Difference between revisions of "Windows 10 Tips & Tricks"

Revision as of 11:33, 16 February 2017

Command Prompt, System Restore, and other Startup Settings at Boot w/o Boot Disk

You don't need a boot disk to get to the "Advanced Options" menu.

NOTE: You will boot to a command shell using the recovery environment and not the regular windows environment. Changes made here may not be saved to your normal windows drive! Also you will NOT be able to access the SAM file registry hive, something that does require booting from a boot disk.

From the Windows login screen: hold down shift key while clicking on the power icon in lower right corner. Keep holding down shift key and click on restart.

Windows will not restart, but instead show a blue screen with "Choose an option"

• Options are: Continue, Troubleshoot, Turn off your PC.
• Choose: Troubleshoot, then choose Advanced Options

Now you will see a blue screen with six different options.

• Options are: System Restore, System Image Recovery, Startup Repair, Command Prompt, Startup Settings, and Go back to the previous build.

If you select an option, such as "Command Prompt" the computer will reboot and load into a basic graphical interface with a command shell window open and no other windows menus.

Note: Some of the Advanced Options on the screens mentioned above may be different. They should be similar and there should always been an option for the Command Prompt.

Your experience with drive letters may vary from this example. When I get to a command shell I am at a prompt on the X drive. This is the restore partition and not the live windows partition. Typing "d:" and pressing enter will move you to the live windows partition. I have found that C: is not the live partition but another restore/system partition.

Change password from command prompt

In this example we will change the administrator password from the command prompt. An elevated command prompt is required.

Show all users:

net user

Change administrator password:

net user administrator *

The * will cause it to prompt you to enter the password of choice two times.

Other related: To activate the inactive administrator account, run the command

net user administrator /active:yes

If you want to enable the guest account as well run the command

net user guest /active:yes

No Login Password Required

Also known as "Automatic Account Login." We will use the "netplwiz" command to accomplish this.

1. Press the Windows + R keys to open the Run dialog box, type "netplwiz"
2. Select the User Name of the Microsoft account or local account that you want to have Windows automatically sign in to at startup.
3. Uncheck the Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer box
4. Enter the password of the selected local account or Microsoft account twice and click OK. If a selected local account does not have a password created for it, then leave the password fields empty. A Microsoft Live account will always have a password.

Available Command Prompt at Windows Login Screen

This is a hack that makes it so the "Ease of Access" icon in the bottom right of the login screen opens a command shell rather than the accessibility menu. This makes it so a command prompt can be available even before a user authenticates into windows.

To accomplish this we will rename or delete the file "utilman.exe" which is located:

\windows\system32\utilman.exe

Then we will make a copy of the command shell "cmd.exe" and call it utilman.exe placing it in the same path.

d:
cd d:\windows\system32
move Utilman.exe Utilman.bak
copy cmd.exe Utilman.exe

This trick can be used in conjunction with the tip "Command Prompt, System Restore, and other Startup Settings at Boot w/o Boot Disk" as a way to gain access to the command shell w/o knowing a user password.

This trick will leave a security hole in your system if you choose to leave the command shell program in place of Utilman.exe .

Some commands will work and others will not. From this command shell you are not authenticated. Commands such as "sysdm.cpl" work, while most commands to access user accounts and passwords fail. Control panel applets do not work. One VERY useful command that does work is:

c:\windows\system32\netplwiz.exe

A very useful thing you can do with this command is to change account types. You can change a Microsoft Live account back to a local account such as an administrator account. It will also let you set a new local administrator account password. There is some functionality that will be disabled, however, such as resetting the other account passwords and creating new user accounts.

Use PowerShell from the command prompt

Windows 10 ships with PowerShell v 5. It is a dot-net based command-line shell with scripting support.

Open the command shell "cmd.exe" and type "powershell" and press Enter.

You can use powershell to open an elevated cmd shell from within a cmd shell. From the command shell type:

powershell
Start-Process cmd -Verb RunAs

Change the password for Another User not Currently Logged In

If you are logged in as User A and you want to change the password for User B, while remaining logged in as User A, this can be accomplished as long as User A is in the administrator group. This procedure is for people that have gotten stuck trying to do this with "netplwiz.exe" or "control userpasswords".

It is also possible to do this with the 'lusrmgr.msc' command, however, that command is not available to all versions of Windows 10. If you are using the Home edition of WIndows 10 you will not be able to use lusrmgr.msc , continue to the procedure below...

When you are in the Windows 10 control panel the control panel will default to "category view" which hides some options. It is necessary to click the "View by:" dropdown menu located to the right two levels below the "Search Control Panel" box and change the view to "Large icons" or "Small icons" but just not the limited Category view.

Now click the "User Accounts" icon. You should see the following in the path:

Control Panel > All Control Panel Items > User Accounts

If you see that in the path then you are in the correct place. Now choose "Manage another account."

Click on the account you want to manage and then choose "change the password." However! If the option to change the password is not available, then there is a problem with how that particular account is recognized by the system, such as it may be a Microsoft Live account or one of the login flags is bad.

Warning! When an administrator changes the password of another user's local account that person will lose access to all EFS-encrypted files, personal certificates, and stored web passwords.

If you are trying to change the password for an account that was formerly a Microsoft Live account, but has been changed to a local account, and that change was made while not being logged in under that account, you will find that the conversion from Microsoft Live to local account is not complete, and changing the password is not possible from another account. You will see the message "you cannot change the password for ..." There is no known way to resolve this issue without knowing the password and logging in to the user account directly. Bad news, I know!

Use the Windows Store to Manage your Account

Another way to manage user accounts, and Microsoft Live accounts is: C:\Windows\ImmersiveControlPanel\SystemSettings.exe Even though we know the program path and executable it cannot be launched directly from command line. This is because it is actually the Windows Store, part of Metro, and not a Win32 program. The Metro Control Panel is labelled "PC Settings" when open.

The command line to open Windows Store / Control Panel to manage user accounts is simply too long...

• Explorer.exe shell:AppsFolder\Windows.ImmersiveControlPanel_cw5n1h2txyewy!microsoft.windows.immersivecontrolpanel

Instead, press the Windows Key and type "settings" in the search box, then click "Setings, Trusted Windows Store App" (I don't trust it) and then click the Accounts icon. Then click "Other users."

You will be able to see your Windows Live accounts here. You cannot change the password for other accounts here, only your own that you are currently logged in with.

Dealing with Annoying Start Menu Live Tiles and App Groups

You can turn off a live tile in the start menu. Live tiles fall under two default App Groups:

1. Life at a glance
2. Play and explore

Not only are live tiles non-productive, distracting, and annoying, but they also consume resources and bandwidth.

Turn off a live tile (one by one) - Right click a tile and click Turn Live Tile Off.

External resource: http://www.quepublishing.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2437429&seqNum=5

You can make Windows 10 more productive by eliminating playful and useless App Groups, tiles, and customizing that entire area inside the right half of the start menu with your most frequently used programs and web sites.

Some things you can add to an app group:

• Pin Favorite Websites to Start menu
• Pin Playlists or Songs to Start menu
• Pin Specific Settings to Start menu
• Add Folder Locations to Start menu

Rename App Group

You may find the tile of the 2 groups annoying. For example, why have "Play and explore" on a productivity workstation in the office. I don't want my employees "playing" I want them "working." You can rename the tile groups by clicking on the title and when a cursor appears, change the text. I changed "Play and explore" to "Get some work done."

Remove App Group

To eliminate one of the App Groups, for example, to totally eliminate "Play and explore" you have to unpin all tiles or drag any tiles you want to keep to another app group. Once the app group is empty the heading will disappear and the app group is gone. It is possible to reduce the view down to a single app group.

No App Groups

To eliminate both default app groups, unpin all tiles until empty. The headings will disappear. There will be a large gray space. You can click on the right edge and reduce the space by dragging the right boundary left.

Create New App Group

You must first have a tile before you can have an App Group. Create a tile or move an existing tile to the top where there is no App Group. The interface will generate a place for you to create an App Group. If there is an App Group already, just drag a tile out from under it over to the right, and drop it at the top in an area where no other tiles or app group headings already exist. Again, the option to create a new app group heading will appear when you position the mouse cursor above the tile at the very top.

Going back to Windows 7 or Windows 8.1

For people that used the free upgrade to Windows 10, you have ONE MONTH to evaluate Windows 10 with the option to roll back to your previous version of Windows if you decide you don't like 10. If you had the available resources, and did not opt out of the rollback option during upgrade, here is how you can restore your previous version of Windows:

• From the start menu goto Settings -> Update & security -> Recovery and selecting either Go back to Windows 7 or Go back to Windows 8.1.

If you do not see options to go back then your month evaluation is up, or no restoration option is available for another reason.

Alternative options are not nearly as favorable and may be impractical for you. You will likely have to back up your data, and do a reinstallation of Windows using the version you desire from your manufacturer backup media or other Windows media. At this point it becomes an issue of a conventional Windows installation.

Block Microsoft Edge

Microsoft Edge is a web browser, a replacement for Internet Explorer and the default browser in Windows 10. While you could change the default web browser in Settings to map another browser to Internet protocols, it won't block Microsoft Edge on the system, and windows update has been known to restore Edge as the default.

To change the default browser:

1. Press Windows-I to open the Settings pplication.
2. Switch to System -> Default apps.
3. Locate Web Browser in the listing, click on the currently set browser, and pick another from the selection menu.

To block Microsoft Edge, third party software is required. Sordum Edge Blocker v1.2 is known to be safe and work.

Scan for Corruption in Windows 10

Use System File Checker. System File Checker is a utility in Windows that allows users to scan for corruptions in Windows system files and restore corrupted files.

Press Windows key + X and click Command Prompt (Admin), Type the following command and press Enter

sfc /scannow

Do not close this Command Prompt window until the verification is 100% complete. The scan results will be shown after this process is finished.

Disable Cortana

Microsoft doesn’t want you to disable Cortana. You used to be able to turn Cortana off in Windows 10, but Microsoft removed that easy toggle switch in the Anniversary Update. Edit the Windows Registry to disable Cortana.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search

If you don’t see "Windows Search" key then right-click the Windows folder and select New > Key. Name it "Windows Search"

Right-click "Windows Search" key in the left pane and select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value.

Call it "AllowCortana". Double-click it and set the value to "0".