Shortcut for Task Manager in Windows

Task Manager has become one of the tools used by almost all Windows users to do some level of administrative task. some of the common usage of task manager are to end a process, view the resource usage of the computer, check the performance of the computer etc.

I have seen many users, opening task manager by holding down Ctrl+Alt+Delete and then selecting Task Manager from the screen. Although this is one way of accessing task manager but it involves an additional step.

Another way of accessing Task Manager is through right clicking on the task bar and selecting task manager.

   

The most easiest way for me to is by holding down Ctrl+Shift+Esc which opens Task Manager instantly.

Windows Anti Virus

Windows has had the windows defender malware protection for sometime now. With the release of Windows 7, defender was known as a anti spyware protection tool and users were required to either install Microsoft security essentials or any other compatible third party anti virus application to protect your computer against virus attacks.

With the release of Windows 8, both Windows defender and security essentials were merged and released as a single solution against malware.

When you open the Windows defender on your Windows 10 for the first time it prompts you with the option of turning on against virus protection. Click turn on and click close.

   

Once its turned on, Windows defender would be ready to protect against spyware and viruses.

Furthermore, by visiting Settings ==> Update and security, additional configurations could be seen along with the details that defender is powered by real time cloud based protection.

Windows 8 Enterprise to Windows 8.1 Enterprise update

When Microsoft released the Windows 8.1 update for Windows 8 operating systems some time back, users were able to download the and install the updated through the store. Unfortunately the below specified Windows 8 editions do not support the update from the store.

• Windows 8 Enterprise. Talk to your system admin about updating to Windows 8.1.
• Windows 8 Pro, if installed by an organization or a program that uses Volume Licensing. Talk to your system admin, or the administrator of the program that was used to install Windows 8. If you’re the administrator, you can find more info and links to Windows 8.1 ISOs in the Windows 8.1 Enterprise Evaluation.
• Windows 8 Pro, if installed using an MSDN or TechNet ISO, and activated using Multiple Activation Keys. You might be able to download a Windows 8.1 ISO from MSDN or TechNet.
• Windows 8.1 Preview or Windows RT 8.1 Preview. You might still be able to update from the Store. For more info, see Update from Windows 8.1 Preview to Windows 8.1.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/why-can-t-find-update-store#

If you have a Windows 8 Enterprise and you cannot find the Windows 8.1 update in the store, download the step by step guide form the below link. To achieve this you shall require the Windows 8.1 Enterprise DVD which can be downloaded from the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center

Windows Update Step by Step Guide http://1drv.ms/1r86qvq

Safely remove hardware/USB from your computer

If you unplug a storage device or removable drive from your computer while it’s transferring or saving information, you might risk losing some information. In Windows you can do the following to safely remove such devices.

• Click on the upward arrow on the taskbar by the clock and your will see the “Safely Remove Hardware” icon

• Right click on it and select eject external drive

Another way to do this is to create a shortcut on your desktop to remove the drive. So that whenever you want remove a drive, double click on the icon, select the drive and click ok.

• Right Click on desktop select New and click on Shortcut
• Type in the below in the location of the item field and click next

C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll

• Provide a name for the shortcut and click finish

• Double click on the shortcut you created located on the desktop, select the drive and click stop

Hiberfil.sys file in Windows

If you are reading this article then most probably your computer has ran out of available hard drive space in the system drive and you have tried cleaning up the drive and suddenly come a hidden file named hiberfil.sys which is huge in size and wondering if it can be deleted.

The Hiberfil.sys file is a hidden system file located in the drive where Windows is installed. Windows creates this file when the Hibernation power feature is enabled. the size of this file is approximately equal to total RAM is installed on the computer. The more the RAM the bigger the file size will be.

When the Hibernation feature is enabled in Windows and when the computer is hibernated, Windows store all the files, programs, etc. which are open to this file. In other words Windows stores a copy of the RAM to the hard disk using this file.

This file is generated only when Hibernation is enabled and when hibernation is disabled the file will be deleted and you can recover some valuable disk space.

To disable hibernation

• Open Command prompt (in admin mode)
• Type powercfg –h off

 

Disabling Automatic Restart on System Failure in Windows

As a safety feature and as a precaution Windows always restarts immediately when it encounters a serious/critical error (such as a blue screen stop error). This immediate restart prevents us to read/note the necessary error codes or the detailed error message that prompts on the screen to further troubleshoot to avoid similar errors in the future.

By following the below steps, one can disable the Automatic Restart to gain more time to read and note down the error messages and error codes.

• Right click My Computer and select properties

• Click on Advanced System Settings

• Click on settings under Startup & Recovery

• Uncheck Automatic Restart and click Ok

The next time you receive a stop error you will have enough time to note down the error codes and the error messages which will help you to trouble shoot further

Reset your forgotten Windows password

What do you do when you forget your admin or user account password in Windows (non domain joined, workgroup based Windows computers). It’s easy to reset your password without logging in to Windows.

In the following post we will see on how to reset your user account password in Windows without logging into Windows.

Windows 7 logging error

One of the ways we can reset the password without logging into Windows is using the Net User cmdlet. The question here is how do we use Command Prompt if we can’t logging to Windows?

See the Ease of Access icon on the logging screen?

When you click the Ease of Access button, you get the below options by default.

 

Now our target is to overwrite the Ease of Access executable file with command prompt executable file.

Boot computer with a Windows 7 media or USB and click next

 

Select Repair Your Computer Option

Click on the Operating System and Click Next (please note the Drive letter where the OS is installed, in this case its D:\)

Select and click on the Command Prompt

Type the following command in the command prompt window

Copy D:\Windows\System32\utilman.exe D:\

This command will backup/copy the utilman.exe program (ease of access)

Now type the following command

Copy D:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe D:\Windows\System32\utilman.exe

Press enter and it will give you an overwrite message, type Y and enter

This command will replace the utilman.exe with cmd.exe

Exit Command prompt and restart the computer

 

Now when you click the Ease of Access button on the Windows logging screen the command prompt will start instead of the previous Window

Type the following command to list all the local user accounts in the Computer

Net User

Type the following command to reset the password for a particular user name

Net User username password

(username and password to be replaced with actual details. For this case I am resetting the passwords for user account Akfash with the password of password)

Close command prompt and type in the new password

Successfully logged into Windows

Windows Compatibility Center

We have less than 15 days until Windows XP reaches its end of support. Organizations and individuals who are currently on Windows XP either should have migrated to a modern Operating system such as Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 or should be in the midst of the migration process by now (at least should have thought about it ). Either way one of the main concerns one will have when they think of moving away from Windows XP which has served mankind for a marvelous 12 years is COMPATIBILITY.

Windows Compatibility Center which can be accessed through http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/compatibility/CompatCenter/Home is a portal where one can check the hardware, software, drivers which they use are compatible with any of the modern operating system Microsoft has released.

This can be used in the initial planning stage of the migration project and will be very useful.   

Outlook RT: Missing Icon

I have been actively using my Surface RT, especially after Outlook RT was introduced. Recently I noticed that suddenly the Outlook RT Icon has gone missing and it displays a plain blue tile.

After some research I found that it’s due to an update and it is been fixed upon installing the Office 2013 Service Pack 1.

The following is a guide on how to fix it and get your icon back. 

After the restart got the ICON Back

Windows 8 Storage Spaces

Source Brunei Times

MOST of our precious information are stored in various forms in computers, be it documents, digital pictures, videos, etc. Depending on the type and sensitivity of the files, your storage and resiliency requirements will be different and immense.

In Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, Microsoft has introduced a feature called Storage Spaces. Storage Spaces is a new Windows technology that allows you to virtualise storage to achieve scale and resiliency. In Windows 8, one may add several internal, as well as external, hard drives and create a storage pool. This pool can be divided into multiple virtual drives called Storage Spaces.

Once these Storage Spaces are created, they can be accessed through the file explorer (previously known as the Windows Explorer). Since this is a flexible solution, when a Storage Space is nearing its storage limit, one can add more hard drives and increase the storage pool capacity.

When Storage Spaces are configured in Windows 8, there are several types of resiliency options available. By configuring these options correctly, your information will be protected against one or two hard drive failures. There are four types of resiliency available:

1) No resiliency: This will provide the maximum space usage, but there will be no protection in the event of drive failure.
2) Two-way mirror: This writes two copies of your data, and helps to protect you from a single drive failure.
3) Three-way mirror: This writes three copies of your data, helping to protect you from two simultaneous drive failures.
4) Parity: A parity storage space writes your data with parity information, and helps protect you from a single drive failure.

Windows 8 storage spaces can be configured very easily within the Windows control panel. As soon as the storage spaces feature is opened, it will automatically detect the available hard drives and present you with easy to understand options.

Windows 8 Storage Spaces comes as a handy and cool feature which is very useful in a work and home environment.