Windows Tools, Help & Guides

In this guest post, Abby Perkins from Software Providers shares her insight into what’s coming with Windows 10 and how it will function for users of desktops, laptops, and mobile devices.

Microsoft is a large company (the sixth biggest in the world by market cap), and its customer base reflects the company’s size. Unlike Apple’s customers, Microsoft’s tend to display less brand loyalty across products. The product that unifies all of Microsoft is the Windows operating system. Microsoft’s challenge with the upcoming release of Windows 10 is holding its large family of customers together. Here is how the tech giant plans on meeting everyone’s demands.

One operating system for all devices

Windows 10 will be designed to run on all devices. Microsoft believes its operating system is simple enough to run on the most basic smartphone yet sophisticated enough to keep businesses’ most demanding servers running smoothly. It has also designed the newest version of Windows to run on every size screen, from 4 inches to 80 inches.

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The August month for Microsoft Windows 8/8.1 users came with a surprise. The updates from the Microsoft arrived on schedule but this time there was an erratic behavior in one of the updates. The update MS14-045 can make using the fonts in Windows 8/8.1 a trying experience. This update may lock the fonts, render them incorrectly or in the worst case scenario throws the dreaded Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) on your screen. Listening to the outcry of the Windows users, Microsoft has issued a guideline for removing this update from your Windows.

Here is how you can remove this MS014-045 update from your Windows 8/8.1 PC in case you are experience blue screen of death issues: Read the rest of this entry »

If you’ve not yet upgraded to Windows 8.1, you can instructions to do so here.

The source of many complaints about Windows 8 manifests itself each time you start your computer: starting with the live tiled interface by default. From my observations, most people utilize this interface mainly to click the “Desktop” icon to return to “normal” Windows. Well, Microsoft heard our cry and have provided a way to boot directly to the desktop in Windows 8.1. To boot to the desktop:

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We are pleased to bring you another great giveaway product. If you are in the search of an Adobe Acrobat alternative then look no further. PDF Converter convert PDF documents to Word, Excel, Text, Image, and EPUB formats for easy portability. In addition, an OCR plug-in is available for converting scanned PDF into editable PDF documents.

Head over to the giveaway website: http://www.iskysoft.com/pdf-converter-windows.html

But hurry, there’s not much time

If you’ve created a virtual hard disk for use with a virtual machine (i.e. XP Mode—how to create a virtual machine), you may want to access these files without booting in to the virtual operating system. To access files on a VHD from Windows:

1. Press Windows Key + R (or click Start > Run), type diskmgmt.msc, and press Enter
2. Click Action > Attach VHD

   
   

3. Browse to your VHD file and click OK

When you are finished using the VHD, open Disk Management (step 1), right click the virtual drive and click Detach VHD

Thanks to John Henderson for the tip.

If you’re itching to take a tour and try the new features of Windows 8.1, including automatic app updates, booting straight to the desktop, (up to) four app split screen, radio, a health and fitness app, 3D printer support, and more, you can download it now.

Note: If you’re using an English version of Windows, you can only install Windows 8.1 Preview from the Windows Store if your OS base language is English (US)

If you do not have a Windows 8 disc handy, create a Windows 8 USB recovery drive in case anything goes wrong in the upgrade process and you need to recover Windows. To update your installation of Windows 8 to Windows 8.1:
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