Here’s 6 Great Tricks for Windows 8 that You Probably Don’t Know

Here’s 6 Great Tricks for Windows 8 that You Probably Don’t Know...&*&*&*&*&*

We’ve covered a lot of tips, tricks, and tweaks for Windows 8, but there are still a few more. From bypassing the lock screen to instantly taking and saving screenshots, here are a few more hidden options and keyboard shortcuts.

Whether you love Windows 8, hate it, or just wish Metro would go away, these options will help you make Windows 8 work the way you want it to.

Disable the Lock Screen

Windows 8 shows a lock screen when you restart your computer, log out, or lock it. It’s very pretty, but it just adds one more keystroke to the login process. You can actually disable the lock screen entirely, although Microsoft hides his option very well

This option is located in the Group Policy Editor. To launch it, type “gpedit.msc” at the Start screen and press Enter.In the Group Policy Editor, navigate to Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Control Panel\Personalization.Double-click the “Do not display the lock screen” option, set it to Enabled, and click OK.The next time you restart your system, log out, or lock the screen, you’ll see the login screen instead of the lock screen
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Combine this with skipping the Start screen and you can boot to a login screen and log straight into the desktop, just like on previous versions of Windows. The desktop will be the second screen you access instead of the fourth.

Take & Save Screenshots Instantly

Windows 8 has a new hotkey combination that lets you take and save screenshots instantly. To take a screenshot, hold the Windows key down and press the Print Screen key. Your screen will flash and Windows will save a screenshot to your Pictures folder as a PNG image file.

You might assume that WinKey+Alt+Print Screen would take and save a screenshot of the current window, but it doesn’t. Maybe this will be implemented in the final version of Windows 8.

We’ve also covered other new keyboard shortcuts in Windows 8.

Prevent Files From Opening in Metro

If you prefer to use Windows 8’s desktop and try to avoid  Metro, you may be surprised the first time you double-click an image file in Windows Explorer and get kicked back into Metro. By default, Windows 8 launches images, videos, and music in Metro apps – even if you open them from the desktop.

To avoid this, launch the Default Programs control panel by pressing the Windows key to access Metro, typing “Default Programs,” and pressing Enter.
Click the “Set your default programs” link.

In the list of available programs, select the “Windows Photo Viewer” application and click the “Set this program as default” option.

Repeat this process for the “Windows Media Player” application. You can also set the desktop version of Internet Explorer as your default Web browser from within Internet Explorer.

Of course, if you have a preferred image viewer or media player, you can install it and set it as the default application instead.

Display Administrative Tools

By default, Windows hides the Event Viewer, Computer Management and other Administrative Tools from the Start screen. If you use these applications frequently, you can easily unhide them.

From the Start screen, mouse over to the bottom or top right corner of the screen and click the Settings charm. You can also press WinKey-C to view the charms.

Click the “Settings” link under Start and set the “Show administrative tools” slider to “Yes.”The Administrative Tools will appear on the Start screen and in the All Apps list.

Control Automatic Maintenance

Windows 8 has a new scheduled maintenance feature that automatically updates software, runs security scans, and performs system diagnostics at a scheduled time. By default, the maintenance tasks run at 3am if you aren’t using your computer. If you’re using your computer at the scheduled time, Windows will wait until the computer is idle.

To customize this time, open the Action Center from the flag icon in the system tray.

You’ll find Automatic Maintenance under the Maintenance category. Click the “Change maintenance settings” link to customize its settings
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From this screen, you can set the time you want to run automatic maintenance tasks. You can also have Windows wake up your computer to run maintenance tasks, if it’s asleep.Customize Search Applications

Metro apps can appear as options when you use the search feature.

You can control the apps that appear here and trim down the list. First, click the Settings charm from anywhere on your system and click the “More PC settings” link

From the PC settings screen, click the Search category and use the sliders to hide apps from the search screen.

Do you have any other Windows 8 tricks to share? Leave a comment and let us know

Rooting a Motorola MB502 Charm On Android 2.1 Eclair to Store Apps On SD Card

I recently got a new unlocked Motorola Charm MB502 for $99 from Flipkart.com.This was my 1st experience with an Android based phone and I quickly found out its idiosyncrasies. However overall this is a fantastic phone for its capabilities and price so I am happy with it.

The phone has a miniscule 200mb or so internal memory and came with a 2GB MicroSD card. I starting going hog wild downloading all kinds of cool apps (for free of course) and in no time the phone memory was full. It was to the point where the phone would freeze and I couldn't even send or receive texts. The 2gb card is amazing and has some crazy read/write speeds. So that's it I am all fixed right? 2GB is plenty of space. WRONG!

The Android 2.1 platform (codenamed Eclair and released January of 2010) only allows storing apps on the internal memory, and music and pictures can go on the external memory. Well that's a bit limiting, but there is a work around. Android 2.2 streamlines this quite a bit to a single command line statement, but on 2.1 it’s quite a bit more involved. However, everything I read for was a complete mess of steps and awfully written walk-throughs so I am mostly writing this post in case search engines pick it up to help out users of this phone or with a phone containing Android 2.1.

So let’s begin with the overall steps that have to take place to allow the phone to store apps downloaded to the external SD card:

1. Download the USB drivers for your phone and install them.
2. Buy a MicroSD card
3. Partition the MicroSD card into 2 parts using 'Mini Tool Partition'
4. Install the MicroSD card into the device.
5. Place the phone in 'Debug' mode when connected via USB
6. Connect the phone to the computer via the USB cable.
7. Root the phone with 'Super One Click'
8. Reboot the phone
9. Link the apps to the SD card using 'Link2SD'

It’s not that difficult to accomplish (can all be done in order in < 30 minutes depending on partitioning size on card), but the forum posts detailing these steps are incomplete. This process was compiled by about 6-8 different sources. Before getting started it is important to note, that while this is not an overly difficult procedure it is probably not for you if you do not have some savvy working with computers and mobile devices. The potential exists here to completely screw up your phone and have a mess on your hands. I am just posting this 'as-is' and have no real expertise on Android phones, so advanced follow up questions for anything related here are better directed to one of the Droid forums and not here. So let's get into each step:

1. Download the USB drivers for your phone and install them: You need to connect your phone to your computer and have it recognized. For the MB502 Charm, you can download the USB drivers at the following link -> Drivers for MB502 After installing the drivers, go ahead and connect the phone to the computer and make sure it worked.

2. Buy a MicroSD card: If you are only planning on installing apps and taking a few pictures then 8GB or 16Gb is plenty of space. However if you plan on dropping the entire MP3 library on your phone (as I did) then go for the 32GB size. As for Class? I recommend a Class 10 card because of the 10mb/s write speeds. Nice for transferring MP3 files to the phone and reducing lag time after taking a picture when being written to the device. If just doing simple apps and no music a Class 4 or 6 should suffice. I highly recommend getting a SD card adapter or something to plug in the MicroSD card via USB for partitioning outside the device in Step # 3.

3. Partition the MicroSD card into 2 parts using 'Mini Tool Partition': Download the 'Mini Tool Partition' (for Windows not the phone) utility to partition the MicroSD card from this here:Download Mini Tool Partition Once downloaded and installed, insert your SD Card adapter into a USB slot containing the MicroSD Card so it can be partitioned. The card must contain2 partitions: 1 for the main externally written files (pictures and music), and the 2nd partition is for the downloaded apps. Before partitioning make sure to copy off an data on the card (unless it's new and has nothing on it). Open up Mini Tool Partition, right click on the drive representing the card (make sure you select the right drive!!) and say 'Delete'. Now let's make our (2) partitions. The 1st should be named 'primary' and be set as a 'Primary' partition. As for the 'File System': if you have a MB502 Charm then you have to use FAT32 for both partitions. The phone does not recognize

Now create the 2nd partition; I named it 'Apps_Data'. It too must be created as a 'Primary' partition as displayed below:

Finally, when all selections have been made select 'Apply' in the upper-left hand corned to have the partitions made on the MicroSD card.

4. Install the MicroSD card into the device: Easy enough. Take the back cover off the MB502 and install the MicroSD card. It is not a requirement but I powered off my device, inserted the card, and then turned the power back on just to do the process cleanly.

5. Place the phone in 'Debug' mode when connected via USB: Consult your manual on how to do this. For the MB502 on the home screen tap the 'Menu' button (left soft key) and select 'Settings'. Scroll to and select 'Applications', select 'Development', and then turn on (check) 'USB Debugging'.

6. Connect the phone to the computer via the USB cable: I usually have my phone unlocked and on when I connect via USB. Give it a few minutes and make sure Windows (or whatever OS) recognizes the device.

7. Root the phone with 'Super One Click': In order for apps to eventually be placed on the MicroSD card, we need to have 'SuperUser' permissions for the Link2SD app. In order to gain this level of access we 'Root' the phone. Rooting the phone also allows you to uninstall any 'System' installed apps. I quickly learned one of the apps I downloaded installed a ton of junk as system apps, and I couldn't uninstall them...until I rooted the phone that is. The easiest way to do this is with an app named 'Super One Click' which runs on Windows (not the phone). Download the application from here: Download Super One Click Install the application and open it up in Windows. All you have to do is press the 'Root' button (displayed below). When asked if you want to install the app, I stated 'Yes' which allows SuperUser to work on the device. Once complete the device will be rooted. For a full list of phones which Super One Click works with, check out the following link: Compatibility List for Super Once Click



8. Reboot the phone: If the Super One Click does not prompt for a reboot after disconnecting the USB cable, then go ahead and disconnect the USB cable after the rooting process is complete, and power off and back on the phone.

9. Link the apps to the SD card using 'Link2SD': Go to the Market, and search and download 'Link2SD'. This application will allow you to manually select installed apps and move them over to the SD card. This process does not happen automatically, so make sure to move apps over to the SD card after installation. Sounds like it might be a pain, but it is really easy and takes only about 5 seconds to do. Once 'Link2SD' is installed, open it up. It is going to go through a series of steps to gain 'SuperUser' access and may ask you to reboot the phone after creating some boot scripts to be used. Follow all on-screen instructions including reboot if required. These steps are only 1 time and not required after completed successfully. I think the 1st time I tried Link2SD it didn't work so I rebooted the phone and tried again and it worked, so keep this in mind. After Link2SD finishes it configuration (including reboot), you are done! Open up the Link2SD app and scroll to any app you want to move over to the SD card and select it. Scroll down to select 'Create Link', and the press 'OK'. You will see a message about Link2SD getting 'SuperUser' access and then your app will be moved to the SD card! You can also use Link2SD to uninstall those pesky spam installed system apps if this happened to you. An app is installed on the system if you see its path start with /system/app/.... Don’t uninstall important apps, but it is useful to uninstall something that was never originally wanted.

That's it! If it didn't work, you probably want to go back through step by step and make sure everything worked properly. The Link2SD app is very picky about those partitions so make sure to get them right. If it is not working it might be because it does not recognize the type of partition you created. FAT32 is the safest bet and the only working one I found on the MB502 Charm. If you need more help, I recommend seeking out one of the Android User Forms where you can ask questions and get further help. ...or just fork out the money and buy a newer phone. :P