Covering Hollyhood Microsoft Google Apple Android

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Adamsummer — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:34:39 GMT

http://surajhelp.moy.su/_ph/5/225950289.jpg

Windows 8 services that are safe to disable (speed up your PC)

Adamsummer — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 10:06:33 GMT

There are many unnecessary Windows 8 services which are enabled by default. You may disable them so that your Windows 8 do not take extra resources. In this tutorial, we are showing you how to speed up Windows 8 disabling some services.

What services that are safe to be disabled?

1. On your Metro Start Screen, move your mouse cursor to the lower left corner so that Windows 8 charms pops up. Click on Search.

2. Next, type msconfig in the Search App box. Click on the ‘msconfig’ icon on the left side.

3. On the System Configuration window, click on the Services tab.

4. You can disable these following services really safely. Beside, a lot of them are already disabled. So if you really want to speed up your computer, check these services overview and disable the following services:
- Application Experience
- Block Level Backup Engine Service
- Certificate Propagation
- IP Helper
- Secondary Logon
- Server
- Tablet PC Input Service
- TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
- Windows Media Center Service Launcher
- Windows Search
- Windows Time
Uncheck the checkmark next to them.

5. Finally, Click Apply and then OK. Next, you will be asked to restart your computer. Click on the Restart button. That are the complete steps. Beside you may also check startup items. Disabling startup items like yahoo messanger, skype will also speed up Windows loading process.

Conclusion

Just incase if your system do not perform well after disabling services then re-boot again and re-enable the particular services. If you can’t load Windows 8 properly in normal mode then open in safe mode. Windows 8 has lots of services that are not be used for your daily work.

FAQ: How long does it take to install windows 8?

Adamsummer — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 10:03:01 GMT

Time required to install Windows 8 in PC in not the same for all machine. It depends on the machine’s configuration.

The minimum system requirements of windows 8 is :

Processor : 1 GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
Memory : 1 GB RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
Hard Disk space : Minimum of 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

The installation time for my machine was nearly 30 minutes.

I have installed it in a separate partition. Initially that drive was empty. So no extra time has been taken for formatting the installation directory.

My computer’s configuration is:

Processor : Dual core i5 processor, Memory :
4 GB RAM,Graphics Memory
1 GB ATI RADEON HD Graphics card.

Installation time may be different for machines with different configuration.

Customize The Start Screen And Add Tiles To Windows 8 Metro Desktop

Adamsummer — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 10:01:50 GMT

If you are new to Windows 8, the first thing you should do is customize the start screen and add new tiles. This will give you a good feeling what the new Metro desktop is all about.

The tiles present by default in the Metro start screen may not be felt enough to you. In that case this tutorial is really going to help you.

This tutorial will tell you how you can add new tiles at the start screen as of your choice.

Steps to add new tile Windows 8 start screen

I am showing you an example here of adding "regedit” program to start screen. (you can generalize it for any other program)

Step 1: Open "Windows Explorer” explore or open the drive containing your installed Windows 8 (in my case it is C:).

Enable "Hidden items” option from "View” option.

Step 2: Explore C:\Windows. You will find "regedit” program in this folder. (you may need to go other folders like System or System32 to create

shortcuts of other program).

Step 3: Right click regedit & single click "Create shortcut”.

You may see the following warning. Click "yes”.

Step 4: You will see a shortcut on desktop. Copy it & paste into C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu.

Go back to Start screen & you will be able to see the tile. Select & run it whenever needed.

Mozilla Starts Developing Firefox For Windows 8

Adamsummer — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 10:00:08 GMT

Work on the touch-oriented version of Firefox for

Windows 8 has already started at Mozilla HQ, according to a Mozille developer published on his blog earlier this week.

Mozilla Firefox For Windows 8: It Has Begun

It has begun being developed that is. Mozilla has apparently started working the touch-oriented version of Firefox that would be deployed on Windows 8’s Metro UI. This piece of information comes form a software developer at Mozilla, who also gave some other details about the project in a post that was made earlier this week on his blog.

The developer’s name is Brian Brondy and he is a software developer who is working as a Platform Engineer for the Firefox project. According to what he had to say, there’s actually a Firefox app that is currently launching and running inside Windows 8 Metro. However, it is still an empty shell of an app that does not have web-browsing capabilities.

Mozilla is of course trying to make an app that will be right at home on the brand new Metro UI that is being introduced by Windows 8. The good thing about that is that you will only have to install Firefox once in your account and all Windows 8 devices using that account will be using the sane browser with the same settings, bookmarks, etc. The new Firefox will apparently be both for the Dektop and the Metro-style touch-first environments. So you have true cross-platform support.

There’s one catch though — due to the integrated way Metro works, it can have only one web browser active at any time. So the only way to use Firefox on Windows 8 Metro is to make it the default browser. You can use both IE10 and Firefox side by side on the desktop mode but that will not be possible on Metro.

The app is supposed to get a proof of concept some time around Summer when a very early version of the app will be available. Mozilla also has plans to release a beta version in the second half of 2012, which could be anytime from June to the end of the year.

Understand And Learn How To Use SkyDrive On Windows 8

Adamsummer — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 09:55:07 GMT

There’s absolutely no getting away from the cloud on Windows 8, so you might as well learn how to put SkyDrive and associated cloud services to proper use on your Windows 8 system.

Tips For Using SkyDrive On Windows 8

As you install Windows 8, you will notice that there’s absolutely no way to avoid signing in to a cloud account. Cloud Windows 8 is mainly about SkyDrive. So let’s look at what it is and how to use it.

SkyDrive can be accessed to the SkyDrive app on Windows 8. It will give you access to all your folders and files that are stored in the cloud. You can click/tap on individual files directly and Windows 8 will automatically launch it in the associated application. All that is fine except for the fact that you cannot create, modify or delete folders on your SkyDrive at the moment. It is annoying but it will mostly likely get fixed with the next update and much before the commercial release.

You can used the cloud to keep all your data and settings backed up. Go to the Metro control panel and find User Account Synchronization — a very useful option that backs up your profile information to the cloud. This will come in handy later when you sign in to your account using another Windows 8 PC. If you have your profile stored on the cloud, most of your settings will be available to you instantly even if you have not used that particular machine ever before. This means colors, wallpapers, lock screen, profile photo and even accessibility options with contrast and font details.

Individual app settings, browser history and a large number of other things are also back up and linked to your account. So if you are in the habit of moving around a lot but are using the same set of apps, all you have to do is log in with your credentials and you will feel right at home. Also great for configuring different machines.

One cannot sync files between accounts right now but hopefully that too is coming up. Since every app can now access and use SkyDrive, you will have access to all your files on the cloud through any app that requires it.

Even Windows Explorer will have integrated SkyDrive access, which means it will be similar to DropBox but more integrated in to the system. Elitists might turn up their noses at it but then Microsoft is offering 25GB to everyone for free and paid upgrades up to 125GB. Now that’s hard to find on other cloud services. DropBox’s free account has a 2GB capacity.

Nokia Design Head Confirms Company’s Windows 8 Tablet Plans

Adamsummer — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 06:59:05 GMT

After a lot of rumormongering by various sources about Nokia’s tablet plans, the Finnish phone maker’s design chief has finally confirmed its existence.

Nokia Is Making A Windows 8 Tablet With An Uncertain Launch date

Nokia’s Chief of Design has confirmed that his company is working on a tablet and they intend to make one that competes with the iPad. This news comes nipping at the heels of the Digitimes post that quoted an anonymous component supplier to say the same thing.

Marko Ahtisaari, the Chief of Design for Nokia, let this information slip to a Finnish magazine when he was quoted saying that he is spending about one-third of is working hours on a tablet. Of course, he stopped right there and di did not give out any more details about specifications, form factors or expected release schedule. He simply said that they were working on it.

He did not mention Windows 8 either but then the company is no foolish enough to work on a Symbian tablet when they have such a great OS right in front of them. Plus Microsoft’s presence at Intel HQ will ensure great support from the makers of the said OS and may be even a marketing combo. Google does similar things with its Nexus series of devices where it partners with a hardware manufacturer and provides marketing support in exchange of product development.

Nokia might have gone with Android as well but then that would only mean fragmenting their work force one more time to dedicate a team to the new OS. Windows Phone is already being worked on at Nokia and Windows Phone 8 will be deeply tied in with Windows 8 on ARM — which would be the logical choice for a tablet.

The one interesting thing that Ahtisaari said was that the tablet would be different from the current crop of Android Tablets and it will be designed to steal market share from the iPad. Whilst Nokia is certainly not the first to make claims about competing with the iPad, they would become the first to actually make good on it if they actually manage to put a dent on the iPad Juggernaut.

Check which TCP/IP ports are in use in Windows 8 to secure your PC

Adamsummer — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 06:58:08 GMT

Do you need to know what TCP/IP ports are in use on your Windows 8 PC? Then read this tutorial!

Each and every applications need to occupy an available port or socket when the application wants to be connected to the internet. The application uses that occupied port to communicate and transfer data over internet until the application are terminated. Some applications have dedicated ports, like HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer protocol) uses port 80, FTP (File Transfer Protocol) uses port 21, Telnet has dedicated port 23, SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) uses port 25 etc. Some applications do not have any dedicated ports. When they want to connect to internet they occupy any random available port.

To know which application is using what port, follow these steps.

Use the command line and Task Manager to check the ports

1. Open the Task Manager.You can open Task Manger either by right clicking on the taskbar or by pressing Alt, Ctrl and Delete simultaneously. Now click on the File Tab and then select New Task (Run).

2. Then the Run window will appear. Check the box below to "Create this task with administrative privileges” . Write cmd into the input area and press Enter.

Now, the command prompt will appear having administrative privilege. You will see Administrator is written in the bar. It indicates you have the administrative privilege.

3. Now, simply type this command line

netstat -aon | more

and hit Enter.

4. Now you can see a table where the Local Address column will show you the port address and PID column will show the Process Identifier number of the process or application which is listening (using) the particular port. For an example from that table shown in the figure we can tell that Local Address 0.0.0.0:80 or port 80 is being used (Listening) by the process having the PID 1592.

This PID is unique for each and every process.

5. Now, open Task Manager and navigate to Services tab, there you can see the PIDs of all running programs. We can see that Apache 2.2 application holds the PID 1592 and the application is currently running. So we can conclude that port 80
is being uses by Apache 2.2. Now, you can terminate this program or process to release the port.

Thus you can easily identify which port is listening to which program and what are the available ports

Get a Metro Style Start Menu + Start Button on Windows 8 Consumer Preview

Adamsummer — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 06:56:29 GMT

If you want to get a Metro style start menu with a start button in Windows 8 there are some really handy tools available for download. Give this a try if you need a Start menu.

Microsoft introduces a new user interface : the Metro User Interface Windows 8.
The Start menu brings the main difference between this and its predecessors.
Some people like the new attractive start menu of ,strong>Windows 8 , some people still prefer that old start menu type.
Which was most easy to access in Windows 7. You can search for files, apllications or open any of the installed
programs from that menu quite easily.

If you want to use both the attractive look of Windows 8 start menu and the easy to access start menu of
Windows 7, then there is a way to combine both the feature. You have to folow the instructions carefully to do this.

1. Download Start 8 from here.

2. After downloading Start8 , install it in your own machine.

Click finish the installation when you are asked.

3. After finishing the installation check the new start menu by double clicking on the Start Button
to see it.

Now, you can search the applications , Settings , Files from the search menu.
You can also browse the installed programs from this new start menu as you have doen it till Windows 7. But along with those
features, you have got an exciting new look of Metro user Interface.

Top: Always Start An Application in Elevated Administrator Mode on Windows 8

Adamsummer — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 06:55:14 GMT

Some applications always need to be run in an elevated mode, here’s a guide that will teach you how to to always run applications in administrator mode on Windows 8.

Windows 8 by default runs most of the utilities or applications with least privilege access, which is non-admin mode. Thus Windows 8 helps to protect the system from damaging caused by both malicious virus codes and inexperienced end users. In general cases this is a good thing but, sometimes a user may need an app to run as an Administrator for different reasons.

Many applications need to be run as administrator in order to function properly. As Windows 8 is very new to us, many applications especially the older applications (which were meant for XP or vista) have not been updated to support Windows 8 yet. Sometimes a user may need administration privilege to run these type of applications.

Though Running applications as an Administration can be accomplished by using a simple right click, and then choosing Run as administrator option. But you need to do this same step each and every time you want to launch the application. It is possible to set an app to always run as Administrator.

Simply follow these steps to do so.

Steps to always Start an Application in Administrator Mode on Windows 8

Step 1: Right-Click the Application Shortcut that you want to run as an administrator and then Click Properties from the context menu.

Step 2: Now, navigate to Shortcut tab at the top. Then Click on the Advanced.

Step 3: Check the Run as administrator option, then Click OK to finish.

You are done. Now if you click on the shortcut of the application the shortcut will automatically run the application in administrator mode without any extra steps.

Create Shutdown / Restart / Lock Shortcut Icons in Windows 8

Adamsummer — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 06:46:48 GMT

If you want to create Shutdown / Restart / Lock shortcut icons on your Windows 8 desktop (that you can also pin to the Metro Start Screen) then read this guide.

If you want to create icons for Shutdown / Restart / Lock the machine, to do them directly by one mouse click, this tutorial is for you. If you do not like the shutdown menu in the metro user interface of Windows 8, then you can create icons for each of them in the desktop. Thus any of these can be done just by a single mouse click. If you want to create these icons, see the instructions below.

1. Switch to Desktop Mode by pressing Windows + M simultaneously.
2. Right-click on the desktop and click on New and then on Shortcut.

3. Now a new shortcut will be shown with a page like icon on the desktop and it will ask you the purpose of creating the shortcut.

Write the following lines for those corresponding purposes.

Shutdown Computer :

Shutdown.exe -s -t 00

Restart Computer :

Shutdown.exe -r -t 00

Hibernate Computer :

rundll32.exe PowrProf.dll,SetSuspendState

Sleep Computer :

rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState 0,1,0

Lock Workstation:

Rundll32.exe User32.dll,LockWorkStation

4.Name the Shortcut.

5. Now Right-click on the icon created on the desktop and select properties.

6. Now click on Change Icon .

Now a warning message will be shown. Press Ok to change Icon.

Now a list of options will appear, Select the appropriate icon .

Now click Ok to finalise it.

Now you can see the icon has been changed.

You can also use your own icon. In that case those files have to have ".ico” extension.

Configure startup applications in Windows 8 to speed up boot

Adamsummer — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 06:44:50 GMT

If you want to fully configure your startup apps, then read this simple how-to!

Start up applications uses RAM & CPU during start up process. If there are a lot of applications during startup it will make your PC slow. You may need to configure ( create new or disable some) these startup applications. This tutorial will tell you how you can configure start up applications in Windows 8.

There are mainly 2 ways to do it. Here they are:-

A. Using "msconfig” program

Press window+R to start "Run”prompt.

Type msconfig into it & press enter.

You will see the following window to appear.

Go to "Startup” tab. Uncheck unnecessary applications ( i.e these applications will no more start during startup).

Click "OK” to confirm. The following window appears. Select "Restart”.

B. Using Startup folder

There is another way to do it.

First of all enable "Hidden Items” option.

Now go to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup. Paste the application or batch file here.

I have shown an example here.

This will automatically start during startup.

4 Ways To Quickly Disable The Touchpad in Windows 8

Adamsummer — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 06:38:56 GMT

If you are annoyed that your cursors jump while you type, you can easily disable the touchpad in Windows 8 and stop that annoying behaviour of the touchpad.

While you are typing in your laptop or notebook your hands sometimes touch the touchpad unknowingly, results erratic cursor movement. Then you may find that the lines of text mysteriously intertwined. It is very annoying while you are doing a fast-typing job. To overcome this type of problem you may need to disable the touchpad while typing.

Not only that. While connecting an external Mouse with a laptop, users often want to disable touchpad temporarily.

Disabling touchpad in Windows 8 is quite easy. There are several methods to disable touchpad in windows 8.
Go through these following methods to disable touchpad.

Methods to disable touchpad in Windows 8

Method 1: Disabling touchpad using Touchpad Button

In most of the laptops or notebooks there is a special "Touchpad Enable/Disable button” to enable or disable touchpad in a single click. This is the easiest method to disable touchpad. If your laptop does not have such buttons then try other methods.

Method 2: Disabling touchpad while typing

1. Download the file TouchFreeze from here

2. Now, install that program and run the .exe file.

4. After installing "TouchFreeze” you can see the TouchFreeze Icon in the system tray. The "Touch Freeze” will run in Automatic Mode.

TouchFreeze will now automatically disable touchpad while you are typing. Thus erratic cursor movement will not occur anymore.

Method 3: Disabling touchpad from Mouse Property

1. Click on ControlPanel tile.

2. Now click on More Settings option from left side menu.

3. Old Control Panel Window will open. In Old Control Panel Window search for Mouse settings and click on Change Mouse Settings option from the search results.

4. Mouse Properties window will pop up. Now, choose None option from the dropdown list for Left Button, Right Button. Press Apply and then OK to save your settings.

Left and Right button in you touchpad will be disabled. Now you can attach an external mouse to your laptop to perform left or right click operations or to enable your touchpad buttons again.

This method is not so efficient. Following this method you can disable only touchpad buttons but your track pad will be still in active mode.

Method 4: Disabling touchpad using driver software from particular vendor

Laptop manufactures like HP, Sony, Lenovo, Dell, Toshiba etc. get their touchpads from third party vendors like Synaptics, Alps etc. So you may download latest drivers and software to disable touchpad either directly from your Laptop manufacture’s site (if manufacturer provides update) or from the third party vendor’s site.

These are the possible methods to disable touchpad in your Windows 8 laptop.

Mapping a hard drive in Windows 8

Adamsummer — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 06:37:04 GMT

If you want to quickly access (network) drives, you can simply map a network drive or hard drive in Windows 8 – This is very easy to do.

Quickly Accessing Network Folders via Explorer

1. Press Windows key + E on your keyboard to open the Windows Explorer

2. At the top you will already see the icon Map network drive. Select it. From the dropdown you can also optionally Disconnect network drives

3. Click on Browse and select Network.

4. Wait a few seconds until you get a list of all computers connected your network drive

5. The network folder will look similar to \\username\share

6. Click on Finish and you’re done, you can now successfully access this network drive from within the Windows 8 explorer

How to see all apps on Windows 8 that are currently installed

Adamsummer — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 06:35:14 GMT

Wondering what is installed on your PC, but you’re having trouble getting used to the Windows 8 Metro UI? Here’s how to see all apps that are installed.

1. Open the Metro Start Screen

2. Do ONE right-click on the blue background and a new bar at the bottom will appear:

3. Click on it and you should get a list of all programs that are installed on Windows 8

4. The list is quite long.

Obviously you can also simply open up the Windows Explorer and go to C:\Program Files\, however this is a little bit more handy to start them quickly.

Still can’t see all of your installed programs? Maybe it was not correctly added to the Metro Start Screen

See Desktop Shortcuts On Windows 8 Taskbar (Non-Metro)

Adamsummer — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 06:32:33 GMT

You are a desktop user and want to see all of your desktop shortcuts on the Windows 8 taskbar? Nothing easier than that.

1. Open the regular Windows 8 desktop by clicking on the Desktop user tile

2. Right-click on the taskbar and select Toolbars, Desktop

3. You can now access all desktop shortcuts using the Desktop toolbar:

Use Real, Non-Metro Internet Explorer on Windows 8

Adamsummer — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 06:28:14 GMT

You are a desktop user and want to use the regular, non-metro edition of the Internet Explorer? It’s still there, you just have to know where to look.

1. Open the Windows 8 explorer by hitting Windows key + E on your keyboard

2. Double-click on your C:/ or main drive and go to C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\

3. Right-click on iexplore and select Pin to taskbar

4. You can now open the real, non-metro Internet Explorer 10 right from your taskbar:

Optionally, you can pin it to "Start” and access the non-metro browser via the Metro Start Screen, but I will only use the Metro screen on mobile devices.

What is the pagefile.sys and how to delete it in Windows 8

Adamsummer — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 06:05:28 GMT

Don’t know what the pagefile.sys file is good for and you can’t delete it? Learn more about this system file in this tutorial and why you shouldn’t delete it.

What is pagefile.sys?

Pagefile.sys is a file (system file) created and used by system (XP,Windows7, Windows as ‘virtual’ memory and it is saved on hard drive. When physical RAM is fully used and there is need for more physical RAM, any data loaded in RAM and not in immediate use, can be swapped to the page file and thus free physical RAM for immediate use. The swapped data can be transferred back into physical RAM if needed at any time. Windows doesn’t work well without a page file.

Virtual memory is usually at least as large as installed physical RAM. But recommended size for a Page File is 1.5 to 2 times the installed physical RAM. so,Pagefile.sys can be quite big in size. Again, an unnecessarily huge Page file will increase boot time of the system. So, making the Page File too large will not necessarily improve performance.

Deleting Page File is not recommended. But if the size of the Page File is so large, that it increases system boot time or you need some urgent disk space, you may need to delete the Page File.

Follow these steps carefully to delete pagefile.sys file.

Steps to get rid off pagefile.sys

1. First of all open Computer or My Computer. Here you can see all the hard Drives and Portable Media drives attached with your PC.

2. Now, click on "System properties”, near the top of the window to open the System control panel.

3. Next, click on the Advanced system settings option. A small "System properties” window will pop up.

4. Under Advanced tab, click on Settings.

5. In "Performance Options” window, select
Advanced tab. At the bottom you can see the amount of disk space is currently used as virtual memory. Click on the Change button.

6. Next, in Virtual Memory window uncheck "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives” box.

7. Select No paging file option and click on Set.

8. Finally press OK and reboot your system. pagefile.sys will not be there in your system.

If you find pagefile.sys is still in your system, open "Virtual Memory” window again and manually set the custom size to 0 MB (for initial and Maximum both). Reboot system. You will find pagefile.sys is now of 0 MB. You may manually delete this file now.

Do not delete pagefile.sys manually, before its size reduced to 0 MB

What is DMA and how to enable DMA in Windows 8

Adamsummer — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 06:03:09 GMT

Do you know what DMA is? Here’s how to enable it for some of your hard drives

What is DMA ?

DMA stands for "Direct Memory Access”.

As the name refers DMA means tranfer of data between IO and disk without intervention of CPU.
The IO processor gets the control of IO buses along with control buses.

Suppose you have connected your peripheral device, e.g., pen drive to you computer. Now you are copying some data from hard disk to that pen drive.

Now to transfer data, the CPU must have to control that. But using CPU only for copying data is not efficient. Here comes DMA controller.
It takes the charge of data transfer betwen devices and frees CPU for other tasks.
But remember the hardwire should actually support DMA & It can only be enabled or disabled using the OS

Steps to enable it

The whole process can be divided in the following steps:-

1. Open Control Panel from the Metro UI.

2. Search for Device Manager.

3. Click on device manager & open Device Manager (Administrator password may be needed). After opening you will see a screen like the following:

4. Expand IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers.

5. Right-click on any label where "Channel” is present & Click on properties (I have used ATA Channel 0)

6. Navigate to Advanced Settings tab & enable or disable DMA by checking or unchecking Enable DMA & click OK.

Finally, you can see that DMA has been enabled.

Release Date News: Windows 8 Reportedly Coming By October This Year (2012)

Adamsummer — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 06:01:24 GMT

According to a report from Bloomberg, Microsoft will be able to deliver the finished version of Windows 8 by the end of this year around October.

Windows 8 Coming In Time For Early Christmas

Bloomberg has reported that Microsoft is on track for a late 2012 launch for Windows 8. The tech giant will apparently release the OS to manufacturers by the end of this summer and will officially launch the OS in October so that it has the period leading up to Christmas to gain everybody’s attention.

The publication, just like most other predictions about the upcoming OS, cited unnamed sources who were close to the matter. The report also said that there will be less then five ARM devices at the time of the launch, which seems to tie up to Dell, Lenovo and others claims. One of them, we believe will be from Nokia, given how tightly they are working with Microsoft at the moment.

The lighter ARM-based tablets running Windows 8 are what Microsoft will be depending on to carve out market share from the huge numbers that rival Apple now commands thanks to their iPad. The iOS maker in fact disclosed sales figures for the iPad on Monday during the earnings call saying that over 3 million iPads had already been sold since the Friday on-sale date.

Microsoft has already promised to ship ARM devices at the same time as other devices, making it possible for everyone to choose which one they want at the very beginning. However, since WoA (Windows on ARM) will not see a public preview like the main Windows 8, there are rumors about the actual progress being made.

If there are only abut five ARM tablets on the market at launch, then they might not pose that much threat to the iPad. However, combined with the x86 tablets that most companies are working on, Windows 8 might create a visible dent on the iPad’s market.

How to bring the Start button and menu back in Windows 8

Adamsummer — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 06:00:43 GMT

It is possible to bring back the Windows 8 Start button and Orb using various tools and tricks

Want to bring back the Start and orb buttons? Here’s a guide

Want that old Windows look in the Windows 8 beta? Well it’s possible to bring the Windows Start button and Start orb can back, and here’s how.

1. Download ViStart, an app which remakes the Windows 7 Start menu
2. When you start and run ViStart, make sure to decline options for toolbars bundled with the app. Assuming you don’t want them, of course
3. Once installation is complete the Start button and orb should be back

We said "should.” Some users have been reporting problems with the orb and Taskbar overlapping, so for those of you who run into issues here’s a lengthier guide on sorting out the problem.

1. First, you’ll need to another blank toolbar. Create a folder, and put it anywhere. Right-click on the Toolbar, then New Toolbar. Find the folder you created and click Select Folder. The folder will be added to your Taskbar, in the bottom right corner
2. Right-click on the Taskbar and uncheck Lock the Taskbar. Now drag and drop the new folder toolbar to the start of the Taskbar.
3. There should now be an empty area between the folder toolbar and the program buttons. Uncheck both the Show Text and Show title options. Move the program buttons near the start orb.
4. Lock the Taskbar, and you should have a Start orb that isn’t overlapping anything.

Bring back classic Start menu

If you don’t want to bring back the Start menu button and Start orb however, then you can bring back the classic Start menu instead. While this guide is for Windows 7, the desktop side of Windows 8 is basically the same in its basic functions.

1. First, right-click on the Taskbar and select Toolbars, New Toolbar
2. It’ll open a dialog box, so paste in %ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs
3. Next press Enter and click on the Select Folder button. Now Programs is added to the toolbar. Now uncheck Lock the Taskbar
4. Finally drag the Taskbar so the Programs toolbar is next to the Start orb, and you’re done!

Using bootrec.exe to fix MBR in Windows 8 (Master Boot Record)

Adamsummer — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 05:59:38 GMT

If you are having troubles booting Windows 8, you should most certainly try to fix the master boot record after booting into the safe mode or using the cmd launch option when booting from the Windows 8 DVD

What is MBR?

MBR or Master Boot Record is the second most important thing after the BIOS which can affect the windows startup in your PC.

This is the fixed "starting point” for booting a machine. When the machine is booted,

it looks here for required instructions and informations on how to boot the disk and load the operating system.

Many virus writers try to affect this critical portion.

Boot viruses are of this type.

Steps to fix MBR for Windows 8

1. Insert your Windows 8 DVD. Restart PC & start booting by pressing a key.

2. Click on next

3. Now, click on Repair your computer .

4. Next, click the option Troubleshoot among the 3 options shown on screen.

5. Click on Advanced options.

6. Then click on Command prompt.

7. The following prompt will appear.

8. Write the following one line command :

bootrec.exe /fixmbr

Restart your machine. See your MBR problem has been fixed.

Where are all the programs? Here’s how to find programs in Windows 8

Adamsummer — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 05:58:12 GMT

If you are having problems finding all your programs, read this tutorial to learn how to find all of your Windows 8 apps, programs, tools

Microsoft Windows 8 comes with the streamlined, touch-friendly Metro User Interface. Metro UI replaces Windows start button and menu with a grid of tiles. If you are new in Windows 8, you must have seen that the installed programs are not appearing in the start menu, which was there till Windows 7. The Metro UI tiles launch software.

If you want to find out the shortcuts of the installed programs to access them, then read the instructions below.

Finding Programs (UI: Developer Preview Very Similar To Consumer Preview)

1. First switch to Metro user interface by pressing Windows button.

2. See the bottom right corner of Metro user Interface .You will see a Rightward Arrow icon there. Click on that icon quite a few times till your program icon appears on the screen.

3. If you want to open the program normally, then just left click on that icon.

But if you want to open the program with Administrative privilege,then Right click on it. Now click on Advanced and select Run as Administrator.

Now the program will be opened with administrative privilege.

Where is the boot ini file? Here’s how to find the boot ini in Windows 8

Adamsummer — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 05:57:23 GMT

First of all there is no boot.ini file in Windows 8, Windows 7 or Vista. It is now the boot manager. Go through this tutorial before editing boot settings in Windows 8.

What is boot.ini?

In Windows 2000, Xp and Windows 2003 boot.ini file can be seen. Its default location is C:\(drive, where the default or Primary OS is installed). It contains boot configuration data. This file is used by these Operating Systems to display a menu of operating systems currently on the computer and allows users to select what operating system to load.

What about Windows 8, 7 or Vista?

Windows 8, Windows 7 or Vista works differently. If you try to boot these Operating Systems using BOOT.INI and NTLDR, it will fail. NTLDR can’t load Windows 8 even if you have the boot.ini entry. For example, if you install Windows 8 in unallocated space on a computer running Windows XP and look inside the XP partition, you will find that the boot.ini file is changed and two lines have been added before the original boot.ini script.

There is a hidden system partition. As the system partition does not have a drive letter assignment, it can’t be seen. BCD or Boot Configuration Data is stored in a folder named \boot on this system partition. Like Windows 7, Windows 8 uses a boot manager (bootmgr.dll) which consults with the BCD ( in Boot folder) to locate the boot loader ( winload.exe).

What is the location of bootmgr.dll in Windows 8?

Bootmgr.dll is a hidden system file and it is located generally in the root directory of C:\ drive (always not necessary, it depends on installation history). If you are confused, simply navigate to Disk Management. The drive labeled System, Active will be the location of bootmgr.dll file.

Change Boot configuration in Windows 8

You may change boot configuration by editing bootmgr.dll. But it’s not wise to mess with bootmgr.dll unless you have good knowledge about it. However if you are determined to change bootmgr.dll, it is advised to create a recovery image of your existing system.

There’s a utility tool, EasyBCD to edit Boot Configuration. It is free for limited and non-commercial use.

Download EasyBcd

Windows 8 Will Support High-Resolution Display, Retina Display. Minimum Resolution Detailed

Adamsummer — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 05:55:54 GMT

Windows 8 is designed to scale to all possible screen sizes and that includes extremely high pixel density displays such as the Retina Display standard used by Apple.

Windows 8 To Bring High Resolution Screen Devices To The PC Market

If there’s one thing that is inspiring a lot of vendors right now, it is a certain high resolution display toting device that has a pixel density (PPI or Pixels Per Inch) that matches the limit of the human eye. This has triggered a chain reaction where manufacturers are trying to come up with displays that not only have higher resolutions but go beyond the boring 72-96PPI range and venture in to densities that range from over 100 to nearly 300 PPI.

As a result, Windows 8 would have to scale not only in terms of resolution but also in terms of pixel density. So on the same 10inch screen, it might have to fit in many times more pixels than the basic 96 PPI. Microsoft takes to their Building Windows 8 blog in order to explain how they have achieved this feat and how they intend to make sure that they are competitive with the iPad’s (and the iPhone’s) retina display.

High Pixel Density Along With High Resolution Is Not New In Windows

Windows, like any other modern OS, has always been capable of display more pixels per inch at a given resolution. Since most displays have been using about 96PPI, higher resolutions have not usually been a problem because the screen size would increase with the resolution (because the pixel density is constant) and the elements on screen would remain perfectly readable.

But then came the situation where the same screen size now has higher resolution because of great pixel density. So a 20pixel onscreen element that was perfectly legible on a 96ppi screen, would become very difficult to decipher on a 200ppi screen. Thankfully, Windows has had a way of countering this by increasing the pixel density of the whole OS so that you don’t have to squint to do your regular work.

But it has had its problems because some applications would not draw right with a new pixel density. And some elements or applications would simply become too big and go off screen or behind the taskbar. Result — most users would accept that at 96ppi, things would be slightly small but still usable if you don’t scale them. And since you are using a mouse, your system it still quite usable.

Switch over to touch and this escalates from a minor annoyance to a huge problem. Everything has to be nice and well defined and of a goodly size to be usable. This is a problem that touch device users frequently face on websites and it is not going to go away because higher pixel density is not becoming mainstream.

Metro To Scale Smoothly On High Pixel Density And Resolution Minus Hiccups

So when it came to Windows 8, Microsoft had to find a solution to this and that is what they have done on the Metro side of Windows 8. Microsoft is already anticipating displays that match Apple’s Retina Display. In their illustration of the common screen sizes, there’s a 10.1” screen that has a resolution of 2560×1440 pixels, making the density around 291ppi. The same resolution on a 11.6” device would have 253ppi.

As you can already see, these densities are a far cry from the 72-96ppi that we are used to. On common laptop screens, the densities will remain higher than the current average at around 125-157ppi.

Since Metro was designed from ground up to be extremely scalable, designing apps that scale across all screens is much easier. One of the ways this has been done is by limiting the minimum size to 1024×768 and a widescreen minimum of 1366×768. Snapped view will always be exactly 320 pixels wide. And the apps have resizing limitations as well. They will always maintain an aspect ratio of 16:9 or 4:3 depending on the screen. With all these rules in place, the number of possible situations where an app will have to adapt becomes manageable and quite predictable.

Scaling has also been limited to either 140% or 180%, which seems random at first but this will allow 1920×1080 and 2560×1440 screens to display content that are apparently the same size as 1366×768 but much sharper.

Apple Retina Display Matching Screens To Be Common On Windows 8, Says Microsoft

Microsoft mentioned that resolutions of 1920×1080 and 2560×1440 on 10inch and 11inch screens will be quite common on Windows 8 tablets, hinting at the fact that they will take on the newest iPad head on; at least as far as the display is concerned. Windows 8 will be intelligent enough to scale automatically to fit the screen.

The apps on Windows 8 Metro work on a system that automatically scales them to fit the screen. Developers will be required build scaling support right in and some of the elements will be automatically scaled by the system.

How to get back the classic Start menu in Windows 8 Developer Preview?

Adamsummer — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 05:52:21 GMT

If you want to get back the classic start menu in Windows 8, refer to the tutorial below.

IMPORTANT: THIS TUTORIAL IS INTENDED FOR WINDOWS 8 DEVELOPER PREVIEW

Microsoft introduces Metro User Interface in Windows 8. The main difference between Metro UI and its
Predecessor is that, it doesn’t have the start menu like before. Rather it brings a new type of start menu with an exciting new look. But still many users prefer the old start menu, where everything can be done in one place, from searching to opening an application. If you also want to use that old start menu in Windows 8, then follow the instructions carefully.

1. Switch to Desktop Mode by pressing Windows + M simultaneously.

2. Press Windows + R to open the Run window. Now type regedit and then press Enter.

3. Now navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Explorer.

4. Right click onRPEnabled and select Modify.

By default this value will be 1. Set this value to 0 to get back the old start menu like in Windows 7.
After modification, press OK to verify and close Regedit.

5. To check whether the change has been made or not, just double click on the Start Menu icon and you will see
that old start menu of Windows 7 in action.

How to install custom icons in Windows 8 (Desktop Customization)

Adamsummer — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 05:41:04 GMT

If you are new to customizing Windows, read our tutorial how to install icons in Microsoft’s latest iteration Windows 8

Sometimes you may want to add new icons created by yourself or found elsewhere in existing windows library.In such a situation this tutorial is really going to be helpful to you. You can easily create new customized .ico files and use them as your custom icons. process.
Just follow these steps properly to install custom icons in Windows 8.

A. Get new icons

You can create your own icons using various drawing editor like paint or Adobe Photoshop etc.
There are also some free sites to create icons online like this.
Create an icon and save it as ".ico”. For example I have created this one:-

If you have not already created your own icon you can download icons from this site or from this site.
Save this to your desktop.

B. Use the new icon

Say you want to change the windows explorer icon. Follow these simple steps.

1. Go to Metro UI screen & right click on the "Windows Explorer” icon. As soon as you click you will see "Advanced” option in the bottom right corner.

2. Click on "Advanced” icon & select "Open file location”.

3. After the window has opened right clock on "windows explorer” & click on "Properties”.

4. In the properties window go to "Shortcut” tab. Press "Change Icon”.

5. Now browse drives & select Icon to apply. Select "fav.ico” from Desktop (previously saved) & "open” it.

6. Now, press "ok”.

7. Click "ok” (or "apply” & then "ok”).

8. Close all the opened windows & go back to Metro UI screen. You will see that "windows Explorer” icon has been changed.

Follow these steps again to change another icon.

Tutorial: How to log off Windows 8

Adamsummer — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 05:40:12 GMT

This tutorial will help you to learn how to log off in Windows 8. This can also be used to shutdown, restart or switch user accounts

Your computer can have multiple user account. You may need to leave the computer for other’s use or you may want to Log off your computer from an user account and log in to another account for any testing purpose. In that case follow the instructions below.

Steps to Log Off Windows 8 via Start Screens

1. First switch to Metro user interface by presing Windows button.

2. See the top right corner of Metro user Interface . You will see your User name is written there.

3. Now click on the User Account icon and the following window will appear.

Now click on Log Off to log off the machine.

How to install Windows 8 on a new partition using custom Installation

Adamsummer — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 05:39:23 GMT

If you want to install Windows 8 on a new partition, read this guide that explains how to access the "advanced” installation options

Do you want to give Windows 8 a try? But not sure to use Windows 8 as your Primary Operating System. Don’t worry, you can easily dual boot Windows 8 with your existing operating system. You just need a free Primary partition on your hard disk to install Windows 8. First of all you need to download 32 bit or 64 bit .iso file of Windows 8. Then Burn it to a DVD carefully.

Now, follow these steps carefully to install Windows 8 on a new partition.

1. Insert the DVD of Windows 8 and reboot the machine. It will automatically start to load the Windows files from your bootable DVD. If it does not detect the bootable Windows 8 installation DVD then make sure you have changed the boot option in the BIOS menu so that your optical drive is recognized before your active primary hard drive.

2. Set language preferences and then install Windows 8.

3. When you are opted for Custom or Installation. Click on Custom(Advanced) .

4. Then select the drive except the current Windows directory and install Windows 8.
When the installation is finished and machine is rebooted, then you will see two option for booting Windows Developer Preview and the previous one.

Beginners: How to navigate Windows 8 with a Mouse and keyboard

Adamsummer — Wed, 30 May 2012 05:30:14 GMT

If you want to know how to navigate Windows 8 with a mouse and keyboard, this guide will help you out a bit.

Metro interface of Windows 8 seems to be perfect for touch input but what about mouse control?

No doubt, navigation on non-touch devices (mouse or keyboard input) can be improved further in windows 8. Features like De-emphasizing scrollbars, Multi-gesture swiping etc. are still missing in Windows 8 mouse control. While touch input Windows 8 devices support all these things.

Here you can see some popular navigation operations performed using mouse.

Lock screen

Click and hold the bottom screen and drag it up to escape from lock screen. You can also double click on anywhere on the screen to do the same thing.

Switch to Metro UI

Click on the Start Menu icon to swtich to metro UI form desktop mode.

Open a Tile

Left click on the tile to open it.

Tile Property

Right Click on the tile to see the options available for that tile.

Move Tile

Click on the tile and hold it .Then drag that tile to the desired position.

Navigate Tiles

Scroll down to see the tiles of the right and scroll upward to see tiles of the left. Or you can simply click on the rightward arrow on the bottom of the screen or leftwared arrow to navigate the tiles in Metro UI.

Switch Applications

Take the cursor to the left of the screen and hold that for a second and you will see a very small window of the previous application you were in. Then Left click to opent that application

Become a developer: How to make Windows 8 apps using the SDK?

Adamsummer — Wed, 30 May 2012 05:29:03 GMT

In order to make Metro apps, you have to download the Developer SDK first and then you can get started right away if you know how to program.

If you want to make Metro applications, you must have the following things:-

required Things to be downloaded:

1. Microsoft Visual Studio 2011.
2. The SDK tool from microsoft website.

You must have the basic knowledge of:-

1. XAML(Extensible Application Markup Language).
2. Visual Basic or
3. Visual C++ or
4. C#.

You will get details about SDK tool from Build.

For Metro applications, you have to go to Build. When you click on the "Build” tile, it will ask you for
a Live Id. If you already have a Live Id, then just sign in else create a Live Id and then Sign In
using Build.

Then the Build Window will appear with various popular tutorials in it.

You can follow the tutorials mentioned there, of your choise, and start designing your Metro Application. First make your Floorplan then then start.

Download the required SDk from there.

Playing Java Games: How to play Minecraft in Windows 8 ?

Adamsummer — Wed, 30 May 2012 05:28:09 GMT

Are you an avid fan of Minecraft and want to play Minecraft right now on Windows 8? Nothing easier than that, follow this tutorial.

Minecraft is a game about placing blocks to build anything you can imagine. It is an online game.
Though it was pretty good till with windows 7. This polpular game had no issue with Windows 8′s predecessor. But somehow, It creates
problems in Windows 8.
In these tutorial, you can learn how to play Minecraft in Windows 8.

1. If you want to play Minecraft for free, please download this file from
here

2. Right-click on My Computer and select Property.

3. Now click on Advanced Sytem Settings

4. Now click on the Environment Variables button below.

5. Next click on the New button just below the variable names.

6. In the Variable name section, type Path.
in the Variable Values type the directory where JDK is installed in your machine.
Note, JDK is needed here, not JRE

Now click OK thrice to confirm this Path Setting.

7. Now right click on the Minecraft application downloaded from above source and select Run As Administrator.

8. Now the Login Screen will appear. Leave the User name blank and click on Enter Game.

Now after downloading the necessary files from internet, your Minecraft will be ready for playing.

Note , if anything goes wrong, repeat steps 7 and 8.

Playing Games: How to reduce latency (ping) in Windows 8

Adamsummer — Wed, 30 May 2012 05:26:59 GMT

You constantly have a high latency / ping in games while playing on Windows 8? No worries, we’ve got you covered! Let’s reduce that latency.

What is latency?

The time taken to send a package(unit of data) between two points in a network is called latency.
In other words, we can say, latency is the delay that may be found in audio or video transmission because of
inherent limitations of a digital system. Latency generally increases when more bandwidth is required than
available bandwidth.

In TCP-IP error control mechanism windows sends an ACKNOWLEDGEMENT message to the sender
(e.g. Game server) to confirm network package is successfully received (from the sender). The sender
(e.g. Game server) waits until it receives the ACKWOLEDGEMENT message from the receiver
(Windows) for the last sent network package before sending another network package to receiver (windows).
So, any congestion in Network can increase latency.

Low Latency Network and its advantages

In low latency network the design of the system, hardware and protocols are in such a manner that it minimizes the time taken to move units of data between any two points on that network.

Some applications are more affected by latency and reduced latency helps them to be worked properly. Like:-
Voice based applications (VoIP)

Networked Games (LAN and online gameplay)

Streaming (Audio or Video)

Sometimes while playing games (like Counter strike, FIFA, age of emperor etc.) over LAN you may experience audio or video is very jerky because of higher latency.
By reducing the latency you can improve Networked or Online games.

Enabling the TCPNoDelay we can reduce latency.
Follow these steps properly to reduce latency in Windows 8.

Steps to reduce latency in windows 8

1. Press window+R to start "Run”prompt.
and type regedit in Run then click on OK.

2. In Registry Editor, go to the string HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces

3. Now, under interfaces, there may be multiple entries, open those and search for a specific string which has IPAddress or DhcpIPAddress entry in right panel. If you find more than one strings have one of these entries in their right panel then choose the string having the highest entries in its right panel. In my case the name of the subfolder/string is {8C0B804C-97F5-4ACD-929D-13346E8C419B}.

4. Right click on the string {8C0B804C-97F5-4ACD-929D-13346E8C419B} then click on New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value.

5. Now name it TcpAckFrequency

6. Right click on TcpAckFrequency and select Modify.

7. Now change Value data from "0″ to "1″ and press OK.

8. Repeat Step 4 and name it TCPNoDelay and like previous change its Value data to "1″.

Now, reboot your system. You are done. Latency is successfully reduced and you can experience this change while playing online or LAN games.

Broken: How to remove write protection from USB drive in Windows 8

Adamsummer — Wed, 30 May 2012 05:26:04 GMT

If you want to remove write protection from your USB drive, refer to the instructions below.

What is Write Protection & Disable Write Protection

Sometimes, virus gets attached to your pen drive and it becomes write protected i.e. you can’t copy anything into it although you can read it and copy data from USB device to hard disk.
The above picture is about such an error.

Some devices also has a write protection switch in its hardware part like the following

Different Solutions to this Problem

Editing Registry

Most frequently this problem can be solved using registry editing

Press window+R to start "Run”prompt.

Type regedit into it & press enter & allow it by pressing Yes

Registry editor has been started & expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

Expand SYSTEM & go to SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control

Search for StorageDevicePolicies & change value of WriteProtect to 0

Format USB drive

If the usb drive is still "Write protected” then you may perform a "low-level format” on the drive.
Download this software to perform the "low-level format” of the USB drive.
Insert your drive & apply format

After format it may not work. But don’t worry. Do the following

Click Open Disk Management Console & format the device

Select the correct drive, right click on it & apply format. You are free to select any volume name or file system for formatting.

Search for a "lock switch”

Some USB drives have a lock switch that prevents you to make ANY changes to its content. In such cases consult the handbook provided or examine the USB drive. Once you find the switch, you can easily unlock and remove the write protection from your drive.

Speed Benchmarks: Windows 8 Clearly Faster Than Windows 7 In Benchmark Tests

Adamsummer — Wed, 30 May 2012 05:24:49 GMT

Windows 8 has been consistently performing at the top against Windows 7 in multiple benchmark tests that are used to gauge a OS’ performance, speed, etc.

Windows 8 Better Than Windows 7 At Most Benchmark Tests

This shouldn’t really come as a surprise to anyone — Windows 8 Consumer Preview has been beating Windows 7 at most of the benchmark tests performed on both platforms. The tests were run by the good people of PC World and the results show that Windows 8 is a much more fine tuned cat than its predecessor Windows. Most of the tests showed that Windows 8 was overall faster and in some cases much faster that Windows 7.

Since this was a comparison test, both platforms were tested on the same machine configuration — Intel Core i5-2500K at 3.3 GHz, 8 GB of RAM, 1 TB hard drive, and an NVIDIA GTX 560 Ti video card. It was benchmarked with the WorldBench 7 batch of tests and Windows 8 scored 14% over Windows 7. The report says that 5% performance difference is a noticeable difference, which means 14% is considerably better.

Things that were faster on Window 8 included things like: -

Start up time — 36.8 seconds against 56.2
Web performance through WebVizBench — 28.6 FPS against 18.9

However, Windows 7 was seen being faster at content creation than Windows 8. The difference was very subtle though and it is possible that Windows 8 just needs better drives for the components in order to perform better at heavy load content creating tasks as well. But that would only happen once Windows 8 is commercially launched.

For content creation, Windows 7 scored higher than Windows 8 on PCMark. The scores for Office productivity were — 2280 for Windows 7 and 2099 for Windows 8.

How To Shutdown Windows 8 The Easy Way, Using Microsoft Metro Apps

Adamsummer — Wed, 30 May 2012 05:24:06 GMT

A pair of Microsoft’s seal of approval bearing app make the process of restarting, logging-off or shutting down much easier than what the user has to go through on the stock version of Windows 8.

Two Microsoft Approved Apps make for easy shutdown and restarting on Windows 8

Microsoft Approves Of Easy Shut Down/Restart Apps

Since Windows 8 is designed to not need as many shut downs and restarts as the previous versions, Microsoft has buried the shutdown and associated options deep underneath the digital foliage. So the process of getting to these options is exceedingly non-intuitive. There are workarounds however, which we have already posted but they require a teeny bit of tinkering to make custom Metro UI tiles on the Start Screen. If you are loathe to do even that much, you will definitely like what Woody Leonhard of InfoWorld has found on the Microsoft website.

Hidden deep inside the website as mentions of two apps that make life a lot easier for users who want to shut down and restart frequently.

To shutdown/restart from the Metro UI, you will have to get the Charms bar out, go to the Settings charm and then choose the Power option which will have the Shut down and Restart options. Alternatively, you will have to press Alt+F4 on the Desktop to bring up a special dialog that gives you options for shutting down, restarting or putting the device to sleep. Since you are probably using Windows 8 on a desktop or laptop that has no touchscreen, the experience would rate quietly high on frustration and inefficiency.

Now go to the Microsoft Gadgets site for personalization by using this link —

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/downloads/personalize/gadgets

…and find one of these two apps —

Control System with Clock by Keat
TOP – Vista Shutdown Control by Markus

Install any one and you will be pleasantly surprised with a sudden appearance of icons that are one-click shortcuts for shut down, restart, sleep and log off. And both come with clocks. How splendid!

Windows 8 Lumia Phones To Be Drastically Better Than Current Models

Adamsummer — Wed, 30 May 2012 05:23:26 GMT

Windows 8 for Windows Phone (Apollo) is definitely going to be better but new rumors claim that Lumia phones running Windows Phone 8 will be better than the current version by a wide margin.

Lumia Phones To Become Amazing With Windows Phone 8

According to a long winded chain of rumormongering, it has been uncovered that Nokia has been working on Windows Phone 8 devices and they are apparently many times better than the current Lumia phones.

According to the statement from a Nokia engineer quoted in the original post by Phone Arena, the next batch of Windows Phone models will be called Nokia Prodigy and they will are "Incredible”.

The rumor seems to have originated from the Twitter stream of user Cosimo, who recently posted the following tweet: -

"Today I met a Nokia employee. Nokias Apollo devices will be incredible. But still Microsoft…Meh..Also have some good news for Meltemi.”

Even though he praises the Windows Phone Apollo devices, the twitter stream shows a clear bias towards the N9 and apathy for Microsoft, which is strange for a Nokia employee because he ought to be rather busy with showing the upcoming Windows Phone in a good light, especially since it has not been been launched yet. But on the other hand, it is possible for employees within Nokia to disregard Windows Phone and stick to the older Symbian platform.

Nokia has of course not made any comments on this story and neither have they released any information regarding Apollo phones. And they would not do so till it was just about time to launch them.

The Finnish phone maker is currently busy promoting the Lumia phones all over the world. It is Nokia’s ticket to recapturing a lot of the lost smartphone market and for the world’s largest mobile handset manufacturer, that is quite a shame.

IE10 On Windows 8: The Metro Version Vs The Desktop Version

Adamsummer — Wed, 30 May 2012 05:21:54 GMT

Internet Explorer 10 or IE10 on Windows 8 comes in two version — the Desktop and Metro — and here’s how they are similar yet so very different.

Dealing With The Split Personality Of IE10 On Windows 8

You can choose which version of IE10 will be your default browser on Windows 8. The factory setting is contextual — links clicked in Metro open in Metro and links from Desktop open in Desktop. Which is basically great for those who have a different workflow for each Metro and Desktop. However, most of us just want a simple, one thing does it all browsing experience. So here’s a closer look at the two sides of IE10 and you can then choose which on you like best. Spoiler: if you have a tablet or touchscreen PC, things are pretty much self-explanatory — you are far better of using Metro.

There are two major differences between the two side of IE10 and one major similarity. The first and obvious difference lies in the UI, of course, as the Desktop side looks more like what have been used to on Windows so far and the Metro side is more about touch based controls and minimal design. The other difference lies in the fact that IE10 on Metro is devoid of any plugin. It is pushing the Internet to become self-reliant using recent developments like HTML5. So there’s no Flash or Active X. However, those technologies are still present in the Desktop side.

The major similarity is in the background — they are both based on the same engine and they share things like history items.

Experience-wise, Metro is much more immersive. Everything gets out of your way as soon as you stop using them, leaving you with a fullscreen view of whatever page you are on. If you need any of the tools, they are just a swipe or a tap away. Plus there are quick shortcuts to frequently visited sites and pinned sites that you can access on the fly. The Desktop mode on the other hand is exactly what Internet Explorer has been like all this time with its toolbars and menus; perfect for power users and those who absolutely must have plugins.

So choose your use-case scenario and you will automatically know which one’s the best for you. However, if you are on a touchscreen, you will absolutely love using the Metro version and would probably have a frustrating time with the Desktop edition.

Microsoft Announces Launch Date For Windows 8 In Bahrain “Late 2012″

Adamsummer — Wed, 30 May 2012 05:21:15 GMT

News reports from a tech expo in Bahrain talk about Microsoft putting end of this year as the launch date for Windows 8.

Microsoft Says It Will Launch Windows 8 By The End Of This Year In Bahrain

A two day expo called Microsoft Open Door has just taken place in Bahrain. It is an event support by the Bahrain Government in order to take advantage of the upcoming Windows 8 OS and Office 365 cloud service. But the main point of interest is what Microsoft had to say about the OS. Regional news reports suggest that Microsoft officially answered a question about the launch timings of Windows 8, saying that it would launch some time towards the end of the year. As for Office 365, they said it was coming summer this year, which is not that far away.

Microsoft has so far made no official announcements about when it intends to release Windows 8. So the news of this statement comes as a surprise. These reports fall in with what has already been rumored about Windows 8 — Microsoft is very close to achieving Release Candidate stage by this summer and that would translate in to a late 2012 commercial release. Some have even claimed that Windows 8 is currently on schedule for an October release so that it can build up to the holiday season sales.

The expo was majorly sponsored by industry stalwarts HP and Dell with exhibits from other companies like Fujitsu, Exceed, docuBox also present. A regional Microsoft manager for Bahrain and Oman also stated that Microsoft has a long standing with Bahrain and these kind of activities are important for boosting nation building efforts with access and introductions to newer platforms and technologies.

Tutorial: Replacing system files to install your Windows 8 shell themes

Adamsummer — Wed, 30 May 2012 05:20:39 GMT

Installing Windows 8 themes requires you to replace system files, here’s how you would do that in Windows 8

Sometimes you may see that Windows is not running properly because one or more system files (like autochk.exe, msscntrs.dll, msdtcprx.dll etc.) got corrupted. In that situation to avoid fresh installation of windows corrupted system files need to be replaced.

Not only that, to use some custom themes or to change the default Start Orb you need to change explorer.exe, shell32.dll etc. files, which are also system files. So, it is very important to know how to replace system files before doing all these stuffs.

Creating Back up

Before starting with the following process, make sure that:-

A. System Image back up has been taken.

B. A set of bootable recovery media has been created.

Steps to replace system files in windows 8

The whole process can be divided in two main steps:-

A. Taking ownership of system files.

B. Changing the name of original system files and copying new file in exact location.

What is Ownership?

Ownership of a file means permission of owner of that file. In an Operating system, during some file operation, you may get an error message "Access Denied” and one of the reason behind this error message is that you are not the owner of that file or folder. So you don’t have the permission for that operation. In that case you have to take the ownership of that file.

Follow the instructions below to replace system files in Windows 8.

1. Download the file Take Ownership.zip from here.

2. Extract the file .You will get 2 registry editor file in that folder. One is Install Take Ownership and another one isUninstall Take Ownership .

3. Double click on the fileInstall take Ownership to install it. First it will ask your permission for running it.

Then registry editor will ask you to continue.

After editing registry it will show you the success message.

4. Now navigate to the system file which you want to replace (here taking shell32.dll as an example). Right click on shell32.dll system file and choose Take Ownership option. UAC dialog box will appear click on Yes.

5. Now change the name of shell32.dll file to shell32.dll.old (or anything you want). Now, there will be no problem in changing the name of the file. Do not delete this file.

You may change this file name again to its default to get back in previous situation. So renaming the system file is always a preferable choice over deleting the file permanently. Now copy the new shell32.dll file in the exactly same directory.

You are done. You have successfully changed shell32.dll system file. Now, follow the same steps to replace other system files. If you want to get back the old system files in action by reverting the process.

Rumors: Windows 8 To Have A Separate Version For Media Center

Adamsummer — Wed, 30 May 2012 05:19:37 GMT

It seemed for a while that Media Center was to live as an integral part of Windows 8 as a feature but now there are rumors that it will have a separate version.

Windows 8 Professional Media Center Version?

Windows Media Center has been through a lot of evolution and it was finally settled that it will live on as a major feature inside Windows 8. However, industry whistle blower Winunleaked has offered a different perspective in the case. According to a post, there’s a Pro Pack edition that is called the ProfessionalWMC. There’s no telling what this is for though. It could just be a separate SKU for Windows 8 Professional but then that separate mention of Windows Media Center does look suspicious.

There are reasons for Microsoft to leave out the Windows Media Center from the main builds of Widnwos 8 though. One the main being the licensing costs. There codecs used inside the Media Center that are licensed from Dolby Digital and the likes. These codecs must be paid for by the buyer with every copy of Media Center that is sold. That is how it works. But then that also means it will raise the price of any OS that it is part of. Higher costs will mean slower adaptation and that is not something that Microsoft should want to risk right now.

Windows 8 is banking on the fact that there will be quick user adaptation followed by the enterprise. This is the only way Microsoft can pave way for a rapid development that will usher in the new era of touch first that this new OS is so very emphatic about.

As of now, there’s nothing really to go by on, so we will just have to be satisfied with speculations. There are rumors that the launch of the new OS will happen in the fall this year but nothing’s final so far.

How to restore Windows 8 to previous state, configuration point

Adamsummer — Wed, 30 May 2012 05:18:41 GMT

Got a restore point? Great, let’s restore Windows 8 to a previous state, a known-to-be-working configuration point

It is quite probable that you may make some unwanted change in system configuration by changing registry or installing some problematic application. In such
cases you may need to go back to previous configuration to undo the effects.
This tutorial will help you to achieve that goal.

Steps to restore Windows 8 to previous configuration

PREREQUISITES

You need to create & maintain a "Restore point” beforehand so that you can go back to the restore point (i.e. the configuration on a particular day) as needed.

So now you need to know how to make a restore point.

Open "Control Panel” & click "More settings”.

Now search for "Restore point” by writing it the search box on the upper right hand side of the control panel window.

Click Create a restore point. After the following window appear click "Create…”

Write a description as you want & click "Create”.

You can see that restore point creation is being done.

Restore Your PC now

Go back to the control panel screen & search for "Restore point” by writing it the search box on the upper right hand side of the control panel window.

Under the System heading click "Restore system files and settings from a restore point”.

You may choose Recommended restore or Choose a different restore point & click Next.

If you have selected Choose a different restore point you will see a list of "Restore Points”. Select correct one & click Next.

Now click Finish.

The following warning box will appear. Click "Yes”.

Your system will be restored. Restart your PC.

Tutorial: Run old games and programs on Windows 8 with this how-to

Adamsummer — Wed, 30 May 2012 05:17:41 GMT

In this tutorial we are showing you how to properly run old games and programs on Windows 8

Up gradation from Windows 7 to Windows 8 is far more pain-free, than up gradation from Windows XP to Vista, or Vista to Windows 7. There were some compatibility headaches while running some old programs or games in Windows Vista or even in Windows 7. Despite of having attractive metro interface and metro apps Windows 8 has more or less same salient features like Windows 7. So it is expected that there will be no compatibility issue in running those programs which are compatible with Windows 7.

Kevin Turner, Microsoft’s COO said at the Worldwide Partner Conference 2011,
"The gateway to get to Windows 8 is Windows 7, and we will have backward compatibility with Windows 7 embedded into Windows 8. That’s something that we’re very committed to. But that’s a really important first pillar.”

But you may face compatibility issue while running some old programs or games, which were meant to be run only on Windows Vista or XP. In that case follow these steps to solve the problem.

Steps to run Old programs and games

Compatibility issue can be appeared during the installation of any old program, during the execution (run) of a old program, or in both of the situations. Here, old version of "Connectify” (compatible with XP service pack 2 or 3) application has been chosen to describe the steps.

1. First of all click on the setup file of the program that you want to install. If the version of the program is not compatible with Windows 8 "Program Compatibility Assistant” dialog box will appear. Click on "Run the program using compatibility setting” . Now, the installation process will start.

2. After the installation process is finished, try to run the program. You will see the same compatibility problem what you have experienced during the installation process.

3. Now, right click on the game or program icon (here, connectify icon) in your desktop and click on Properties option. New Properties window will pop up. Navigate to Compatibility tab.

4. Now, if you know the exact compatibility mode for running the game or program, first check "Run this program in compatibility mode for:” box and then select desired Compatibility mode from the dropdown list. Then press "Apply” and then "OK”.

5. If you are confused in choosing a compatibility mode for an old program or a game, click on the Recommended Option"Run the compatibility troubleshooter to choose the settings”.

6. Program compatibility Troubleshooter window will pop up. Now click on Try recommended settings option.

7. Window will automatically choose a compatibility mode for the game or the program. Here you can see program name (here connectify) and the compatibility mode (here XP service Pack 3) applied by windows troubleshooter.

8. Now, click on "Start the Program” option.

Now, the program or game should run properly in compatibility mode.
8. Finally, click on Yes, save the settings for the program option to save the compatibility mode settings for that particular program or game.

Follow these steps to run any other old programs or games to install and run on Windows 8.

Speed up Internet Explorer 10 in Windows 8 Via Registry Tweak

Adamsummer — Wed, 30 May 2012 05:16:52 GMT

Your Internet Explorer 10 is too slow? Let’s speed up IE10 and make it blazing fast!

Windows Internet Explorer or IE (abbreviated) was developed by Microsoft. It is a web browser and was released in 1995. It is one of the most popular web browsers today.

In Windows 8 IE 10 is more than just a browser. When a new tab will be opened a start screen with frequently visited websites or pinned websites will be opened.

In case your IE has slowed down you can try the following things.

Steps to speed up IE10

First see how you can open internet explorer.
There are many ways to do it.

1. You can open it from desktop by clicking the icon.

2. You can start it using from "run” also. Press window+R. Run window will appear. No write iexplore & click ok.

Now you can try the following things for faster performance

A. Disable Add-ons

Loading a lot of add-ons during startup may cause IE10 to slow down. Disable unnecessary add-ons.

After IE has opened go to Tools->Manage add-ons (in case you can’t see the menu bar press F10)

Now select unnecessary add-ons & disable them.

B. By increasing maximum number of connections per Server

IE 7 and below are bound to maximum 2 connections per server. That means you can download maximum two files from one particular website at a time. IE 8 raised
this limit up to 6. IE 10 is more flexible. Here you will come to know how to increase number of simultaneous HTTP connections to 10. This will make the loading of web pages faster.

1. Open registry by writing "regedit” in "run” prompt.

2. Now navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings. Let’s see how to go there :

Click HKEY_CURRENT_USER

Click Software.

Expand Microsoft.

Click Windows

Click Current Version.

After ,expanding "Current Version you will see a folder "Internet Settings”.
2. Now, right click on it.

Go to New->DWORD (32-bit) Value

The following screen will appear.

3. Now, edit "New Value #1″ & write MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server

4. Double click on newly created entry. Edit screen will appear. Select Decimal & in the Value data box write 10.

That means at a time 10 files can be downloaded from server.

Restart your PC & you will see the effect.

C. Clear temporary files & history

In a long run temporary files get piled up. So it is useful to delete them in some time interval.

1. Go to Tools->Internet options.

2. Click Delete in General tab.

3. Select all (or you can leave some) & Delete.

D. Clean & defrag hard disk

Sometimes defragging your hard disk can optimize the entire systems performance.
Download Advanced system care & install.

Use this tool to optimize your entire system.

E. Use TCP optimizer

TCP optimizer can help you to improve performance of internet browser.
Download Tcp Optimizer.

Making It Even Faster: How To Speed Up Windows 8?

Adamsummer — Wed, 30 May 2012 05:15:43 GMT

Still not fast enough, even though it’s faster than Windows 7? Here are some ways to speed up Windows 8

We always want that our computer must have a satisfactory speed. Whatever operating system is installed in a computer, the operating speed of that Operating System matters a lot. An operating system with a very attractive look but takes long time for opening a folder, running any simple program, copying or moving data, opening a file is not expected by any user. So if you want to increase the access time of your Windows 8, follow the steps carefully.

Registry Tweak

1. Switch to Desktop Mode by pressing Windows + M simultaneously.

2. Press Windows + R to open the Run window. Now just type regedit and then press Enter.

3. Now navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Control panel > Mouse . Right click on MouseHoverTime and select Modify . Change the value to 50 to 100.

4. Now navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > Current Control Set > Control . Right click on WaitToKillServiceTimeout and select Modify. Set the value near to 100.

MSConfig Tweak

1. Press Windows + R to open the Run window. Now type msconfig and then press Enter. Now click on Selective Startup.

2. Now navigate to the Service tab and disable all unnecessary applications to decrease the booting time of your machine. Because then it will require less number of tasks to start the machine.

Disable unwanted Sounds

1. Press Windows + R to open the Run window. Now type mmsys.cpl and press Enter .

2.Now go to the Sound tab and disable the sounds you don’t want to be there. You can Disable Startup Sound to speed up the machine booting.

Disable Unwanted Visual Effects

1. Right-click on Computer , select Property. Now select Advanced System property . Now navigate to Performance Settings. Now you can uncheck the features you don’t need or you can leave that to the computer by clicking on Adjust For Best Performance. Remember, this will disable the shadow feature, show icon instead of thumbnails.

ReadyBoost

If you have a flash drive, i.e., a pen drive, you can use that memory for speeding the machine’s performance. To do this, follow the instructions below.

1. Right-click on the pen drive and select Property. Now you will see a tab named ReadyBoost. Open that and you will see 3 options for you namely
Do not use this device,
Dedicate this device and
Use this device.
In the last option, you can select the amount of memory you want to give the cache.

Remember, you can’t give more than 4 GB memory to your cache for using.

Where to download alternative app launchers for Windows 8

Adamsummer — Wed, 30 May 2012 05:14:16 GMT

Do you want to increase your productivity on Windows 8? Download some alternative app launchers

What is an App Launcher?

An application launcher is a computer program that helps a user to run a program or open a webpage easily. Some App launchers support to assign some shortcut words to launch a particular program. So, app launchers provide a friendly environment to run a particular program from the user end very easily.

There are many popular App launchers available for Windows 8. Here is a list with their download links.

A. Dash Command

B. SlickRun

C. Find and Run Robot

D. Launchy

E. Tool Box

F. Start++

G. True Launch Bar

Steps to download and install alternative app launchers for windows 8

1. First of all choose an alternative app launcher available for Windows 8.

Here SlickRun is selected to demostate the procedure.

2. Download the file SlickRun from here

3. Now, install that program and run the .exe file from the start screen.

4. You can see SlickRun is running, at the bottom right corner of the desktop (above the taskbar).

5. Now, right-click on the SlickRun program and click onMagicWords option. Here you can see the list of pre-defined Magic Words.

6. To enlist an user defined Magic Word in that list simply click on New Magic Word… option.customize SlickRun window will open. Enter a desired name (Taking "phsh” as an example) in the MagicWord text field. Now, enter the file path or the web address of the program (here Photoshop.exe) or the webpage that you want to open using that desired Magic Word.

7. Click on Green Tick Sign in the right .

8. Now in SlickRun text box (at the bottom right corner of desktop) type any Magic Word that is already enlisted in Magic Word List to open the program or a web page associated with that particular Magic Word. Suppose as we have performed the step 6. We can write phsh to run photoshop.exe program.

These are the complete steps to download and install App launchers in Windows 8.

Driver Detective: Free App For Looking Up Drivers For Windows 8

Adamsummer — Wed, 30 May 2012 05:13:13 GMT

Here’s a free version of an app that detects and installs missing and compatible drives for all pre-release versions of Windows 8.

Here’s their website (Free download)

Driver Detective: Free App For Driving Drivers

Device support, as with most new OS’, is a major issue in Windows 8. This has been aggravated by the drastic change that has gone in to the step from Windows 7 to Windows 8. As a result, a lot of devices that work fine on Windows 7 are failing work on Windows 8 even though in theory it is meant to work.

So we have come across an app that comes for free and does ‘Driver Detecting’ for Windows 8. It is called Driver Detective and it searches your machine for compatible drivers that will helps Windows 8 run faster and better.

This is actually the beta version that is being given away for free. The company makes Driver Detective software as a paid product and they are hoping to help Windows 8 users enough to make them want to buy the final version when it is released once Windows 8 is commercially released.

According to the company, this beta version of the software is fully functional and it will help people to test all of their peripheral devices with Windows 8 in the OS’ present Consumer Preview build. So it will automatically search and install compatible drivers for different kinds of network devices, printers and other devices.

One more important fact they mention is that the app delivers the drivers in the actual form as they are released by the manufacturers. So the driver packages are delivered without any modifications and their integrity is fully maintained.

This software is still in beta though, so use it at your own risk. We are not assuming any responsibility and are not endorsing it. That said, Windows 8 itself is in a Public Beta AKA Consumer Preview stage, so there’s no harm in testing out beta software on another beta software. They might break each other or you might have an easier time trying out Windows 8

Breaking News: Windows 8 Release Candidate In May?

Adamsummer — Wed, 30 May 2012 05:12:27 GMT

umors Windows 8 Release Candidate coming out in May have started making the rounds of the interwebs.

Windows 8 On Track For Summer Release Of The Next Build: Rumor

Rumor has, yet again, that Windows 8 is on track for a Release Candidate build for May this year. Which also means in turn, Windows 8 is on track for a commercial release on October.

A Release Candidate is an ‘almost’ finished piece of software that will probably go to the market as is but might still have a few small bugs left. It is usually a timed item that expires automatically once the actual commercial release happens.

The rumor was started this time by Winunleaked.tk and they wrote it in absolutes that Microsoft is sharing Windows 8 Release Candidate with everyone by end of May. This post on their own might have raised a lot of skepticism, however, it does fall in with what Bloomberg has had to report so far on the situation.

However, if Microsoft has actually managed to do this, they have taken their development speed up by many notches. When the latest build was released (Consumer Preview AKA Public Beta), the development cycle was still slow enough for analysts to predict an early 2013 release. Microsoft so far has not commented. So do not get your hopes up just yet.

Rumors like these have been growing in number throughout the month of March and there’s a distinct possibility of something actually going down in summer this year. However, there might just be a little bit smoke for all this talk of there being a fire.

The only thing to look forward to right now is happening in April. Bloomberg says Microsoft will stage an event that will give out information about the release timeframe. So it’s just a wait till then.

Windows 8 Makes Qualcomm Step Up Graphics On Flagship Chip

Adamsummer — Wed, 30 May 2012 05:11:37 GMT

Next time you use a Snapdragon chip powered device, you might notice how good the graphics has become because Qualcomm is now working on getting better graphics in to it.

Qualcomm Bringing Better Graphics To SnapDragon

Qualcomm has decided to include an Imagination GPU on the SnapDragon SoC after seeing the processing demands of the upcoming Windows 8. Since Microsoft wants to run Windows 8 on every device conceivable – ranging from desktop and laptops to tablets and smartphones. And the last categories are the ones that would be powered by SnapDragon.

Windows 8 is the first OS in the Windows series to run on something other than x86. However the builds for both are different and only the x86 version will available to the public. ARM version will be distributed directly to the manufacturer.

This reason was attributed to Qualcomm’s decision by industry news source SmiAccurate, who says that Qualcomm had to step it up in order to be able to run Windows 8 smoothly. They had the option to develop a solution by themselves or licensing one. With Windows 8 breathing down their necks, it was n obvious decision.

The end result for this is that people who are very impressed with the A5x chip inside the iPad will be similarly impressed by Windows 8 devices running SnapDragon’s next generation SoC (System on a Chip).

Windows 8 is expected to be one of the most important events to happen in the mobile industry this year. It is expected to create serious mass interest in tablets that goes beyond iPads, which is the market leader and dominant product. The only other tablet to sell well is the Kindle Fire but the gap in numbers is huge.

Windows 8 is scheduled to launch end of this year but there has been no official word on it. Rumors going around on the internet suggest that there will be a Release Candidate launch during this summer.

Windows 8 Tablets On x86 Will Be Slightly Better Than On ARM

Adamsummer — Wed, 30 May 2012 05:10:50 GMT

Tablets running Windows 8 on x86 will apparently have a slight edge over those running the same OS on ARM.

Windows 8 To Have More x86 Over ARM In Tablets

Intel is all set to launch their tablet efforts with Windows 8. One of the good things going for them is the fact that there will probably be more x86 tablets immediately post the Windows 8 launch than ARM tablets. The main reason behind this seems to be the familiarity factor with x86 for most PC manufacturers. Companies like HP, Dell, Toshiba, Acer and Asus are much more at comfort working with x86 and they are all very eager to get in on the tablet market.

Beyond that lies the fact that Intel is bringing out special chips that are going to be pushed for the tablet and ultra-portable markets. Bringing in extra leverage is the desktop side of Windows 8, which can only be fully realized on a x86 machine. This is especially true because ARM has no way of running legacy software that was built on and for a x86 architecture.

Most of the productivity and high-end work that goes on in Windows are on software that will instantly become legacy at Windows 8 launch. So to run them, users will need to use x86 machines. However, Microsoft has done the good job of making sure that all current applications running on Windows 7 will run on Windows 8 as well.

In fact, Windows 8 is being built in way that enables any user to do an in-place upgrade. The installer will automatically advice on application compatibility going onward with the upgrade. If something goes wrong, there’s automatic roll-back and the system restore.

So it is time for ARM and Intel to battle it out on the field but for now, Intel seems to have a slight advantage over ARM by being the largest x86 chipmaker in the world.