change the windows 8 time

How to Customize the Time on the Windows 8 Lock Screen

If you are running Windows 8, hit the Windows key and L at the same time. What do you see? It should be the lock screen complete with the date, time and weather. What format do the date and time take? It’s almost certainly the same as the clock in your taskbar – if you have opted to use 24 hour clock format, it will be used in both places. But this doesn’t have to be the case; customization is possible.
You might think that a quick visit to the Control Panel is all that’s needed to change the appearance of the Lock Screen time and date. To some extent this is true. The Region applet can be used to configure formatting, but this is a system-wide setting. By editing the registry it is possible to use different formatting on the lock screen.

Fire up the Registry editor and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ SystemProtectedUserData\S-1-5-21-[unique ID]\ AnyoneRead\LocaleInfo.

You will need to make this key editable, so right click LocaleInfo, select Permissions and make sure both of the Allow boxes are ticked before clicking OK.

There are several settings to the right that can be adjusted, but it is the TimeFormat key that is of particular interest. As with the time format in the Region Control Panel, you can use basic syntax to adjust the appearance of the time.
HH:mm uses 24-hour format with a leading zero, H:mm without it, hh:mm is used for 12-hour time with the zero, and h:mm to drop it. Add tt to include AM and PM indicators. Editing this setting via the registry enables you to choose to display time in different format to the taskbar clock.

You can also get creative and add ASCII art to your clock if you want to get a somewhat different look for your lock screen.

The changes take effect immediately – there’s no need to restart Windows.

some more win 8 unknown tricks

Win+spacebar Toggles between input languages and keyboard layout
Win+, Peeks at the desktop
Win+Enter Starts Narrator
Win+PgUp Moves full screen window (i.e., the new Metro UI) to
the monitor on the left in multi-mon situations.
Win+PgDn Moves full screen to the right
Win+Shift + . Snaps application and/or moves the snapped app to left
Win+. Snaps application and/or moves the snapped app to right
Win+k Opens Devices charm
Win+h Opens Share charm
Win+q Opens Search charm
Win+w Opens Settings search
Win+f Opens Files search
Win+z Toggle AppBar

Windows 8 Hidden Secret Features and Useful Hotkeys

 

As we all know Microsoft has finalized development of its latest OS Windows 8 and a free 90-day trial version of Windows 8 RTM can be downloaded using following link:
Download 90-Day Trial Version of Windows 8 RTM Absolutely Free
Microsoft has made lots of changes in Windows 8. Microsoft has completely removed Start Menu and Start button from Windows 8 and all known registry tricks or other methods to get them back are not working in final version.
Removal of Start button and Start Menu also makes performing power operations a bit difficult. Now you don't get a direct option to restart, shut down your PC. All these options have been moved to Settings charm which can be accessed by moving your mouse cursor to top-right corner of screen and selecting Settings charm from Charms bar.
You can check out our exclusive Windows 8 FAQ topic which contains solutions for all such problems such as adding Start Menu, Start button in Windows 8, accessing power options in Windows 8, etc:
Windows 8 RTM Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Although Microsoft has removed a few essential features and functionality from Windows 8 but on the other hand they have also introduced many new useful features in Windows 8.
After using Windows 8 for a few days, we have came across a few interesting features, some of which are not directly visible on screen. The most strange part is that Microsoft has not talked about a few of these features yet in any official blog post.
Anyway for your convenience, today in this topic we are going to share a few hidden secret features which we have found in Windows 8.
So without wasting time, lets share the hidden gems in Windows 8:

1. Hidden Quick Access Menu (Win+X Menu)

Although Microsoft has removed Start button and Start Menu from Windows 8 Taskbar but they have added a hidden Quick Access Menu (QAM) which provides easier access to many useful system tools such as:

• Programs and Features
• Power Options
• System Settings
• Device Manager
• Command Prompt
• Task Manager
• Control Panel
• Search
• Run
• and a few more

To access QAM, move your mouse cursor to extreme bottom-left corner of screen and right-click and you'll get the hidden system menu as shown in following screenshot:

You can also access it using "Win+X" hotkey.
You can also check out following exclusive tutorial to customize this new Quick Access Menu in Windows 8:
[EXCLUSIVE] Customize New Quick Access Menu (Win+X Menu) in Windows 8
If you are still using Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7, you can get a similar system menu in Desktop context menu or My Computer context menu using following tutorials:

• [AIO] Ultimate Tutorial to Customize My Computer Context Menu in Windows XP, Vista and 7
• [AIO] Ultimate Tutorial to Customize Desktop Context Menu in Windows Vista and 7

2. Auto-Save Screenshots

That's an awesome addition to Windows 8. In previous Windows versions, whenever you needed to take a screenshot of your screen, you had to press "PrntScr" key or if you wanted to take screenshot of a specific program window, you needed to click on it to make it active and press "Alt+PrntScr" keys. After doing this, the screenshot was captured by clipboard and you had to paste and save it using an image editing software like built-in MS Paint, Adobe Photoshop, etc.
Windows 8 makes the whole process a lot easier. You can just press "Win+PrntScr" keys together and Windows 8 will automatically save the screenshot in your "Pictures" library folder. The screenshot is saved with the name "Screenshot.png". If you take more screenshots, they are saved with an added number such as "Screenshot (2).png", "Screenshot (3).png" and so on.

I wonder why they didn't add hotkey "Win+Alt+PrntScr" to automatically save screenshot of a specific window. I hope they'll add it in final build of Windows 8.

3. New Hotkey to Access Safe Mode

In previous Windows versions, if the user wanted to boot into Safe Mode, he needed to press "F8" key at system startup but this good old and well know hotkey no longer works in Windows 8. Microsoft has replaced it with a new hotkey.
The new hotkey is "Shift+F8". So now you need to press "Shift+F8" keys together to access Safe Mode option in Windows 8. I can't understand the reason behind this move. May be they'll use "F8" hotkey for some new stuff? Who knows?

4. New Hot Corners in Screen

Windows 8 comes with hot corner feature which allows you to access some built-in options when you move your mouse cursor in a corner of your monitor screen.
When you move your mouse cursor to bottom-left corner of screen, it shows small Start Screen thumbnail which lets you go to Start Screen.

When you move your mouse cursor to top-left corner of screen, it shows a list of all running Metro apps so that you can switch between apps or close an app.

When you move your mouse cursor to top-right or bottom-right corner of screen, it shows new Charms Bar where you can access Settings, Search, Share, Devices and Start Screen charm.

If you don't like Charms Bar to automatically appear on screen as soon as you move the cursor to top-right or bottom-right corners, you can disable it using following tutorial:
How to Disable "Charms Bar" Hint Feature in Windows 8?
If you want to disable all hot corners in Windows 8, check out following article:
How to Disable Hot Corners (Charms Bar, Start Screen Thumbnail, App Switch List) in Windows 8?

5. New Useful Hotkeys (Keyboard Shortcuts)

There are a few useful hotkeys (keyboard shortcuts) introduced in Windows 8 which can make your Windows 8 experience better. Some of them are given below:

• Win key - Toggles between Start Screen and Windows Desktop
• Win+X - Opens Quick Access Menu as mentioned in point 1
• Win+PrntScr - Automatically saves screenshot in Pictures folder as mentioned in point 2
• Win+C - Shows Charms Bar
• Win+I - Shows Settings panel
• Win+K - Launches Devices charm
• Win+H - Launches Share charm
• Win+Q - Launches Search charm
• Win+W - Launches Settings search page
• Win+F - Launches Files search page
• Win+Tab - Shows Metro apps switcher as mentioned in point 4
• Win+Z - Shows / hides App bar at Start Screen to show all apps
• Win+Spacebar - Toggles between input languages and keyboard layout
• Win+, - From Start Screen peeks at the Desktop
• Win+Enter - Launches Narrator
• Ctrl+F1 - Minimizes / maximizes ribbon in Windows Explorer
• Ctrl+Tab – Launches All Apps list on Start Screen

 

How to Reset Your Forgotten Windows Password the Easy Way

How to Reset Your Forgotten Windows Password the Easy Way

 

 

Forgetting your password is never any fun, but luckily there’s a really easy way to reset the password. All you need is a copy of the Windows installation disk and one simple command line trick.

Resetting Your Forgotten Windows Password

Boot off the Windows disk and select the “Repair your computer” option from the lower left-hand corner.

Follow through until you get to the option to open the Command Prompt, which you’ll want to select.

First you’ll want to type in the following command to backup the original sticky keys file:

copy c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe c:\

Then you’ll copy the command prompt executable (cmd.exe) over top of the sticky keys executable:

copy c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe

Now you can reboot the PC.

Resetting the Password

Once you get to the login screen, hit the Shift key 5 times, and you’ll see an administrator mode command prompt.

Now to reset the password—just type the following command, replacing the username and password with the combination you want:

net user geek MyNewPassword

That’s all there is to it. Now you can login.
Of course, you’ll probably want to put the original sethc.exe file back, which you can do by rebooting into the installation CD, opening the command prompt, and copying the c:\sethc.exe file back to c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe.

 

NVIDIA GAMING

How to Update Your Graphics Drivers for Maximum Gaming Performance

A graphics driver is the software that allow your operating system and programs to use your computer’s graphics hardware. If you play PC games, you should keep your computer’s graphics drivers updated to get the best performance out of your hardware.
We have previously advised you to not compulsively update your drivers – most hardware drivers that come with your computer or through Windows Update are fine. However, graphics drivers for your NVIDIA, AMD, or even Intel graphics hardware are a big exception.
Image Credit: Carles Reig on Flickr

Why You Should Update Your Graphics Drivers

Updates to your computer’s motherboard, sound card, and network drivers don’t generally give speed improvements. They will often fix rare bugs – and maybe even introduce new bugs.
However, this is not the case with updated drivers for your graphics card, also known as a GPU or video card. NVIDIA and AMD both frequently release new graphics drivers that often give major performance improvements, particularly for newer games. With Intel getting serious about integrated graphics performance with their upcoming Haswell graphics architecture, they are now starting to release more frequent video driver updates, too.
Here is a snapshot of the changelog from NVIDIA’s most recent graphics driver package, released on January 5, 2013:

These sorts of performance increases in updated graphics drivers are not uncommon. While newer games like Far Cry 3 saw significant improvements (up to 38% on some hardware), even older games like Skyrim and Starcraft II saw a significant increase in performance.
NVIDIA may be overstating the performance increases you will get, and it probably won’t be as pronounced on older graphics cards. Even so, these are still significant improvements. Some newer games may refuse to run with old, unoptimized graphics drivers installed.
Of course, if you never play PC games on your computer and don’t care about 3D graphics performance, you don’t really need to update your graphics drivers at all.

Identifying Your Graphics Card

There is a variety of ways to identify your computer’s graphics hardware, including third-party system information utilities like Speccy. However, you can get this information right from the Windows Device Manager.
To open the Device Manager, press the Windows key to open your Start menu, type Device Manager into the Start menu, and click the Device Manager shortcut. (If you are using Windows 8, press the Windows key, type Device Manager at the Start screen, select the Settings category, and click the Device Manager shortcut.)

Expand the Display adapters section to see the manufacturer and model of your computer’s graphics card.

If you see both Intel and NVIDIA hardware on a laptop, your laptop is using NVIDIA’s Optimus technology to intelligently switch between its better-for-battery-life Intel graphics and better-for-gaming-performance NVIDIA graphics. In this case, you will want to update your NVIDIA drivers to boost your gaming performance.

Getting the Latest Updates

For some types of graphics hardware integrated into laptops (also known as notebook GPUs), you may not be able to get drivers straight from the manufacturer. You may have to get updated drivers from your laptop manufacturer, and they may not regularly release updates.
However, you can generally get updated graphics drivers from your graphics hardware manufacturer’s website:

• Download NVIDIA Graphics Drivers
• Download AMD Graphics Drivers
• Download Intel Graphics Drivers

You will have to select the exact model of your computer’s graphics card, which is displayed in the Device Manager window.
Some manufacturers may have update-checking utilities that automatically check for new graphics driver versions and alert you to them, such as the NVIDIA Update utility, which you can access from the NVIDIA Control Panel application (select Help > Updates) if you have NVIDIA graphics hardware.

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If you have older graphics hardware, bear in mind that it won’t be supported forever. Manufacturers eventually move older hardware to a stable driver release that they stop optimizing and updating. If your graphics hardware is five years old, it’s very likely that optimized drivers for it are not longer being released. How long your hardware is supported is up to its manufacturer.

How To Create a Shortcut That Lets a Standard User Run An Application as Administrator

Want to allow a standard user account to run an application as administrator without a UAC or password prompt? You can easily create a shortcut that uses the runas command with the /savecred switch, which saves the password.
Note that using /savecred could be considered a security hole – a standard user will be able to use the runas /savecred command to run any command as administrator without entering a password. However, it’s still useful for situations where this doesn’t matter much – perhaps you want to allow a child’s standard user account to run a game as Administrator without asking you.

Enabling the Administrator Account

First you’ll need to enable the built-in Administrator account, which is disabled by default.
To do so, search for Command Prompt in the Start menu, right-click the Command Prompt shortcut, and select Run as administrator.

Run the following command in the elevated Command Prompt window that appears:

net user administrator /active:yes

The Administrator user account is now enabled, although it has no password.
To set a password, open the Control Panel, select User Accounts and Family Safety, and select User Accounts. Click the Manage another account link in the User Accounts window.

Select the Administrator account, click Create a password, and create a password for the Administrator account.

Creating the Shortcut

Now we’ll create a new shortcut that launches the application with Administrator privileges.
Right-click the desktop (or elsewhere), point to New, and select Shortcut.

Enter a command based on the following one into the box that appears:

runas /user:ComputerName\Administrator /savecred “C:\Path\To\Program.exe“

Replace ComputerName with the name of your computer and C:\Path\To\Program.exe with the full path of the program you want to run. For example, if your computer’s name was Laptop and you wanted to run CCleaner, you’d enter the following path:

runas /user:Laptop\Administrator /savecred “C:\Program Files\CCleaner\CCleaner.exe”

Enter a name for the shortcut.

To select an icon for your new shortcut, right-click it and select Properties.

Click the Change Icon button in the Properties window.

Select an icon for your shortcut. For example, you can browser to CCleaner.exe and choose an icon associated with it. If you’re using an other program, browse to its .exe file and select your preferred icon.

The first time you double-click your shortcut, you’ll be prompted to enter the Administrator account’s password, which you created earlier.

This password will be saved – the next time you double-click the shortcut, the application will launch as Administrator without asking you for a password.

SEE WHO LOGGED IN

How To See Who Logged Into a Computer and When

Have you ever wanted to monitor who’s logging into your computer and when? On Professional editions of Windows, you can enable logon auditing to have Windows track which user accounts log in and when.
The Audit logon events setting tracks both local logins and network logins. Each logon event specifies the user account that logged on and the time the login took place. You can also see when users logged off.

Enable Logon Auditing

First, open the local group policy editor – press the Windows key, type gpedit.msc in the Start menu, and press Enter. (You can also enable logon event auditing on a domain controller if you administer a network with centralized logins.)

Navigate to the following folder: Local Computer Policy –> Computer Configuration –> Windows Settings –> Security Settings –> Local Policies –> Audit Policy.

Double-click the Audit logon events policy setting in the right pane to adjust its options. In the properties window, enable the Success checkbox to log successful logons. You can also enable the Failure checkbox to log failed logins.

Viewing Logon Events

After enabling this setting, Windows will log logon events – including a username and time – to the system security log.
To view these events, open the Event Viewer – press the Windows key, type Event Viewer, and press Enter to open it.

Navigate to the Windows Logs –> Security category in the event viewer.
Look for events with event ID 4624 – these represent successful login events.

To see more information – such as the user account that logged into the computer – you can double-click the event and scroll down in the text box. (You can also scroll down in the text box underneath the list of events.)

If your security log is cluttered, you can click the Filter Current Log option in the sidebar and filter by event ID 4624. The Event Viewer will display only logon events.
Because this is just another event in the Windows event log with a specific event ID, you can also use the Task Scheduler to take action when a logon occurs. You can even have Windows email you when someone logs on.

FORGOT YOUR WIFI PASSWORD ? DONT WORRY!!

How to Access Your Router If You Forget the Password

Routers protect their web interfaces, where you can configure their networking, parental control, and port forwarding settings, with a username and password. These default passwords can be changed to protect the router’s settings.
If you’ve forgotten a router’s password – or if you acquired a used router and don’t know its password – there’s a way to reset the password. You may also be able to forward ports without knowing the password.
Image Credit: tnarik on Flickr

Find the Default Username and Password

Before resetting your router to its default settings, you should first try using the default username and password to log in. You’ll need these anyway if you plan on resetting the router to its factory default settings. There are several ways to find this information:

• Read your router’s manual. Different models of routers – even ones from the same manufacturer – often have different username and password combinations. To locate the default username and password for the router, look in its manual. (If you’ve lost the manual, you can often find it by searching for your router’s model number and “manual” on Google. Or just search for your router’s model and “default password”.)
• Look for a sticker on the router itself. Some routers – particularly ones that may have come from your Internet service provider – ship with unique passwords. These passwords may sometimes be printed on a sticker on the router itself.
• Try a common username and password combination. Many routers use the password “admin”  (don’t type the quotes) and a blank username, a blank password and “admin” as the username, or “admin” as both the password and username. You can find a fairly comprehensive list of default usernames and passwords for various routers on RouterPasswords.com.

Try to log in with the default credentials after finding them – it’s possible the router was already reset or someone never changed its password. If they don’t work, continue to the next section – you’ll need the default credentials after resetting the router.

Reset the Router to Factory Defaults

Routers come with a button you can press to reset the router to its default factory settings. This resets any configuration changes you’ve made to the router – forwarded ports, network settings, parental controls, and custom passwords will all be wiped away. You’ll be able to access the router with its default username and password, but you may have to spend some time configuring the router again, depending on how many changes you made to its configuration.
The exact process (and location of the reset button) will vary from router to router. For best results, you should consult your router’s manual for any model-specific instructions. However, the process is generally very similar on most routers.
First, look at the back (or perhaps the bottom) of the router. You’ll see a special button labeled Reset. This button is often located in a depressed hole, known as a “pinhole,” so you can’t accidentally press it.

To reset the router, you’ll generally need to press this button and hold it down for about 10 seconds. After you release the button, the router will reset itself to the factory default settings and reboot. If the button is located in a pinhole, you’ll need to use a bent paperclip or another long, narrow object to press and hold it.
Once you’ve pressed the button down for long enough, you can log into the router with its default username and password.

Image Credits: William Hook on Flickr and DeclanTM on Flickr

How to Forward Ports Without Knowing the Password

Do you just want to open the router’s web interface and forward ports for a server, game, or other type of networked program? If so, you don’t necessarily even have to know the password. This trick is also useful if you’re using someone else’s network and don’t have access to the password.
This works because many routers support Universal Plug and Play (UPnP), which allows programs on your computer to “ask” the router to open ports for them. If UPnP is enabled on the router, it will automatically open the port.
If a program supports this option, you’ll generally find it in its connection settings alongside the port configuration. NAT-PMP, which you may also see, is a similar way of automatically forwarding ports that fewer routers support.

If you use a program that doesn’t include integrated support for UPnP, never fear – you can use a program like UPnP PortMapper to quickly forward ports from a desktop application. You can forward any ports you like.

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Once you’ve reset the router’s settings, you can log in with the default username and password and change its password from its web interface.

ANDROID SAFE MODE [SAFE]

How To Boot Your Android Phone or Tablet Into Safe Mode

On your Windows PC, you can boot into safe mode to load Windows without any third-party software. You can do the same on Android with Android’s safe mode. In safe mode, Android won’t load any third-party applications.
This allows you to troubleshoot your device – if you’re experiencing crashes, freezes, or battery life issues, you can boot into safe mode and see if the issues still happen there. From safe mode, you can uninstall misbehaving third-party apps.

Booting Into Safe Mode

To reboot into safe mode on Android 4.1 or later, long-press the power button until the power options menu appears.

Long-press the Power Off option and you’ll be asked if you want to reboot your Android device into safe mode. Tap the OK button.

On older versions of Android, long-press the power button and then tap Power Off to turn off your device. Turn on the phone or tablet by long-pressing the power button again. Release the power button and, when you see a logo appear during boot-up, hold down both the Volume Up and Volume Down buttons. Continue holding the two buttons until the device boots up with a Safe mode indicator at the bottom-left corner of its screen.

Troubleshooting in Safe Mode

While in safe mode, the words “Safe Mode” will appear at the bottom of your screen.

In safe mode, you’ll only have access to the apps that came with your device. Apps you’ve installed will be disabled and any widgets you’ve added to your home screens won’t be present. Try using your device normally after booting into safe mode. If your issue – freezing, rebooting, crashes, battery life issues, or bad performance – is solved in Safe Mode, the problem is with a third-party app you’ve installed.
While apps are disabled, you can uninstall them normally. Open the Settings screen, tap Apps, locate the app you want to install, tap it, and tap the Uninstall button. if you’ve installed any apps recently, you should probably try uninstalling those apps first.

After uninstalling the apps, you can try installing them one at a time to identify which app is causing you problems.
If you’re experiencing major problems with your device, you may want to skip all the troubleshooting and restore your device to its factory default settings. You’ll lose all the data on your device – so make sure you have everything backed up – and you’ll have to reinstall any apps you’ve installed. To do this, open the Settings screen, tap Backup & reset, tap Factory data reset, and follow the instructions on your screen.

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To exit safe mode, restart your device normally. (Long-press the power button, select Power Off, and then long-press the power button again to turn it back on.) Your Android phone or tablet will boot and load third-party software as normal.