5 Tricks To Enhance Your Windows 8 Experience

Windows 8 might seem quite overwhelming at first but little by little you can get the best out of the operating system without efforts or annoying moments. We’ve been talking about several tricks that will make you use the latest version of Windows 8 smoothly and easily making it work just the way you want it. There still are some of them left and that’s what we focus on today.

1. Many users would like to disable the lock screen but most of them don’t know how to do that yet. It’s actually simple. You’ll see the lock screen each time you restart your PC, log out or lock it. Well, the thing with the lock screen is that it will make you strike one more key when your login. However, there is an option that allows you disable the lock screen but it’s hidden quite well.

So, if you’re interested in getting rid of the lock screen, you have to take a few steps. Easy steps, anyway. Once you’re at the Start Screen, type “gpedit.msc” (quotes excluded) and hit Enter.

You will thus get to the Group Policy Editor where you have to go to Computer Configuration, then to Administrative Templates, Control Panel and finally to Personalization.

Now in order for Windows not to display the lock screen, you have to double-click on the option that says so as you can see in the picture above. A new window will open and you will have to check the Enabled option and then hit Ok.

From now on you’ll see the login screen each time you restart your machine, log out or lock the screen.

2. If you’re a “take and save screenshots” user, then you’d probably think that WinKey+Alt+Print Screen will do this job. Well, it doesn’t. At least not in the Windows 8 versions prior to the final build. Instead, you can take a screenshot by pressing Win+Print Screen. This will also save the screenshot as a PNG image file to your Pictures folder.

3. The Start Screen doesn’t display Computer Management, the Event Viewer, and some other Administrative Tools. You can change that by going to the Settings charm (just hover the mouse over the top or bottom right corner of the screen and then click on Settings or access the charm by using the Win+C key combination).

Once you do so, click on the Settings link that’s under Start. You will have to set the slider that’s under the “Show Administrative Tools” option to Yes. After you do so, you will see the Administrative Tools in the All Apps list as well as on the Start Screen.

4. If you’re a fan of the old desktop and you’re trying to stay away from Metro, you’ll see that even if you open an image, a video or a music file from desktop, the files will be launched in Metro apps. Change that by pressing the Win key to access Metro, then type “Default Programs” and hit Enter.

You will thus get to the Default Programs control panel where you’ll have to click the “Set your default programs” link.

You will then see the list of programs. Select Windows Photo Viewer and click the “Set this program as default” link. Hit Ok after that. You can do the same with other programs like Windows Media Player.

5. When using the Search feature in Windows 8, the Metro apps are displayed as options.

You can make some changes regarding this matter and choose to be displayed only the apps you use most frequently. To do that, go to the Settings charm and click the More PC Settings link.

A new window will open. Go to Search and turn off each app you want not to be displayed as the option when searching.