Windows 8 Tricks, Tips and Shortcuts. Windows 8 Consumer Preview cracked 1 million downloads shortly after launching last Wednesday and Im sure many of you have tried it already. Whether you went with a dual boot, upgrade, clean install or virtual machine, if youre coming from Windows 7 youll notice significant changes immediately, while others may not be as obvious. Inevitably, with change comes good and bad at least until you learn some tricks that get you back up to speed. I know Ive been hitting my head against the wall when things dont behave the way they used to. The Start menus absence is a perfect example of a radical change. Indeed, the duality of the OS may bring some trouble, but as skeptical as I was, I must admit Microsoft has done a pretty good job of easing many of my concerns. Windows 8s new Start screen has been hotly debated, but beyond not offering a way to bypass this screen, surprisingly Microsoft is also limiting your options when it. Learn how to hack Instagram passwords using our free easy to use Instagram hacking tool, Instagram Hacker v3. Click to hack Instagram passwords now Find quality new construction and replacement windows at Lowes. Shop casement windows, storm windows, bay windows, egress windows, and more. Metro is undoubtedly very touch oriented and perhaps a beginners dream come true. For experienced users, it seems like Windows 8 still holds some promise. Instagram For Windows Crack Screen' title='Instagram For Windows Crack Screen' />The devil is in the details, they say, so besides experimenting with a clean install I tried the upgrade option to see how well it worked. Going from a year old Windows 7 install to the Consumer Preview was as seamless as you could ask for. File copy dialogs, the task manager and search look better and work faster, and that adds up for an improved experience. Im not loving Metro on my desktop since theres little I can currently do with the stock apps, but I wonder if that will be true once my most used programs take full advantage of live tiles. Instagram. Instagram search habits can make themselves known in two ways First, they contribute to your explore feed, Instagrams offerings of posts you. Discover simple steps for fixing basement floor cracks with this doityourself guide from HGTV. Without further ado, heres a shortlist of Windows 8 shortcuts and useful quick tricks Ive gathered thus far. Hot corners. The Start menu is no longer there, but theres a hot corner that makes up for it unfortunately on multiple screens its somewhat of a pain to use. Lower left corner Left click Goes to the Start screen Metro. EH5U_Ck6M/hqdefault.jpg' alt='Instagram For Windows Crack Screen' title='Instagram For Windows Crack Screen' />Lower left corner Right click Power user shortcut menu Device Manager, Control Panel, Command Prompt, Power Options, etc. Upper left corner Shows open window thumbnails, click to switch between them. Upper screen limit Click Drag on desktop Move to left or right to snap the current desktop or Metro app to one side of the screen. Lower right corner Windows 8 Charm menu or Windows Aero Peak. Upper right corner Shows Windows 8 charm menu. Left or right click on the lower left corner and youll be surprised witha useful Windows orb replacement. Keyboard shortcuts. Windows 8 is very hotkey heavy, here are some of the shortcuts I find most useful Windows key Shows the new Start screen Metro. Win type keyword Instant application search same as in Windows 7. Win D Standard Windows desktop. Also minimizesrestores all open windows in desktop mode. Win Q Shows all installed apps. Win W Instant search for settings. Win F Instant search for files. Win I Settings sidebar control panel, network, volume, brightness, notifications, and more. Win P Shows multi monitor options, also useful for connecting an external monitor or projector. Win X Power user shortcut menu Device Manager, Control Panel, Command Prompt, Power Options, etc. Win Z Shows App Bar in Metro applications. Win. period Snaps the current Metro app to the right side of the screen. Do it twice and it will snap to the left. Win. period Shift Snaps the current Metro app to the left side of the screen. Win J Switches focus between snapped Metro apps. Win Page Up Down Moves full screen Metro app to secondary monitor. Win Left Right arrow Moves and snaps desktop applications in that direction, or to a different monitor. Win Tab Switches between open applications. Similar to using the left upper hot corner with a mouse. Win L Locks Windows. You can snap Metro apps or your desktop to the side and continue working on the center of the screen. Another shortcut lets you switch focus between the two. Showing all apps at once Windows Phone style and searching with a few keystrokes isthe Windows 8 equivalent to the old Programs menu. Get the Start Menu back, orb and allFollowing user posts in our previous Windows 8 articles, Ive seen some of you wanting to completely get rid of Metro and get the Windows 7 orb back. If thats the case Id personally recommend you just stick to Windows 7, but if you already jumped ship theres a trick to do so as discussed on Ask. VG. Updated A second, improved alternative The clever folks at Stardock have released a piece of software called Start 8 that essentially adds a Start button to Windows 8s desktop mode. When you click on it you get a Metro esque Start menu from where you can search and access other settings. Remove that pesky wallpaper watermark. As weve seen on older betas, Windows 8 CP shows a wallpaper watermark indicating its not a final build. The lock screen or Metro UI dont have any similar nagging reminder, and spending a majority of my time in the desktop mode, the message is tacky to say the least. Heres a solution I found circulating on a few forums Download this zip file and install the Install. Take. Ownership. reg registry file. Take Ownership from the shell. C Windows. System. USTake Ownership from the basebrd. C Windows. Branding. Basebrden USCopy and replace the shell. Edited Files to C Windows. System. 32en USCopy and replace the basebrd. Edited Files to C Windows. Branding. Basebrden USClose the Windows Explorer window and open the Command Prompt with Administrator rights remember that Win X shortcutType mcbuilder, wait for it to finish and reboot. The Sims Freeplay Hack Free on this page. Other quick tips. Drivers Windows 8 wont suffer the same fate Vista did with drivers. Most Windows 7 drivers will work just fine with the new OS. Nvidia advised Ge. Force owners to use the readily available 2. AMD decided to release new Radeon drivers for the Consumer Preview. Recalling storage space after setup Your mileage may vary with a Windows 7 upgrade. It worked great for me but remember this is still beta software. Anyway, if you upgraded you may want to restore files from the Windows. OS installation and other files used during the setup using the Disk Cleanup tool. Reminder 2 If you upgrade, you cant revert back to Windows 7. You can recover a few gigabytes worth of storage space if youclean up after a Windows 8 upgrade. Upgrading to Windows 8 Windows 8 will offer a complete upgrade option from Windows 7, but the same wont be possible if you are using Vista or XP or the current Consumer Preview for that matter. System requirements for Windows 8 are essentially the same as Windows 7 which were similar to Vista, so most semi modern hardware will run it just fine. Metro notifications, turning some of those off Windows 8 encourages you to use a Microsoft account so you can take advantage of neat features like Sky. Drive or syncing your OS settings across multiple PCs. However, it will also activate other things like the Messaging Metro app, which looks good, but becomes a nag if you are using a different IM client like Trillian or Pidgin. Windows 8 uses notifications that resembles those of Growl on OS X. You can fully manage, and deactivate the Messenger app notifications from the Settings menu. Windows 8s notifications look good and serve a purpose, but you may want to beselective about the programs that can interrupt your workflow. Native screenshots in Win 8 Although using a third party tool like Droplr remains the easiest way to grab and share a screenshot, Windows 8 finally adds a screenshot shortcut that doesnt require the snipping tool or another program where you can paste the taken image. Win Prt Sc does the trick, saving a PNG image file on the Pictures folder. Thats it for now. Did we miss anything important Have a Windows 8 how to question Let us know in the comments and well do our best to come up with a solution. Newsletters For The Win.