Some Secrets of Windows 8

Windows 8 come up with most exiting features but few features I am talking about may not be commonly known. Here is the list of these secret features:

 

 

1. Get More Out of Your Multiple Monitors

If you have multiple monitors, you’ve probably noticed that Windows extends your taskbar across both screens. It does more than just that, though: you can press Win+PgUp to move your current app to your left monitor, and Win+PgDn to move it to the right monitor. In addition, if you go to the Desktop Background section of your Personalization settings, you can right-click on any individual wallpapers and choose which monitor you’d like it to show up on. Of course, if you like things the old way, you can also turn off the dual taskbar in Taskbar Properties.

2. Automatic Maintenance

A new automatic maintenance feature is introduced in windows 8 which will run maintenance tasks such as software updates, security scanning, and other diagnostic tests daily. Default time is 3AM but you can customise it to your suitable time. Along with this automatic process you can run maintenance from Action Center at any time you want.

3. Customize the Apps in the Search Bar

List of apps will appear under the search bar of start menu as soon as you start searching something there. Select any of them to make you search domain specific to that app. only. You can customise this list from the settings of your windows 8. Windows 8 Settings -> Change PC Settings->Search from the Left Side Bar.

4. Get back the Cool First Time Screen Animation

On first sign into widows 8 you will see a cool flow-y animation of all you tiles filling up the screen. But it will not appear again on other start-ups and to see this cool animation on every launch you need to do the following tricks:

 

Got to registry key and open key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ImmersiveShell\Grid

In right-side pane, create a new DWORD Launcher_SessionLoginAnimation_OnShow and set its value to 1

 

5. “Aero Lite” Theme

“Aero Lite” is a theme that was there in windows 8 when it was in testing mode and for some unknown reason that is not there in the final version. But the unknown feature here is that the theme folder is there in the final version. With some small tweaks, you can re enable this theme which give a slightly different look to the title bars.

In the Run window type “resources” to open resources folder in windows explorer. Copy aero.theme file present in Themes folder and paste it somewhere, rename it to aerolite.theme and open it in the notepad to edit it. First of all change the “Display Name” attribute to some user friendly name and then we need to point this new .theme file to aerolite.msstyles file. To do this Scroll down and go to “[VisualStyles]” section. Now replace aero.msstyles withaerolite.msstyles

6. Customize More Icons in Windows Explorer

You can customize the library icons from the setting of your Windows 8 by just right-clicking on the Library, go to Properties, and you should see the option to change the library’s icon right at the bottom.

7. Improved Print Screen

Pressing Win+Print Screen Windows will take a screenshot of your screen and automatically save it in your Pictures folder as a PNG file.

8. Tweak the Number of Rows on the Start Screen

By default, the Start screen fills your monitor up with as many rows of tiles as it can fit up to 6 rows. If you’d like to customise this number just open registry and navigate to the key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ImmersiveShell\Grid

And change the Layout_MaximumRowCount to your desired number J.

9. Hide Recent Files from Your Jump Lists

For the users with possible privacy concern about their recently viewed documents in the Jump List. Windows 8 lets you customise this Jus List and to do this just right click on the task bar, go to properties and click on the Jump List Tab to customise it.