Windows 8 registry hack desktop

See Figure for an example of this. To stop an app from running at startup, right-click it and select Disable. This prevents it from running, although the app will still be on your hard disk. So, stop one and restart your PC. If it runs fine, stop another and restart. Run each program that starts automatically, and see if you can find a setting that allows you to prevent it from running on startup.

You might also need to hack the Registry to disable them. In the right pane, you will see a list of some of the programs that run automatically at startup. The Data field tells you the path and name of the executable so that you can determine what each program is.

That will kill any programs that run and are specific to your account. Constantly running in the background of Windows are services —processes that help the operating system run, or that provide support to applications.

Many of these services launch automatically at startup. You can prevent services from running at startup using the Services Computer Management Console snap-in, shown in Figure Run it by typing services. You can also type services. The Services Computer Management Console snap-in includes a description of all services, so you can know ahead of time whether a particular service is one you want to turn off.

After you run the console, click the Extended tab. This view shows you a description of each service in the left pane when you highlight the service. Click the top of that column to sort together all the services that automatically launch on startup.

Then highlight each service and read its description. When you find a service that you want to turn off, right-click it and choose Properties. Table lists some common services you might want to halt from running at startup.

Some, such as Remote Registry, are disabled by default, but might have somehow been turned on. Windows Error Reporting Service. Turns on error reporting and delivery of solutions if your system crashes or hangs. With Fast Startup, when you turn off your PC, the kernel is saved to disk, and that kernel is then used to start Windows back up, significantly decreasing startup time. Note that this feature only works when you shut your system down and then start it again.

Have so many issues with Windows 8 that you need to reinstall it? A full reinstall is a tremendous, time-consuming headache, because you have to copy all your data somewhere, wipe your hard disk, reinstall Windows, and then restore your data. And that assumes that you even remember where your Windows installation disc is. Windows 8, for the first time in Windows history, gives you a much better way. It introduces two related new features that let you essentially reset Windows 8 to the state it was in when you first installed it.

The two new features are called Reset and Refresh. This option puts your PC in the condition it was in to either when you first started it —if it came with Windows 8 on it—or when you first installed Windows 8. It wipes out your data and any apps you installed and puts your PC back into its original, pure Windows 8 state. More on that later in this hack. Think of Reset as the nuclear option. Windows 8 erases and formats your hard drives, installs a fresh copy of Windows, and then starts into that new copy of Windows.

When you sign into the reinstalled Windows, your data will be there waiting for you, as will your settings and Windows 8 native apps. Then just follow the simple prompts. That information is included already as part of the Refresh. If, like most people, you mainly use Desktop apps, this is not a good thing.

You can, however, create a custom refresh point that takes a snapshot of your system, and then uses that snapshot to refresh your PC. Part of that snapshot includes your Desktop apps, so when you refresh your system after creating one of these custom refresh points, your Desktop apps will be back waiting for you. How does it do that? First, a little bit of background.

When Windows 8 is first installed, the system creates and stores a refresh point. When you refresh your system, it uses that refresh point as the baseline for the refresh. To create a custom refresh point, first create a new directory where you want to store it. The refresh point will be named CustomRefresh.

After that, run an elevated command prompt—that is, a command prompt with Administrator rights. To do it, right-click the lower-left edge of the screen and select Command Prompt Admin. Then type the following in the command prompt:. The recimg command gives you quite a bit of flexibility in creating and using Refresh points. Simply create a new directory, and run the recimg command using it as the place to store the Refresh point. Here are instructions to edit the Windows 8 registry.

Update 2: The latest plan is to create a shortcut to Explorer in the startup folder. Launch the Windows 8 regedit. The old Windows 7 style Start menu and desktop appears immediately in Windows 8. LEM is a really smart application that can make correlations between data in different logs, then use its built-in logic to take corrective action, to restart services, or thwart potential security breaches — give LEM a whirl.

If you suspect a virus or group policy is preventing the Windows Task Manager from launching then check this registry setting:. Check the logic 0 zero means the the Windows Task Manager is enabled. Numeric 1 means Disable TskMgr. Windows 8 contains a native webcam. This is a clear indication that Microsoft is working to tightly integrate webcams into the new operating system. Set its value to decimal hex 0xf. Set the value to 1.

Many regard this setting as opening up your machine to remote hackers, thus research this setting before you impliment. See more about Windows 8 administrative shares. Here is an utility where you can review firewall settings such as access control lists ACL , or troubleshoot problems with network address translation NAT.

I have always found this completely useless. Instead, you can make a small registry tweak that will simply cycle you through all the open windows when you single click!

You can still hover your mouse over the icon and get a preview of all the open windows and click on any one you like, but with the tweak, you can just click on the icon and quickly move to the window you want without loading the previews. Windows Registry Editor Version 5. You can either go to the registry manually and add this there or you can open Notepad and copy and paste the code above into a new file.

Read my previous post on adding some options to the context menu in Windows 8 for instructions on how to create and run the registry file using Notepad.

I run disk cleanup fairly often on my computer and have found it annoying to search for it every time I want to use it. Need to boot Windows 8 into safe mode? You either have to use msconfig, press SHIFT while clicking on Restart in the charms bar or use a system recovery disk. Well, what if you could add the safe mode options to the right-click context menu like shown below:. Luckily, the geniuses over at Eight Forums have written up a registry hack with some script files that let you add this awesome option to Windows 8 and Windows 8.