on the Protect Document dropdown menu and select Restrict Editing

4. This will open a sidebar with different options. You have to select “Filling in Forms” in Editing Restrictions. Also select the checkbox “Allow only this type of editing in the document”

5. Click on the “Yes, Start Enforcing Protection” button under “3. Start enforcement”.

6. You will be asked to password protect the document. You can enter the password two times to do so.

You can give this document with the form to anyone who will be able to enter the form fields and save the document.  Nothing else will be editable. To make it editable again, you will have to enter the password which you created while restricting the document.

Conclusion

While there are plenty of office suite around, none of them are as features rich as Microsoft Word. With the security features mentioned above, you will be able to create and protect your documents with little effort. I always prefer to use Microsoft Word for writing and securing my documents. What about you? Which Microsoft Word security features do you like and use the most?

The post 3 Ways to Protect Your Document in Microsoft Word 2013 appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

The Word 2013 Read Mode is just like responsive web design. It will adjust the document according to the screen size. This applies not only to the text but to the rich media content, too, like images, videos, tables etc. The document will scroll horizontally instead of vertically for better presentation on tablets.

Opening documents in Read Mode

First of all, let’s be very clear that read-only mode (protected mode) and the Word 2013 Read Mode are different from each other. The protected mode opens a document in read-only mode keeping security in mind, while read mode opens the document for better viewing.

By default, documents open in Read Mode. You can browse pages by using the arrow keys or by clicking the arrow buttons on the window. You can also use the mouse scroll key to go backward or forward. You can zoom in and zoom out of the document using the slider on the bottom right corner of the Word window. If you want to zoom in on a particular object like an image, double click the object.

Documents can be opened in Read Mode in three different ways.

1. You can click on the book icon (third icon) on the status bar of Word 2013 window.

2. The View tab in the Ribbon also includes a Read Mode button.

3. If you are comfortable with keyboard shortcuts, you can use the “Alt + W + F” keyboard shortcut to open a document in Read Mode.

Configuring Read Mode options

Since Read Mode does not permit the user to edit or change the document, the options are very limited and are mostly related to personalizing the interface for better viewing. Let’s go through the options.

Change the default opening of document in Read Mode

If you don’t like to always open documents in Read Mode, you can change this option by following the steps below:

• Go to Word –> File –> Options
• In the General tab, uncheck “Open e-mail attachments and other editable files in reading view”

Now Word will open your files in print layout by default.

Navigation and comments panes

When you are in read mode, you will see a View menu on top of the Word 2013 window. Clicking on the View button will open the menu for you. The first two items are the navigation pane and comments pane. The navigation pane is especially useful when you are reading a long document and want to jump back and forth frequently and quickly. The navigation pane lets you jump through headings, pages or search results.

Although you can’t edit the original document, you can add comments to it. This is particularly useful in an office environment where a document needs to be reviewed and edited several times.

To add a comment anywhere in the document, right click where you would like to place the comment and select “New comment.”

Column Width

Since the Read Mode is like responsive web design, it can adjust to the screen size automatically. For example, if you have a wider display, a document can open in up to 3 columns of content. The default view opens in two columns like a book. But if you want to open the document in one column which is for a wider layout, you can do so by going to “View -> Column Width”. You will get these three options:

1. Narrow
2. Default
3. Wide

Page color

Some people like to read text in inverted colors. The default color for reading a document is black ink with a white background. If you want to have white text with black background, you can go to “View -> Page Color -> Inverse”. You will find three options in the Page Color menu.

1. None
2. Sepia
3. Inverse

Page Layout

By default, Word scrolls horizontally in Read Mode. If you are not comfortable with this, you can change it to vertical scrolling by going to “View -> Layout -> Paper layout”.

I have found the Word 2013 Read Mode useful especially when reading documents on my tablet or even on my laptop using the three-column layout. Everything seems to adjust perfectly according to the screen size. Read Mode makes the interface minimal so that we can concentrate on reading rather than editing and other tasks. This creates a distraction-free environment for enjoyable reading.

What are your thoughts about the Word 2013 Read Mode? If you are using a tablet to open your documents, does the Read Mode offer any advantage over other layouts?

The post Everything You Need To Know About Word 2013 Read Mode appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Usage

1. Download and install Eusing Maze Lock. On the first run, it will prompt you to reset the default pattern lock.

Pressing OK will take you directly to the configuration window. In order to create your own pattern, you will need to press the “Reset Pattern” button and then draw a pattern on the dots given above. Eusing Maze Lock provides you with three different grids of which you can draw your pattern on. The default grid is 3*3 (9 points) and it is also the least secure. For better security, you can have 16 points (4*4) or 25 points (5*5) grid. Just select a suitable option from the dropdown menu.

Note: While configuring Eusing Maze Lock for the first time, if you leave the configuration screen open (without pressing OK) for a long time, Eusing Maze Lock will automatically lock the system without taking into account that you haven’t created a pattern yet. In my case, I had to restart my computer in order to log into Windows again. For this reason, don’t leave your PC while configuring Eusing Maze Lock. Complete the configuration in one go so that you are safe from any problems.

2. After successfully creating a pattern, Eusing Maze Lock will sit in the system tray and wait for any actions. You can trigger the lock screen by right clicking the system tray icon or by using “Windows Key + A” keyboard shortcut key. Note that the screen locking shortcut key is now “Windows + A” instead of the usual “Windows + L”.

Configuration

Eusing Maze Lock comes with a lot of configuration options. These options can be accessed from the General tab.

The configuration options include the following:

Autolock at Windows Startup – Turned off by default. You can turn it on to load the security software at Windows Startup.

Autolock computer after – Specify the number of minutes of inactivity after which the computer is locked automatically.

Turn off monitor after – Specify the number of minutes of inactivity after which the monitor is turned off.

Autohide unlock window after – I recommend it to a value of Never to avoid problems.

Disconnect Internet when locked

Alert after entering incorrect pattern over – Number of times allowed to enter a pattern. This is necessary to keep the crackers and hackers from using brute force methods to break the security.

Alert mode – Play an alarm after the specified number of retry attempts.

Lock keyboard – You can either use shutdown the computer or lock keyboard in order to prevent hackers from trying too many times.

Unlock mode

There are three unlock modes available in Eusing Maze Lock.

Normal Unlock Mode draws a trail as you fill in the pattern.

Secure Unlock Mode keeps the trail invisible. This is very helpful if you are unlocking your computer in front of someone else.

Dynamic Password Mode will require users to match and enter random generated passwords along with the pattern. This is especially useful to prevent key-loggers.

Conclusion

Enusing Maze Lock does not override the security mechanism in Windows. Instead, you can use Eusing Maze Lock is as an additional layer of security on your computer. If you have configured your computer to be locked after a specific amount of idle time and you are also using Eusing Maze Lock, you will need to enter your password first and then draw the pattern in order to access the Desktop again. Use this utility and stay safer.

Eusing Maze Lock

The post How To Use Android’s Pattern Lock Security In Windows 8 appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

There are two major groups of services. The first group of services includes the default services from Microsoft while the second group consists of services created by third party software.

Accessing and Managing Services

Windows provides a few ways to access and manage the Services installed on the computer.

1. Task Manager

The easiest way to find out about the running services in Windows 8 is via the Task Manager. Open the Task Manager and click the “Services” tab. You should see all the services in your computer.

2. Services Management Console

If you need more information about the services, you can go to “Run -> services.msc”. This will open the Services Management Console where you can view and manage your services.

The advantage of managing Services through the management console is that you will get descriptions of each service making it easier for you to decide what to do with the service.

Viewing only services created by third party software

In most cases, you will only see the big list of services that include both the default services by Microsoft and those that are created by third party software. To only list the third party services, follow the steps below:

1. Open Microsoft Configuration Utility by going to “Run -> msconfig”
2. Go to the Services tab
3. Check “Hide all Microsoft services” (ALT + H)

This will hide all Microsoft-related services and show only those services created by third party software. If you want, you can uncheck any of the services to remove them from running in the background.

Safely disable services without any complication

Some of the services are essential to the system and wrongly disabling them can cause the whole computer to malfunction. If you are not sure which services can be disabled and which one you need to keep it constantly running, you can use Vista Services Optimizer software.

Vista Services Optimizer is a useful software which can the services according to your profile.

1. Download Vista Services Optimizer. Although the software does not mention Windows 8 in the system requirements, I can confirm that it works in Windows 8.

Note: he installer will try to install extra software along with Vista Services Optimizer. You will need to click on Decline instead of Accept in order to install Vista Service Optimizer alone.

2. Open Vista Services Optimizer and click on the “Automatic Tuneup” button. A new window will open where you can select options according to your needs.

3. After completing this, you will need to press the OK button followed by the Optimize button. Vista Services Optimizer will automatically enable or disable services according to the information provided by you.

4. After optimizing, it is recommended that you restart your PC for it to take effect.

Conclusion

There are tons of ways to optimize your Windows machine and disabling the useless services is one of the easiest way to improve its performance. If you have any question on Windows Services, please let us know in the comments.

The post How To Manage The Windows Services In Windows 8 appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

The interface

The user interface of Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery Professional software is intuitive and easy to use. While data recovery is an advanced job, with this software, even a novice will be able to recover the data on their own without requiring any expert help.

The main interface gives you three recovery options:

• Drive Recovery
• CD/DVD Recovery
• Photo Recovery

If you click on the “Drive Recovery” option, you will get a list of hard disks attached to the system and a list of drives available on each hard disk. Clicking on any drive will bring up a sidebar menu with the following options:

• Quick Recovery
• Deleted Recovery
• Advanced Recovery
• Raw Recovery

Quick Recovery will perform a quick scan of the selected volume (drive). This option is very efficient and will give you almost all the deleted data in a few moments. Quick recovery can be performed on only one drive at a time. You can recover data from existing volumes, lost volumes and even raw drives.

Deleted Recovery will list files that were deleted from the media (hard drive or CD/DVD drive). The benefit of this option is that it will only list deleted files. Everything else will be omitted.

Advanced Recovery will give you more options than Quick Recovery while essentially doing the same task. If a drive was deleted or corrupted in a different format than the current format, you may want to use the Advanced Recovery option. Supported file systems include FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, exFAT, NTFS and NTFSS.

Raw Recovery makes use of file signatures in order to recover data from a raw partition. It will scan every bit of the partition and will try to identify and recover data according to the file signatures available in the software.

The CD/DVD Recovery and Photo Recovery options work very similar to the Drive Recovery option but are specialized for UDF file systems and image-only files respectively.

The Recovery Process

Since the Drive Recovery, CD/DVD Recovery and Photo Recovery work in a similar manner, we will only go through the Drive Recovery option. You can follow the same steps for other recoveries.

1. Open Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery Professional software

2. Select the volume or partition that you want to recover

3. Select one of the recovery options

4. If you select the Quick Recovery option, it will start scanning the partition instantly and will display a tree of folders and files that are being retrieved. Please note that it may take some time (even for Quick Recovery) to complete depending upon the partition size and deleted data to be recovered.

5. After scanning is completed, you will be presented with the recovered folder structure. The interface is just like the list view of Windows Explorer

6. You can also preview a file by clicking on it. The preview will open the recovered file inside the Stellar Phoenix software.

Raw Data Recovery works in a very similar fashion. You have to select Raw Recovery instead of Quick Recovery to start scanning for raw partitions.

Recovering data

When you are done with the scanning task, there are two options available for you to recover the deleted files and folders. Either select each and every file and folder of our choice to recover or create a recovery image of the scanned data so that you may be able to load the same data again instantly and recover files afterwards.

When you have completed the scanning process, select the files and folders you want to recover and press the Recover button. This will display the data saving options. You can either recover to a local drive or an FTP location. You can also compress the recovered files by zipping them to save space.

I was quite satisfied with the recovery results when I ran the software on a couple of old hard drives. Together with a USB flash drive support, Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery Professional is an all-in-one recovery tool giving you all the chances and options to recover your precious data.

Giveaway

Stellar Partition Recovery is a $99 premium software and we are glad to have 10 license keys to give away. Here is how you can participate in this giveaway contest and stand a chance to win a copy:

Contest ends 12th March 2013.

Update: This giveaway contest has now ended.

Winners:

1. mihai
2. Tom Saunders
3. Angela Slocum
4. Alex
5. Oliver Powell
6. vinay
7. robert herron
8. SMR
9. Craig Cornell
10. Joseph Mario

Thanks to Stellar for the kind sponsorship. If you would like to sponsor a giveaway, do contact us here.

Stellar Partition Recovery

The post Stellar Phoenix Partition Recovery Review + Giveaway (Update: Contest Closed) appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

1. Using System Information Tool

If you want to see detailed information about your network interfaces and adapters, you can use the system information tool which provides details about each network interface separately. To open system information tool, follow the steps below.

1. Go to “Run” and type “msinfo32” (in Windows 8, you can just search for “msinfo32″). This will open the system information tool. Please note that it may take a few moments before the actual data is displayed on the window.

2. Go to “Components -> Network -> Adapter”.

3. You can scroll through the list of adapters in the right hand pane.

To copy any line of information, just select the line and press “Ctrl + c”. This will copy the information to the clipboard. You can also export complete information about the network adapters by going to “File -> Export”.

You can also get the same information using command line but the information will be less than the one provided by system information tool. To get network interface information through command line, just open command prompt and issue the following command:

Ipconfig /all

This will show details about all the network interfaces, whether active or inactive.

2. Using NetworkInterfacesView Tool

NetworkInterfacesView is a nifty portable tool from Nirsoft. The benefit of NetworkInterfacesView is that it makes use of the Windows Registry in order to get information about the active and inactive network adapters. It will list down both the network adapters which are being used right now and which have been used in the past on the computer. It will give you three statuses of the devices:

• Active devices will be shown with a green status icon.
• Non-operational devices will be shown with a yellow status icon.
• Disconnected devices will be shown with a red status icon.

The default view of NetworkInterfacesView shows only a brief overview of all the network adapters. The view expands as you scroll horizontally. If you want to view detailed information about a particular adapter, just double click the adapter name and a new window will open with detailed information about the device.

Another advantage of NetworkInterfacesView over the built-in system information utility is that it lets the user save information about individual adapters as well as exporting the complete network adapter information.

To save details about individual item, select the item and then select “Save selected item” from the File menu. To save details about all the listed items, select “HTML Report – All items”.

NetworkInterfacesView shows the following information about each network adapter:

• Device Name
• Connection name
• IP Address
• Subnet mask
• Default gateway
• DNS Servers
• DHCP information
• DHCP Servers
• Instance ID
• Instance GUID
• MTU
• Status
• MAC Address

All this information can be obtained from the system information tool (msinfo32), but NetworkInterfacesView presents them in a manner that is easier to understand.

How do you see all your network devices’ properties?

The post How To View The Network Adapter Details In Windows appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

In this article, we will discuss the solutions to tackle two situations:

• prevent your USB drive from getting infected.
• protect your system from USB drive virus attack

1. Securing the USB Flash Drive

There are plenty of solution to safeguard the USB drive, but most of them are computer specific. The method described here should work across different Windows computers.

The following method uses the security permission of NTFS file format to secure your USB drive.

Note: The default filesystem for most USB drive is Fat32, which is good if you are using the it on different platforms such as Linux, Mac OS and Windows. If you are using it primarily on Windows, you can safely convert the file system to NTFS.

Note: You should not convert the USB drive to NTFS if it is less than 2GB in size as the performance of the USB drive may get affected.

To convert a USB drive to NTFS file system, follow the steps below:

1. Insert the USB drive and then go to Device Manager.

2. Under Disk Drives, right click the USB drive name and select “Properties”.

3. Go to Policies tab and select “Better performance” under Removal policy.

4. Now go to Computer, right click the USB drive and select Format.

5. Make sure NTFS is selected from the File System drop down menu.

6. Click “Start” to format the USB using NTFS file system.

Now that we have formatted our USB drive using NTFS file system, the next step is to configure the security permissions such that the root of the USB drive remains read-only.

1. Go to Computer, right click the USB drive and select Properties.

2. Go to the Security tab and make sure “Everyone” has read-only rights on the root folder.

3. Lastly, create a folder called “Write” and give it permissions for read/write. Now whenever you insert your USB drive, any virus on the PC won’t be able to write to the root of the USB drive. For you, you can save your data to the “Write” folder.

2. Keep Windows Safe from USB Drive Virus Attacks

To effectively prevent the virus in the USB drive from attacking the computer, the best way is to disable the “autorun” feature so virus don’t get activated in the first place. (The virus usually hide itself in the “autorun.inf” file in the USB drive so that it is activated the moment you inserted your USB drive.)

To disable the autorun feature of removable devices, use the following registry fix:

1. Go to Run -> regedit. This will open the Registry Editor.

2. If you want to disable autorun for all users, go to the following key:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

If you want to disable autorun for only one user, go to the following key:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

3. Create a new Hex value with the name: NoDriveTypeAutoRun

4. Change the value of the created key to: 4 (HEX)

5. Restart Windows Explorer. This will disable auto run feature for all removable drives.

If you are not adventurous enough to edit the registry, the following tools can monitor the USB ports for USB drive insertion and disable the device until you take additional action to activate it. Some of the tools will be able to detect and disinfect the USB drives from viruses too.

1. Phrozen Safe USB

Phrozen Safe USB runs in three different modes.

• USB Devices fully operational – This is the default mode in which the USB drives will function in normal read/write mode. Anyone can read from and write to the USB drives.
• USB Devices in read only mode – This mode will restrict all the USB devices to read-only mode. The content in USB drives can be read but can’t be written.
• USB Devices disactivated – This mode will disable the USB storage device support on the system.

The last option “USB Devices disactivated” (the typo is in the software. we leave it as it is) is the one you need. Once this option is selected, it will prevent all USB storage device from running, until further permissions are given.

Phrozen Safe USB

2. Ninja Pendisk

Ninja Pendisk is another popular choice for monitoring the USB drives for malware. Ninja Pendisk is a portable utility which will wait for the USB drive to be inserted. The benefit of Ninja Pendisk is that the user can disable Auto-play feature of Windows with only two clicks and then re-enable it instantly when needed.

Ninja Pendisk

3. Mx One Antivirus

Mx One Antivirus is a wonderful utility which works both ways round. You can install it on the USB drive and protect the USB drive while inserting it on any system. You can also install it in your Windows computer and let it guard against USB viruses and malware.

If you install Mx One Antivirus on the USB drive, you will need to run the executable in order to scan for viruses in the USB drive (it doesn’t run automatically).

If you install Mx One Install on your PC, it will monitor for newly inserted USB storage devices and scan the device once it is inserted. Note that this utility is a complete USB antivirus which needs to update its virus definitions regularly in order to detect and remove new emerging USB threats.

Another benefit of Mx One Antivirus is that it supports USB devices which have storage capacity like iPods, iPhones, mp3 players, SD cards etc.

Mx One Antivirus

As mentioned earlier, there are several ways to protect your USB drive and computer. My personal choice is the NTFS file system method and Phrozen Safe USB. If you are using a different way (or software), share it with us in the comments.

Image credit: USB computer memory stick by BigStockPhoto

The post How to Secure Your USB Drive And Prevent It From Spreading Virus appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

1. Using KISSr

KISSr is a service that lets you host static websites using Dropbox as a web host. The advantage of KISSr over other competitors discussed in this article is that it lets you register and use a proper custom domain name instead of using sub-domains or long URLs. Just go to KISSr site, enter the name you want for your site (you’ll need to start with a sub-domain) and then click on the big Try it button.

The biggest disadvantage of using KISSr is that even though you are using Dropbox as the backend, it will limit the overall storage and bandwidth of your account.

2. Using DropPages

DropPages is an web application that connects to your Dropbox account to create a site for you. The benefit of using DropPages is that it does not restrict any space usage like KISSr and gives you a subdomain (yourname.droppages.com) to access your site. Follow the steps below to create your website with DropPages.

1. Go to http://my.droppages.com

2. This will ask you to sign into your Dropbox account. Click the “Sign in” button and give it permission to access your Dropbox account.

3. After you sign into your account, you will be greeted with screen where you can press the Allow button in order to proceed. Pressing the Deny button will cancel the signup process.

4. Now click on “Create a new site” button and enter the name of your site, e.g., mte.droppages.com

5. You can also pre-built themes of HTML pages.

3. Using Site44

Site44 is another service very similar to DropPages. We already have a tutorial on how to use Site44 to host your webpages using Dropbox as the back-end.

4. Creating the public folder manually

Although you can use the services listed above to create your site on Dropbox but if you don’t want to go through the signup process and don’t want to manage your site through anyone else, you can simply follow this guide to create your own hosting on Dropbox without using any tools.

Create a folder named “Public” (if it is not already there) in your Dropbox account. Next, you will need to visit this page to enable the public folder on your account. Now create another folder called “site” inside the public folder. Put all your HTML pages inside the “site” folder.

The “site” folder will act as the root folder for your static site. You can right click any file and get the public link under Dropbox menu. The link can be shared with other people. The person who has the link will be able to open the webpage.

Dropbox links are pretty long and can’t be remembered. If you have a domain name, you can easily redirect all your pages hosted on Dropbox to your own domain. This depends upon whether your host supports URL directing from the control panel or not. If the host does not support it, you can redirect the pages using the .htaccess file.

Create the .htaccess file on the root folder of your domain and enter the following information:

RedirectMatch 301 /site(.*) https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1234567/site/$1

You will need to change the “/site” if you are using another name for the site folder. You will also need to replace the Dropbox public URL with your own.personal public URL. Get the Dropbox URL by right clicking any file in the Public folder and then select “Get public link” under Dropbox menu.

Let me explain what the above command does. It will redirect all URLs containing “yoursite.com/site/xyz.html” where xyz.html is the page name which is hosted on Dropbox. For example, I have added a file called index.html in my “site” folder in my Dropbox account. Now whenever I want to open index.html, I will have to enter “http://mysite.com/site/index.html“. You can put any number of files in the site folder. You will be able to access those files using the above method.

I hope this has been useful for you and I’d like to thank you for reading. If you like this article, please leave a helpful comment and share it with your friends.

The post 4 Ways to Host Your Website on Dropbox appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Windows 8 Refresh Feature

Windows 8 Refresh feature does only one task – resets the core of Windows to the default settings while keeping all your data and applications intact. Here is how you can make use of the Refresh feature:

1. Go to Settings Search (Windows Key + W)

2. Search for and select “Refresh your PC”

3. This will start the full screen dialog of Refresh your PC.

The screen explains what will happen if you continue with the refresh. Here are some of the points mentioned:

• Your files and personalization settings won’t change.
• Your PC settings will be changed back to their defaults.
• Apps from Windows Store will be kept installed. Their settings will also remain intact.
• If any apps need to be removed, a list of removed apps will be saved on the Desktop.

4. When you press the “Next” button, Windows will prepare the system for the refresh

5. Clicking on Refresh button will actually start the process of Refresh.

6. The PC will restart and continue with the Refresh process. You will be able to login after the final restart.

Behind the scenes, the PC restarts into Windows RE (Recovery Environment), scans the drives for personal data, app settings etc. and saves them separately. Then a fresh copy of Windows core components is installed. After the installation, personal data and app settings are restored to their previous position.

What exactly is preserved?

In step 3, we have got an overview of what will be changed and what will be kept. Let’s go deeper and see which of the settings will be preserved.

• Network and Wireless connection settings including their security keys etc. If the computer is a part of Workgroup or a Domain, it will need to be rejoined after refresh.
• BitLocker and BitLocker To Go Settings
• Personalization settings like Desktop wallpaper, logon screen etc.

The following settings will not be preserved.

• All Desktop applications including their data and settings.
• File type associations
• Display settings
• Windows Firewall settings

Customizing Windows 8 Refresh

As you can see, all the Desktop applications and installed software except the Metro based apps are removed in the process. A fix for this is to create a baseline Windows 8 Refresh image. When we have created this image, Windows Refresh will revert to this image which will include all our required software.

Please note that the baseline Windows Refresh image should be created on a new install of Windows 8.

1. After Windows 8 installation, install all the applications and software that you think are necessary and will need even after using Windows Refresh.

2. Open command prompt with administrative privileges (Windows Key + X + A)

3. Issue the following command:

recimg -CreateImage C:\RefreshImage

4. This will start the image creation process. Please note that this process may take a long time to complete depending upon the size of your installed applications.

5. This will create a Refresh image in “C:\RefreshImage”. You can change the directory as per your needs.

6. After the image creation process is complete, the recimg utility will automatically register the latest snapshot as your current Refresh image. If it doesn’t register or if you have multiple images, you can select one of the images as current Refresh image by using the following command:

recimg /setcurrent C:\RefreshImage

Where “C:\RefreshImage” can be any directory path which has the refreshimage.wim file.

Reset vs. Refresh

There are two tools in Windows 8 which can be used to reset Windows 8 to a previous state. One is Reset feature while the other one is Refresh feature. They are quite different from each other even though their purposes are similar:

• If you are having problems with your Windows 8 computer, you can use the Refresh function because it will preserve your application data and settings.
• If you want to completely wipe out everything and start with a fresh installation of Windows 8, then you should choose the Reset feature. Reset feature is like re-formatting the Windows drive and then installing Windows 8 again. Nothing will be saved.

The reset feature can be pretty useful in cases where we need to re-install Windows 8 which can be done without a DVD-ROM or a USB Flash drive using Reset.

Windows 8 Reset Feature

Using the Reset feature is similar to Refresh. Let’s go through the PC Reset process step by step:

1. Open Windows Charms Bar (Windows Key + C) -> Settings -> Change PC Settings

2. Go to General menu and scroll down to “Remove everything and reinstall Windows”

3. Click on the Get started button. This will take you to the Windows Reset screen.

4. Clicking on “Next” will prepare your system for resetting. If you have more than one drive in your PC, you will be shown another dialog where you can select whether to wipe our all the hard drive or a selected drive only.

5. The computer will restart in Windows RE mode and re-install Windows 8. You will get a fresh installation of Windows 8 when the process completes.

My advice would be to take backup of all your data before trying out these processes. We have a long list of backup utilities and different ways to backup your data in any Operating System including Windows.

I hope this guide will be useful for everyone. The ones who have just installed Windows 8 should pay particular attention to using the “recimg” utility to create a baseline Refresh image. What are your thoughts and experiences about these features? Do you find them useful?

The post How To Repair Windows 8 Using The Refresh and Reset Feature appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

If you are new to Windows 8 Start Screen but are used to the Start Menu in Windows 7, I must say it’s a better setup. The only problem people are having is that they are unable to make better use of it. Today we will discuss different aspects of it and how to make better use of it by making it the dashboard.

Opening the Start Screen

First of all, we will learn how to open the Start Screen using different methods. All are useful and can be used on different occasions according to your ease.

You can use the following shortcut key combinations in order to open the Start Screen:

1. Windows Key on the Keyboard (the easiest and the fastest one)
2. Ctrl + Esc
3. Windows Key + C + Enter

You can also drag your cursor to the bottom left corner of the screen (or tap your finger on the bottom left corner of a touch-enabled device) and left click to open the Start Screen.

Customizing the Start Screen

The background of Start Screen can be customized. By default, Microsoft uses the same color in the Start Screen as used in the current theme. You can change the background color and style of the Start Screen by following the steps below:

1. Go to the Charms bar (Windows Key + C) -> Settings -> Change PC Settings
2. Select Personalize from the left hand menu and Start Screen from the right hand top menu.
3. This will give you the option to customize the color as well as the style of the Start Screen.

Organizing the Start Screen

This is where the power of Start Screen comes in. You will need to spare a little time to organize it. If you are used to installing and uninstalling new software on your computer, then you will have to organize the Start Screen regularly because the new programs usually add tiles to it.

By default, the first Start Screen group includes tiles from Microsoft utilities and other essential tools like Desktop, Calendar, Weather etc. After that, all the tiles are added sequentially as they are created. There can be a maximum of 16 tiles in a group. You can create different groups by dragging a tile and dropping it on the newly created vertical column. When you’re done, click on the minus sign on the bottom right of the screen.

This will create a zoom-out effect, and you will see the Start Screen tiles and groups on a single screen.

You can hover your mouse cursor on any group to highlight it and right click on the group to name it.

You can also remove the tiles from the Start Screen to keep the Start Screen as clean as possible. Remove the apps by right-clicking on a particular tile and selecting “Unpin from Start”.

You can access the removed tiles from “All tiles” which can be found by right-clicking any blank area of the Start Screen and selecting “All apps” from the menu.

This will open a list of icons of all apps that are installed in the computer. You will notice a minus icon at the bottom right corner of the All apps screen. Clicking on the minus button will bring a list of groups of the Start Screen apps.

Creating Custom Tiles

Since our purpose of the Start Screen is to make it our dashboard, we will need to pin different apps and files to the Start Screen in order to make it more productive. Normally, you can easily pin a file to the Start Screen by right clicking on the file and selecting “Pin to Start Screen”

If you have special requirements about the app and want to customize the look and feel of the tile and also add parameters to the tile, you can use a utility called OblyTile. OblyTile can customize several aspects of the tile including tile name, path of the program that includes parameters for increased control, the tile image, and also small image. You can also change the background color of the tile.

Using the old start menus instead of the Start Screen

For whatever reason, if you are still not satisfied with the new Start Screen, you may want to download any of the following apps for bringing back the Start Menu in Windows 8.

The post How To Customize And Make Better Use Of Windows 8 Start Screen appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

The file history backup tool in Windows 8 is different from the backup tool that came with Windows 7 and earlier versions of Windows. This File History tool keeps multiple versions of each backup file. This is very similar to Dropbox versioning or ‘previous versions’ feature in Windows 7 and Windows Vista.

Getting started

1. To open File history configuration, search for “file history” in Windows 8 settings (Windows Key + W).

2. If you have connected a USB flash drive in your computer, it will be auotmatically selected as the backup destination. If you have multiple drives connected to your computer, you can click on the “Select drive” link from the menu on the left and select the drive of your choice.

3. If you want to use your local drive for storing regular backups in Windows 8, you can do so by sharing a folder over the network and then selecting it from the “Select drive” link. To do this, click on the Select drive link and then press the “Add network location” button (Alt + A).

4. Now browse through the network location and select the network folder of your choice. Make sure that you have set the correct permissions so that no one else will be able to access the backup files in the network.

5. Now that we have selected our target backup folder, we need to make sure all our important data gets backed up. By default, the Windows 8 file history tool only backs up the libraries data. To get it to backup your personal data, you will need to add those folders to the existing libraries. Right click any library, go to “Properties” and add the folder to the library.

6. At this point, we have configured our source and destination folders for the backup process. The file history tool will automatically back up the copies of changed files every hour and use five percent of disk space. The version files are kept forever until you remove them manually. All these settings can be changed by opening the File History window and clicking “Advanced Settings” in the menu on the left side.

Restoration

Now that we have fully configured the file history, let’s see how we can restore our files in case of any disaster. If you want to see the backup versions of a single file, just go to the Library folder where the file is located and select “History” from the ribbon menu.

If you want to restore everything from a specific version stored by File History, you can go to the File History window and click on “Restore personal files” from the menu on the left. The new window will show you all the folders and libraries being backed up. You can always browse through the files and folders using the file history explorer. Pressing the big green button will restore all the files to their previous positions.

Limitations

The biggest limitation of the file history tool is that it does not allow you to save backup to the same local disk from which backup is being taken. It might be a good security feature, but in my opinion, it is still an annoying limitation. Another glitch is that the file history is not turned on by default. You will need to turn it on and configure the backup completely in order for it to start taking backups automatically.

Conclusion

Although the File History tool is built into Windows 8, it is quite limited as it does not have advanced features that other backup utilities have. If you are not taking any kind of automated backups and have no wish to install third party software to do the job, you should at least activate the file history tool and use it to create regular backups.

Which backup tool are you using right now? What are your thoughts about the Windows 8 backup tool? Is it better than the tool available in Windows 7? Your comments are highly appreciated!

The post Create Regular Backups Using Windows 8 Native File History Tool appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Like Windows 8 Start Screen, Office 2013 Start Screen has also received a mixed response. Some people like it while others want the old layout because they are comfortable with the old one for years. For those who do not want the new start screen, here are several ways to disable the start screen in Microsoft Office 2013.

Disable Start Screen using Office Customization Tool (OCT)

Microsoft Office Customization Tool (OCT) is a great tool for customizing every aspect of Office through the Group Policy Editor. This is basically a collection of group policy templates which can be installed in order to customize the installation of Office through Group Policy.

1. Download Office Customization Tool. Run it and it will extract all the files to the specified folder.

2. Go to the folder ADMX and copy all the files with the extension ADMX to the following folder: C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions

3. In the ADMX folder, you will have folders named against each language of Office 2013. You should go to the folder of language of Office 2013 currently installed and copy all the ADML files to the same folder in C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions. For example, I have the en-US installation of Office 2013, so I copied all the ADML files inside the en-US folder to C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions\en-US.

4. Now open the group policy editor by going to “Run -> gpedit.msc”

5. Go to “User Configuration -> Administrative Templates”. You can see that all the apps of Office 2013 are listed here. These were previously not present.

6. You can expand any Microsoft Office application and go to its “Miscellaneous” sub-folder.

7. On the right hand pane, open “Disable the Office Start screen for <app>”. Where <app> is the app name. For example, I want to disable the start screen of Excel 2013. I will have to open “Disable the Office Start screen for Excel” option on the right hand pane.

8. There will be three options in the next window. “Not Configured” is the default one which means that the app behavior will be the default which the vendor has set while shipping. Enabled actually means that this rule will be enabled. The rule is to disable the Start screen of that specific Office app. Disabled means that the Office app will start with the Start screen even if it is manually disabled from somewhere else.

9. This will start Excel directly into the new workbook instead of opening the Start screen.

Disable Start Screen using Windows Registry

The above method is good for disabling the Start screen for individual Office apps. If you want to disable the Start screen for all the Office apps at once, you can use the registry method discussed below.

1. Go to “Run (WinKey + R) -> regedit”. This will open the Registry Editor.

2. Go to the following Registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\General

3. In the right hand pane, create a new item named “DisableBootToOfficeStart” (without the quotes) if it doesn’t already exist. It is a DWORD item. Its value should be set to “1″ if you want to disable the Start screen of all Office 2013 apps and “0″ if you want to enable the Start screen for all apps.

If you want to disable the Start screen of a specific Office app using Registry, you can go to the Options key of that particular Office app. For example, if I do it for Excel, the path will be:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Excel\Options

After going to this key, we will need to follow step 3 again.

Other ways to get rid of the Start screen

The techniques discussed above are quite technical and not suitable for a person who just wants to get rid of the Start screen as soon as possible. Here are two earlier ways that you can disable the Start screen without leaving the Office apps.

The magical Escape key

When you start any Office app, you only have to press the Esc key in order to start using the Office app in a traditional way. Pressing the Esc key will take you to a blank document where you can start writing.

Disable the Start screen using the Program Options

You can also disable the Start screen of individual Office apps by opening the program and going to “File menu –> Options –> General” and un-check “Show the Start screen when this application starts”. This will disable the Start screen for that particular program.

For those of you who want to disable the Start screen in Microsoft Office 2013, even though it is pretty good, can use any of the four above mentioned techniques to do so. Personally, I prefer to keep the Start screen enabled and use the Esc key to start working on the blank document whenever I want.

What are your thoughts about the new Office Start screen?

The post How To Disable Start Screen In Microsoft Office 2013 appeared first on Make Tech Easier.