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Windows 7 does a great job managing power consumption, preserving and extending battery life, in comparison to previous versions. Now it also includes a command-line tool called Powercfg that can help you to analyze your system for common energy efficiency and battery life problems. This tool is more commonly used by manufactures and developers to create drivers, but it can be easily used by anyone and it can provide really useful information and more importantly is information that we can use to determine if it time to replace the laptop battery....

A PIN is not only shorter and easier authentication method to login, but in many ways it’s more secure than a password. Perhaps one of the biggest differences between a PIN and a password is that a PIN is tied to a device. If someone steals your PIN, it’ll be useless unless the thief has physical access to the device. Also, because you have to set a PIN per device, if someone were to figure out your PIN, when use the same Microsoft account across devices with the same password, they would only have access to one device....

Although you can create custom keyboard shortcuts for extensions, you can only add them for the features that the developer wants you to control. In this guide, you’ll learn the steps to add keyboard shortcuts to control features for extensions on Google Chrome. How to create a keyboard shortcut on Chrome To add keyboard shortcuts to launch or control certain features of a Chrome extension, use these steps: Once you complete the steps, you’ll now be able to control the extension using keyboard shortcuts....

You can do this by applying a custom image or slideshow through the “Background” settings. You can use a different picture on each display if you have a multi-monitor setup. It’s also possible to change the desktop wallpaper through File Explorer or apply a theme from the Microsoft Store. In this guide, you will learn how to change the desktop background on Windows 10. Change Windows 10 desktop background image with Settings Change Windows 10 desktop background image per monitor Change Windows 10 desktop background image with Slideshow Change Windows 10 desktop background image with File Explorer Change Windows 10 desktop background image with Themes...

Starting on Windows 11, the Settings app includes a “Cameras” page. In addition to enabling and disabling devices, you can adjust various settings and even troubleshoot and fix problems with different cameras, including traditional webcams and network cameras. You can also enable Eye Contact, a feature that uses AI to adjust your gaze on a video call to appear as if you are looking into the camera instead of the display, and “Video HDR” on compatible devices....

The issue is not the number of apps but their size, as apps and games can consume many gigabytes of space. If you have a device with limited storage or want to use an external storage for apps and games, Windows 10 allows to change the default location to save new apps from the Microsoft Store, move already installed apps to a different location, and you can even choose an alternate location during download....

Programs like an antivirus, system utility, and other software installed on your PC may contain processes that can cause conflicts, such as sudden freezes, blue screen of death (BSOD), performance issues, and other problems. A clean boot (by process of elimination) can help you figure out if Windows 10 is having drivers or apps problems. In this guide, you’ll learn the steps to do a clean boot on Windows 10 to help you troubleshoot and determine which software is causing conflicts on your machine....

Although Macrium Reflect is a paid software, it also offers a free edition, which you can use when you’re replacing the hard drive (HDD) on your computer to a new Solid-State Drive (SSD), and you need to migrate your current installation with all your settings, apps, and files without the need of reinstallation and reconfiguration. In this guide, you’ll learn the steps to use Macrium Reflect to clone a hard drive with a Windows 10 installation to another drive....

The “live events” feature is only available for paid subscribers, and it’s been designed for one person to communicate with a large audience where the host is leading the interactions and the rest of the audience will only be viewing the content. In this guide, you’ll learn the steps to create a live event on Microsoft Teams whether you’re running Windows 10, macOS, or Linux. How to set up live event on Microsoft Teams To create and schedule a live event using Microsoft Teams, use these steps: Once you complete the steps, the Microsoft Teams live event will be created, and you’ll be presented with all the details....

The Settings app has Storage sense, a feature that automatically runs when running low on storage to free up space. However, it’s limited and does not provide an option to monitor additional folders to delete files that haven’t changed in the last 60 days. If you store temporary files from the internet or projects in different folders, on Windows 11 you can use the “ForFiles” command in Command Prompt or a PowerShell script to delete files from any folder older than a specific number of days....

If you get menus and dialog boxes not rendering correctly, a green screen appears when playing a video on Microsoft Edge, or there are rendering issues on a virtual machine, disabling hardware acceleration can resolve the problem. This guide will teach you the steps to disable hardware acceleration in the Chromium version of Microsoft Edge on Windows 10 or 11. Disable hardware acceleration on Microsoft Edge To disable hardware acceleration on Microsoft Edge, use these steps: Once you complete the steps, menus and visual elements should render correctly in the Chromium version of Microsoft Edge....

If you want to disable the welcome message after installing a feature update to prevent Microsoft Edge from opening automatically, you can do this using the “Notifications & actions” settings. In this guide, you’ll learn the steps to stop Microsoft Edge from opening automatically to show you the Windows welcome experience after an upgrade. How to disable welcome experience after an upgrade on Windows 10 To disable the Windows 10 welcome experience on Microsoft Edge, use these steps: Once you’ve completed the steps, after the installation of a new feature update, Microsoft Edge will no longer open automatically to show you the welcome screen....

Although it’s a nice visual addition, if this is something you don’t want to see during the sign-in process, you can disable the effect using the Settings app. In this guide, you’ll learn the steps to disable the transparency effect in the Sign-in screen after upgrading to Windows 10 version 1903. How to disable transparency effect in the Sign-in screen If you don’t like the transparency in the Sign-in screen, you can disable the effect using these steps: Once you’ve completed the steps, the Lock screen will no longer show the transparency effect....

Although it’s a convenient option, it’s not for everyone, and you can disable this behavior by changing the settings within the app or using the Settings app. In this guide, you’ll learn the steps to stop the Slack app from running automatically on startup on Windows 10. How to disable Slack auto-start using app How to disable Slack auto-start using Settings How to disable Slack auto-start using app To prevent Slack from reopening at startup, use these steps: Once you complete the steps, Slack will no longer restart automatically upon login on Windows 10....

On Windows 10, search has been transformed into a feature that’s more than just a tool to lookup apps and files. It’s also a tool to find virtually anything, including content from the web, but it’s not something that everyone wants. In previous versions, you were able to configure the Registry settings to disable web search result previews, but the settings have been removed, and they’re no longer available in the most current releases of the operating system....

The feature is currently available on the Canary release of Chrome (version 110), but you need to enable it manually by turning on a couple of experimental settings on the “flags” page. In previous versions, it was possible to change the color theme of the browser, but it involved selecting the color scheme manually. Although this feature is still available, you can now select a wallpaper image for the new tab page, and the browser will extract the primary colors and configure a color scheme automatically....

The feature is rolling out as part of the Windows 10 build 20175, and once it’s enabled through the Surface app, the eye contact correction will apply automatically to any app that use the front-facing camera of the Surface Pro X, such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Skype, and others. In this guide, you’ll learn the steps to enable Eye Contact on Windows 10. Enable Eye Contact on Windows 10 To enable Eye Contact on Surface Pro X, use these steps: Once you complete the steps, the eye contact correction will apply to any app automatically....

The idea of this approach is simple. Accounts need long and strong passwords, and each one has to have a different password, something that most people fail to do since they are difficult to remember, and attackers exploit this on a daily basis. The passwordless experience makes it easier to keep your account secure using something that only you can access, such as your phone, biometrics, security key, or another email account....

Although every installation of Windows 10 comes with the same set of default rules, you can always create new custom rules to allow or block apps from accessing the network. If you have created multiple firewall rules, and you don’t want to lose you settings after a clean installation, or you want configure other devices with the same policy, you can export and import the Windows Defender Firewall rules using the advanced settings console and Command Prompt....

To overcome this little problem there is an options in Windows 7 that you are going to learn today and allows you to export your wireless network settings from one computer to another using a USB flash, and then import them back to a computer/laptop/netbook running Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. How to export your wireless network settings Open the Network and Sharing Center by clicking the wireless icon from the taskbar and clicking the Open Network and Sharing Center link, or by going to the Start menu, type Network and Sharing Center and pressing Enter....