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How to Turn Windows 8 into Hotspot in 2 Minutes

Turning your windows 8 computer into a WiFi hotspot. Basically a WiFi hotspot can share the internet connection from it to various other devices like handheld devices, laptops and personal computers. There used to be a method to convert windows PC into hotspot but which would look complicated and at the end of the day you have to depend on the software such as connectify which would hardly work for someone. But windows 8 is not going to be a troublesome as is very versatile and has already built in configuration to turn it into a hotspot. All we have to do is just giving it a little push. 

Windows 8 into Hotspot in Just 2 minutes

This tutorial that I’m gonna let know is very simple and completely makes your work 100 times faster. Let me start with the procedure without wasting any more time for the introduction.

1) Open up your network and sharing center from the control panel.

2) We are about to share your incoming network connection and so click on the active connection and select properties.

3) Move on to the sharing tab and click on the check box next to “Allow other networks to connect…”

4) We are half done here. Now open your command prompt in admin mode. If you aren’t aware of opening it in admin mode then hit the windows key and type in CMD. Right click on the CMD and windows will provide you an option to run it as administrator.

5) Once you are inside CMD type in the following command

netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=username key=password

6) Replace the username and password with your desired values.

7) Finally type in the following command to start the network

netsh wlan start hostednetwork.

8) The above code triggers the network to share the incoming connection from your computer. Anyone can access your network now just by connecting to your shared network.

9) Remember to turn on your WiFi else you might end up with some errors.To turn of the network execute the code netsh wlan stop hostednetwork

10) I’m attaching a screenshot of the command prompt window here for your easy reference.

Conclusion

I had come up with this tutorial in order to make use of the inbuilt feature that windows has instead of wasting money on purchasing products and software for turning your computer into an WiFi hotspot. I hope you have gained something out of this post and even if you think the same share your love by sharing this post.

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How to disable Windows 8 Lock Screen

Windows 8 is the latest version of Microsoft’s user friendly OS and though a lot of people have started using it, and though it is pretty user friendly incorporating simple to understand language, some users may be embarrassed to admit they can’t get a handle on it. Admittedly it does involve making adjustments through searches of its settings, and for that you need to know what to search for.

And on top of that Microsoft has provided a lot of security features. And you can’t blame them since malware, as well as spyware problems like key loggers are running rampant in PC’s and leaving them unlocked at any moment may have its repercussions.

However, there are always exceptions to every security threat. If you are working at home or in a secured office and are sure that no one is accessing your system then the extra steps you need to put in to resume your work where you last left it off can be annoying. All you need to do is disable this feature then so that your password will not be required. As said earlier, it can be difficult to figure windows 8 out if you just aren’t that entirely tech savvy.

So if you wish to disable the lock screen that comes up after the system has gone to sleep, then here is how you can go about disabling the ever annoying Lock Screen in some easy steps that just about anyone can understand.

1.  When the Windows 8 Startup screen appears, type ‘users’ in the search field. From the results, the Settings option will show up which you need to click.

2.  Through the search results, the option of users under Settings will appear. Click on this Users option to get to the Users Settings Screen.

3.  Once the new screen comes up, you need to scroll down and click on the Change Button. The Change button will be located right under the label ‘Any User Who Has A Password Must Enter It When Waking This PC’.

4.  After clicking the Change button, a confirmation screen will come up which will ask you whether you are sure that you want to disable this feature. At the bottom of this notification will be an OK button. Click that to go ahead with the disabling.

5.  Once you click OK you will be brought back to the Users Settings screen. To know that you have changed your settings, the text above the Change button will now read ‘Any user who has a password doesn’t need to enter it when waking this PC’.

Now your system will no longer require a password but if you wish to re –enable the feature you can follow the steps again and make the changes in the same manner.

Of course, it is always a better option to keep this feature enabled when you are traveling or have a lot of unknown people around your system. Turning it on and off may be annoying but it is truly always better safe than sorry.

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Stop Grouping of Taskbar Buttons in Windows 8

Reminding of old days, in Windows XP we had the expanded taskbar icons for currently running programs. Since Windows 7, these taskbar buttons are grouped by default to the program icon in order to increase free space on taskbar. But, some of users may find it uninteresting and they may like to restore the ungrouped program buttons.

Let’s see the differences between past and present conditions:

From the above image, I guess you’ve figured out what I’m trying to do. The reason behind broking the combination and split them to separate tab is to enhance the efficiency. In the past condition, you can read what’s going on the tab since it is mentioned there but in the present scenario, you have to move the cursor to get the same thing.

Now, in this article, we’ll provide you with three ways to configure these settings and increase the productivity of your Windows 8.

Method 1: Manually Using Taskbar Properties

1. Right click on taskbar and select Properties.

2. In the Taskbar Properties window, for the Taskbar buttons section, click the drop down menu and select Never combine.

Click Apply then OK. Reboot the machine to get results. So this was the basic way, now lets see some advance ways:

Method 2: Using Registry Editor

1. Press Windows Key + R and put regedit in Run dialog box, click OK to open Registry Editor.

2. Navigate here:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

3. In the right pane of this location, create a new DWORD using Right click -> New -> DWORD Value. Name it as TaskbarGlomLevel. Double click to modify it:

4. Put the Value data to 1 to have not combined tabs until taskbar is full, otherwise put 2 to have no grouping at all. Click OK. Restart the computer to see effects. If you want to group tabs again in the future, simply put 0 as Value data or delete the DWORD created in step 3.

Method 3: Using Command Prompt / Batch File

To simply the work, you can use the following .bat (command processing) file. Extract the RAR file and simply right click on the file after download and select Run as administrator:

Download: Batch File to Disable Grouping Taskbar on Windows 8

***************************************************************************************************

Hope you find the tip useful!

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How to reduce the startup delay for desktop apps in Windows 8

In case you aren't aware of this, Windows 8 delays the startup for all desktop apps. Shortcuts located in your Start Menu's Startup folder as well as the items which run from various Registry locations will be launched after a delay of few seconds. This behavior was implemented by Microsoft probably because Windows 8 is a tablet-oriented OS (another example of how the Desktop takes a backseat in Windows 8). However, you can reduce this startup delay for desktop apps by editing the Registry. Read this post to learn how.

1. Open Registry editor (regedit.exe) and navigate to the following key:HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Serialize
   If the "Serialize" key does not exist, then you should create it.
2. Create a new DWORD parameter StartupDelayInMSec and set it to zero, as the screenshot indicates:
   
   

   registry editor

That's all you need to do. Try putting something into your startup folder, e.g. File Explorer shortcut and reboot Windows 8 to see the change.

Bonus tip: Press Win+R on your keyboard, type shell:Startup and press Enter - the Startup folder will be opened.

Although it is not possible to completely eliminate the startup delay, with the help of this tweak you will get noticeably faster startup.

Click here to download ready-to-use registry files

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How to Play Bluray Disc on Windows 8

People prefer purchasing Windows 8 All in one Desktops and Laptops these days with BluRay Disc Player. Most of these comes bundled with a software to play Bluray on Windows 8. Even Windows Media player can play them but I prefer third party software.

GOM Player is my default media player for Videos playback but unfortunately, it doesn’t support Bluray playback. Then, I tried the most trusted and versatile media player – VLC.

But then, VLC too has its own problem with Bluray playback. Let’s face it and fix it.

VLC Media Player

VLC supports Bluray Disc playback on Windows 8. Regular Bluray discs can be played seamless without necessity of downloading and installing codec.

For some Bluray Discs, especially for the playback of encrypted Bluray Discs on Windows 8, you will need a small work around. If VLC throws error like:

Your system AACS decoding library does not work. Missing keys?
Your input can’t be opened:

VLC is unable to open the MRL ‘bluray:///G:/’. Check the log for details.

To fix this, go to http://vlc-bluray.whoknowsmy.name/ and get the KEY files necessary to encode it.

    

One thing has to be taken into account that VLC doesn’t have the ability to load the menus. You can only watch the main movie on you blu-ray and that’s it.

Daum PotPlayer

 

Another free solution to play Bluray Discs on Windows 8 is using Daum PotPlayer. Created by the team who developed KMPlayer, it is able to play almost all media formats seamlessly.

As a matter of fact, it was chosen by Lifehacker readers as the third most popular Blu-ray playback suite.

PowerDVD No.1 Bluray Media Player

 

Bluray Media Players often come bundled with Cyberlink PowerDVD software which is specialized for Bluray playback. Though it is a paid software but provides sophisticated features. It is optimized for leading CPU/GPU technologies including 3nd generation Intel Core processors, AMD and NVIDIA.

With the award-winning TrueTheater technology, you can also play videos into eye-stunning HD and 3D quality.

Everything is out of the box, no need to trick anything or install additionally. Perfectly compatible with Windows 8.

Download PowerDVD 12

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How to Get Aero Glass Back in Windows 8

I don’t actually miss the Areo feature in Windows 8 but I do like transparent glass Windows. With Windows 8 RTM release, Microsoft removed the feature called Aero which was introduced in Windows Vista. But there is always a workaround and here’s how to get back Areo Glass.

DWM (Desktop Windows Manager) of Windows 8 works totally in different way. It has those parameters removed which were responsible for transparency. But, Areo Glass still exists; you just need a small trick to activate Areo in Windows 8.

1. Right Click on Desktop and click Personalize.
2. From Themes, select “High Contrast Black“. Windows will turn dark after applying.
3. Click on “Colors” in the same Personalize Window and leave the window open.
4. Right click again on Desktop and open another Personalization Window.
5. Apply the “Windows” theme.
   
6. Click on “Save Changes” button on the Personalize window which was left open in Step
   

     

You will now notice that title bars of open Windows have turned transparent. Looks beautiful, isn’t it?

But there is a Problem with it. Not all will face it but most of you.

When you move Windows, transparency gets dirty with blurs. It appears similar to Windows screen when it stops responding. So, you get Aero transparency in Windows 8 but at a cost.

To fix this, temporary solution would be maximize the window and restore original size. I couldn’t find any permanent solution to fix aero glass appearance.

Will you still use it? I won’t.

Instead, I would recommend using Aero8Tuner tool which allows:

• Colorization of Windows or even Disable it.
• Change color balance or depth intensity.
• Enable Aero Glass transparency. (Similar to the way we did).

Tool is a successor of popular Areo Tuner and compatible with Windows 8 RTM. It’s a portable tool so no installation is required.

How to "Get Back Start Menu in Windows 8"

 

In short, method isn’t foolproof. If you find some working and better solution than this, I would be more than happy to hear from you in comments.

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