How to Customize the Lock Screen on Windows 8

Windows 8’s lock screen is very at home on a tablet, but it can also be used on laptops and desktops.  The lock screen is not just a background image – it contains widgets that display quick notifications.

These widgets, known as lock screen apps, allow you to view information – such as new emails, weather, calendar appointments, instant messages or social updates – without even unlocking your PC.

Select a Lock Screen Background

Lock screen settings are located in the PC setting application on Windows 8.  To access it, open the Settings charm (press Windows Key + I to quickly open the Settings charm from anywhere in Windows) and select Change PC settings.

Select the Personalize category and select Lock screen.  Click (or tap) one of the provided background images or use the Browse button and select any image from your computer, Bing, SkyDrive, or even your camera.

If you want more features, try using the Chameleon app located in the Windows Store.  It can watch “photo of the day”-type services and automatically change your lock screen background on a schedule, a feature not included with Windows 8.

Configure Lock Screen Apps

Lock screen widgets – known as “lock screen apps” in Windows 8 – allow you to view information at a glance.  Apps added to the lock screen are allowed to run in the background when your PC is locked so they can fetch new, updated information and display it on the lock screen.

You can configure the list of lock screen apps from the Lock screen apps section below the lock screen background chooser.  Click (or tap) an icon and select the app you want in that location.  You can get more widgets by installing more Windows Store apps – apps can choose to include lock screen integration.  If you do not want any lock screen apps – or just want a few – you can select the Don’t show quick status here option.

You can also choose an app to show a more detailed status.  For example, when you choose to display a detailed weather status, you will see the weather displayed in text on your lock screen.

That’s it for customizing the lock screen – it’s all about background images and lock screen apps.  However, with custom backgrounds and apps, each person’s lock screen could look different.

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Make Your Own Windows 8 Start Button with Zero Memory Usage

After using Windows 8 for a while, I’ve come to the conclusion that removing the Start button from the Taskbar was a huge mistake. Here’s how to make your own “Start” button that brings up the Metro Start screen—but doesn’t waste any memory at all.

What we’ll be doing is pretty simple—create a script that simulates pressing the Windows key button, make it into an executable, assign an icon, and pin it to the taskbar so that it sorta looks like the Start button, and works the same way. Since nothing is running, no RAM is wasted.

Creating Your Own Windows 8 Start Button

You’ll need to start by downloading and installing AutoHotkey, and then creating a new script with the New –> Autohotkey Script item on the context menu. Once you’ve done that, paste in the following code:

Send, {LWin down}{LWin up}

Save the script, and then right-click and choose the Compile Script option, which will create an executable file.

Right-click on the .exe and choose Create Shortcut, and then open up the Shortcut properties screen.

In here you’ll want to browse for the imageres.dll file, which has a lot of pretty icons in it. Here’s the path, which obviously will need to be adjusted if you installed Windows somewhere else.

C:\Windows\System32\imageres.dll

There’s a Windows flag icon in there, as well as some other icons… and of course, you could use any icon file here if you wanted, including one that you’ve downloaded from somewhere.

Now you’ll want to use the Pin to Taskbar option on the context menu–you’ll probably need to drag it into the right position.

You’ll notice that I choose the Metro-style Window icon, which actually looks pretty cool… but again, you can use any icon you want.

That’s all there is to it—press the button, the Metro Start screen will come up. Zero memory usage, since nothing is running in the background. In fact, you should be able to uninstall AutoHotkey at this point if you want.

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How to Quickly Forward Ports on Your Router from a Desktop Application

UPnP is a convenient way for programs to forward ports without you having to pull up your router’s web interface and forward ports manually. Unfortunately, some programs that require port forwarding don’t support UPnP – that’s where UPnP PortMapper comes in.

This application takes care of port forwarding for you, right from your desktop. If your IP address changes, you don’t need to log into your router and change your port forwarding rules – you can have the application update them for you.

If you visit a friend’s house and join their network, you don’t have to ask for their router’s password to forward ports – just fire up the application and activate your preset rules.

Installation

UPnP Port Mapper is written in Java, so you’ll need the free Java Runtime Environment installed to run it. After installing Java, you can download UPnP Port Mapper from SourceForge. In addition to Windows, this application also works on Mac OS X and Linux.

UPnP Port Mapper communicates with your router with the UPnP protocol, so you’ll also need a router with UPnP enabled to use this application. If UPnP is disabled on your network’s router, this program can’t do anything.

After downloading UPnP Port Mapper, double-click the .jar file to launch it.

Forwarding Ports

To get started, click the Connect button in UPnP Port Mapper. If you see a Windows Firewall pop-up window, click the Unblock button. You may have to allow Java network access in the Windows firewall pop-up that appears.

If UPnP PortMapper informs you that it can’t find your router, click the Connect button again unblocking the application in the Windows firewall.

If it worked, you’ll see a list of UPnP port mappings in the top pane (this list will be empty by default), as well as your router’s external IP address on the Internet and its IP address on your local network.

To create a new port forwarding preset, click the Create button.

Enter a description for your port forwarding rule and provide a list of one or more ports to forward. You can specify port ranges or forward a list of ports using a single preset.

You can also specify a specific remote host. If you enter an IP address, only traffic from that IP address will be forwarded to your computer from your router. For example, you can use this feature to only allow connections from a friend’s IP address on the Internet.

The Use local host box is checked by default, making it easy to forward ports without having to double-check your computer’s local IP address. However, you could also use this application to forward ports to multiple different computers on your network.

Port forwarding presets you specify will appear  in the Port mapping presets box. Select a preset and click the Use button to activate it.

Clicking this button forwards the ports on your router – they’ll appear in the Port mappings box at the top of the window. You can remove port mappings by selecting them and clicking the Remove button.

The port mappings will be saved on your router until its UPnP data is cleared – depending on your router, this may happen when your router is restarted. If you open UPnP Port Mapper later and click the Connect button, you’ll see your active port mappings.

You will also need to reapply port mapping settings if your computer’s local IP address changes.

With your presets, you can quickly and easily apply these port mapping settings on any network with a router that supports UPnP – this can be convenient if you move around and need to forward ports for gaming, servers, or other purposes.

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6 Ways Windows 8 Is More Secure Than Windows 7

Whatever you think of it, Windows 8 isn’t just a new interface slapped on top of Windows 7. Windows 8 has seen a lot of security improvements, including an integrated antivirus, an application reputation system, and protection from boot-time rootkits.

There are also quite a few low-level security improvements under the hood. Microsoft hasn’t spelled out all of them, but Windows 8 manages memory in a more secure way and includes features that make security vulnerabilities harder to exploit.

Integrated Antivirus

Windows 8 finally includes an integrated antivirus program. it’s named Windows Defender, but the interface will be immediately familiar to anyone that’s ever used Microsoft Security Essentials – this is Microsoft Security Essentials with a new name. You can easily install any other antivirus you prefer and Windows Defender will be automatically disabled if another antivirus is running, but the integrated antivirus is a capable product. Best of all, this ensures that all Windows users will finally have antivirus protection out-of-the-box.

Early Launch Anti-Malware

In Windows 8, antivirus products can start earlier in the boot-up process to scan the system’s drivers for malware. This helps protect against rootkits that start before the antivirus program and hide from it. Windows Defender starts earlier in the boot process out-of-the-box, and third-party antivirus vendors can also add the Early-Launch Anti-Malware (ELAM) feature to their products.

SmartScreen Filter

Previously used only in Internet Explorer, the SmartScreen filter is now implemented at the operating system-level. It will be used to scan EXE files you download from Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and other programs. When you download and double-click an EXE file, Windows will scan the file and send its signature to Microsoft’s servers. If the application is known-good, such as the installer for iTunes, Photoshop, or another popular program, Windows will allow it to run. If it’s known-bad, perhaps if it contains malware, Windows will prevent it from running. If it’s new and Windows doesn’t know what it is, Windows will warn you and allow you to bypass the warning.

This feature should help less-experienced users from downloading and running malicious programs from the Internet. Even new pieces of malware will be detected by the SmartScreen filter as an unknown new program that should be approached with caution

Secure Boot

On new Windows 8 computers that use the UEFI firmware instead of the old-style BIOS, Secure Boot guarantees that only specially signed and approved software can run at boot. On current computers, malware could install a malicious boot loader that loads before the Windows boot loader, starting a boot-level rootkit (or “bootkit”) before Windows even launches. The rootkit could then hide itself from Windows and antivirus software, pulling the strings in the background.

On Intel x86 PCs, you’ll be able to add your own security keys to the UEFI firmware, so you could even have your system boot only secure Linux boot loaders that you’ve signed. 

Memory Management Improvements

Microsoft has made a lot of under-the-hood improvements to the way Windows 8 manages memory. When a security hole is found, these improvements can make the security hole harder or even impossible to exploit. Some types of exploits that function on earlier versions of Windows wouldn’t function at all on Windows 8.

Microsoft hasn’t spelled out all of these improvements, but they have mentioned a few:

• ASLR (Address Space Layout Randomization) has been extended to more parts of Windows, randomly moving data and code around in memory to make it harder to exploit.
• Mitigations that were once applied to Windows applications are now also applied to the Windows kernel.
• The Windows heap, where Windows applications receive their memory from, includes additional checks to defend against exploit techniques.
• Internet Explorer 10 includes improvements that make 75% of the security vulnerabilities reported over the last two years more difficult to exploit.

New Apps Are Sandboxed

Apps for Windows 8’s new Modern interface (formerly known as Metro) are sandboxed and restricted in what they can do on your computer.

On the Windows desktop, applications had full access to your system. If you downloaded and ran a Windows game, it could install drivers on your system, read files from everywhere on your hard drive, and install malware on your computer. Even if programs run with limited credentials thanks to UAC, they typically install with Administrator privileges and can do anything they want during installation.

Windows 8 apps function more like web pages and mobile apps on other popular mobile platforms. When you install an app from the Windows Store, that app has limited access to your system. It can’t run in the background and monitor all your keystrokes, logging your credit card number and online banking passwords like applications on the traditional Windows desktop can. it doesn’t have access to every file on your system.

Apps for Windows 8’s new Modern interface are also available only available through the Windows Store, which is more controversial. However, users can’t install malicious Modern apps from outside the store. They’d have to go through the Windows Store, where Microsoft has the ability to pull them if they’re discovered to be malicious.

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Windows 8 is definitely more secure than Windows 7. An integrated antivirus and application reputation system, along with a tamed app ecosystem that replaces the wild-west nature of previous versions of Windows, will probably make the most difference for inexperienced users that may not have ran an antivirus or knew which applications were safe to install on previous versions of Windows. Low-level improvements to the way Windows manages memory will help everyone, even power users.

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Do You Need to Update Your Computer’s BIOS?

Updating your operating system and software is important. On the other hand, we have previously covered why you shouldn’t generally update your hardware drivers, althoughgamers will definitely want to update their graphics drivers. But what about BIOS updates?

BIOS updates will not make your computer faster, they generally won’t add new features you need, and they may even cause additional problems. You should only update your BIOS if the new version contains an improvement you need.

What’s a BIOS?

BIOS stands for basic input/output system. When you power your computer on, your BIOS takes control, starting the power-on self test (POST) and passing control over to the boot loader, which boots your computer’s operating system. The BIOS is low-level system software that should “just work” without getting in your way. Computers are now coming with UEFI firmware instead of the traditional BIOS, but the same is true for UEFI – it’s low-level system software with a similar role.

Unlike your operating system (which is stored on your hard drive), your computer’s BIOS is stored on a chip on your motherboard.

Flashing a BIOS

Manufacturers often release updates to their computers’ BIOSes. If you built your own computer, a BIOS update would come from your motherboard vendor. These updates can be “flashed” onto the BIOS chip, replacing the BIOS software the computer came with with a new version of the BIOS.

BIOSes are computer-specific (or motherboard-specific), so you will need the BIOS for your exact model of computer (or motherboard) to update your computer’s BIOS.

Why You Probably Shouldn’t Update Your BIOS

BIOS updates aren’t big software upgrades that add new features, security patches, or performance improvements. BIOS updates typically have very short change logs – they may fix a bug with an obscure piece of hardware or add support for a new model of CPU.

If your computer is working properly, you probably shouldn’t update your BIOS. You likely won’t see the difference between the new BIOS version and the old one. In some cases, you may even experience new bugs with a new version of the BIOS, as the BIOS that came with your computer  may have gone through more testing.

Flashing a BIOS isn’t as easy as installing a normal software update. You will often want to flash your computer from DOS (yes, DOS – you may have to create a bootable USB drive with DOS on it and restart into that environment), as problems could occur when flashing from Windows. Each manufacturer has their own instructions for flashing a BIOS.

You will need the version of the BIOS for your exact hardware. If you get a BIOS for another piece of hardware – even a slightly different revision of the same motherboard – this could cause problems. BIOS flashing tools usually try to detect whether the BIOS fits your hardware, but if the tool attempts to flash the BIOS anyway, your computer could become unbootable.

If your computer loses power while flashing the BIOS, your computer could become “bricked” and unable to boot. Computers should ideally have a backup BIOS stored in read-only memory, but not all computers do.

When You Should Update Your BIOS

Given that you probably will not see any improvements from updating your BIOS, that new bugs could pop up, and the potential for errors while flashing, you shouldn’t update your BIOS unless you have a reason to. Here are a few cases where updating makes sense:

• Bugs: If you are experiencing bugs that are fixed in a newer version of the BIOS for your computer (check the BIOS change log on the manufacturer’s website), you may be able to fix them by updating your BIOS. A manufacturer may even advise you to update your BIOS if you contact tech support and have a problem that has been fixed with an update.
• Hardware Support: Some motherboard manufacturers add support for new CPUs, and potentially other hardware, in BIOS updates. If you want to upgrade your computer’s CPU to a new CPU – possibly one that wasn’t yet released when you purchased your motherboard – you may need to update the BIOS.

Be sure to check the change log for the BIOS updates and see if they actually have an update you require.

If you are not experiencing any bugs that have been fixed and don’t need the hardware support, don’t bother updating. You won’t get anything out of it except possible new problems.

As the saying goes, don’t fix what isn’t broken.

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Why You Don’t Need to Install a Third-Party Firewall (And When You Do)

Firewalls are an important piece of security software, and someone is always trying to sell you a new one. However, Windows has come with its own solid firewall since Windows XP SP2, and it’s more than good enough.

You also don’t need a full Internet security suite. All you really need to install on Windows 7 is an antivirus — and Windows 8 finally comes with an antivirus.

Why You Need a Firewall

The primary function of a firewall is to block unrequested incoming connections. Firewalls can block different types of connections intelligently — for example, they can allow access to network file shares and other services when your laptop is connected to your home network, but not when it’s connected to a public Wi-Fi network in a coffee shop.

A firewall helps block connections to potentially vulnerable services and controls access to network services — particularly file shares, but also other types of services — that should only be accessible on trusted networks.

Before Windows XP SP2, when the Windows Firewall was upgraded and enabled by default, Windows XP systems connected directly to the Internet became infected after four minutes on average. Worms like the Blaster worm tried to connect directly to everyone. Because it didn’t have a firewall, Windows let the Blaster worm right in.

A firewall would have protected against this, even if the underlying Windows software as vulnerable. Even if a modern version of Windows is vulnerable to such a worm, it will be extremely difficult to infect the computer because the firewall blocks all such incoming traffic.

Why the Windows Firewall is Good Enough

The Windows Firewall does the exact same job of blocking incoming connections as a third-party firewall. Third-party firewalls like the one included with Norton may pop up more often, informing you that they’re working and asking for your input, but the Windows firewall is constantly doing its thankless job in the background.

It’s enabled by default and should still enabled unless you’ve disabled it manually or installed a third-party firewall. You can find its interface under Windows Firewall in the Control Panel.

When a program wants to receive incoming connections, it must create a firewall rule or pop up a dialog and prompt you for permission.

When You Would Want a Third-Party Firewall

By default, the Windows firewall only does what’s really important: block incoming connections. It has some more advanced features, but they’re in a hidden, harder-to-use interface.

For example, most third-party firewalls allow you to easily control which applications on your computer can connect to the Internet. They’ll pop up a box when an application first initiates an outgoing connection. This allows you to control which applications on your computer can access the Internet, blocking certain applications from connecting.

Power users may love this feature, but it’s probably not a good feature for the average user. They’ll be charged with identifying applications that should be allowed to connect and may block background-updater processes from connecting, preventing their software from updating and leaving it vulnerable. It’s also a very noisy task, as you’ll have to confirm a prompt box every time a new application wants to connect. If you really don’t trust a program to connect to the Internet, perhaps you shouldn’t be running the program on your computer in the first place.

Nevertheless, if you want outgoing-connection management, you’ll probably want a third-party firewall. They also offer an interface where you can more easily view statistics, firewall logs, and other information.

For most users, using a third-party firewall just introduces unnecessary complexity.

Advanced Windows Firewall Features

The Windows firewall actually has more features than you might expect, though its interface isn’t as friendly:

• Windows offers an advanced firewall configuration interface where you can create advanced firewall rules. You can create rules that block certain programs from connecting to the Internet or only allow a program to communicate with specific addresses.
• You can use a third-party tool to extend the Windows firewall, forcing it to prompt you for permission each time a new program wants to connect to the Internet.

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A third-party firewall is a power-user tool — not an essential piece of security software. The Windows firewall is solid and trustworthy. While people can quibble about the Microsoft Security Essentials/Windows Defender virus detection rate, the Windows firewall does just as good a job of blocking incoming connections as other firewalls.

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How to Take a Screenshot in Windows 8 with No Extra Software

Today we are going to show you a nifty new shortcut built into Windows 8 that lets you capture everything that’s on your screen–this is the first time that Windows has really included a built-in way to capture screenshots.

Taking a Screenshot in Windows 8

Switch to the Start Screen and launch your app of choice.

To take a screenshot, hold down the Windows key and press the PrtScn (Print Screen) button on your keyboard.

Now press the Win + E keyboard combination to open Explorer and navigate to your Pictures library in the left-hand side panel, here you will find a newly created Screenshots folder, double-click on it to open it up.

Inside you will find all the screenshots you have taken, listed in chronological order.

That’s all there is to it.

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How to Set a Custom Logon Screen Background on Windows 7

Windows 7 makes it possible to change the welcome screen that appears when you start your computer without any third-party software, but this setting is well hidden. You can set any image you like as your background.

This setting is intended for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to customize their systems, but there’s nothing stopping you from using it yourself. All you have to do is change a single registry value and put an image file in the correct location.

Enabling Custom Backgrounds

This feature is disabled by default, so you’ll have to enable it from the Registry Editor. You can also use the Group Policy Editor if you have a Professional version of Windows – scroll down a bit for the Group Policy Editor method.

Launch the Registry Editor by typing regedit into the search box in the Start menu and pressing Enter.

In the Registry Editor, navigate to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background

You’ll see an DWORD value named OEMBackground. If you don’t see it, right-click in the right pane, point to the New submenu and create a new DWORD value with this name.

Double-click the OEMBackground value and set its value to 1.

Note that selecting a new theme in the Appearance and Personalization window will “unset” this registry value. Selecting a theme will change the value of the key to the value stored in the theme’s .ini file, which is probably 0 – if you change your theme, you’ll have to perform this registry tweak again.

Changing the setting in group policy will allow it to persist even when you change your theme, but the Group Policy Editor is only available in Professional editions of Windows.

If you have access to the Group Policy Editor, launch gpedit.msc from the Start menu.

Navigate to the following section in the Group Policy Editor window:

Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\Logon

You’ll find a setting named “Always use custom login background.” Double-click it and set it to Enabled.

Setting An Image

Your image file must be less than 256 KB in size. It’s also a good idea to use an image file that matches the resolution of your monitor, so it won’t look stretched.

Windows looks for the custom logon screen background image in the following directory:

C:\Windows\System32\oobe\info\backgrounds

By default, the info and backgrounds folders don’t exist. Navigate to the C:\Windows\System32\oobe folder and create them yourself by right-clicking inside the folder, pointing to New, and selecting New Folder.

Copy your desired background image to the backgrounds folder and name it backgroundDefault.jpg.

(I can see the inevitable question coming in the comments, so if you like this wallpaper image, you can get it here.)

The change will take effect immediately – no system reboot required. The first time you log out or lock your screen (try the WinKey-L keyboard shortcut), you’ll see your new background.

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To get the default logon screen back, just delete the backgroundDefault.jpg file. Windows will use the default background if no custom background image is available.

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How to Use the File History Feature in Windows 8 to Restore Files

Jealous of your Mac OS X friends and their great Time Machine feature? Windows 8 has a new feature called File History that works much the same way, giving you an easy method to restore previous versions of your files.

We are going to use a networked folder in for our article but you could always skip creating the network folder, and just use a USB drive. To use a USB drive you can just go to the setting for File History and turn it on, it should automatically find your USB and immediately start working.

Setting Up File History Using A Shared Folder

The first thing we have to do if we want to use File History with a network share is to actually create the the folder and share it, so head on over to your home server (or any always on PC) and create a new folder named File History.

Right-click on the folder and select Share with, then click on the Specific people option.

Type everyone and hit the add button.

Finally change the permissions so that Everyone has Read/Write permissions.

Now switch back to your Windows 8 machine and launch explorer, then open the classic Control Panel.

Click on the System and Security link.

Now open up the File History settings.

Click on the Change drive link on the left hand side.

Now you will need to add your network location.

Browse to the shared folder we just created on your home server and click the Select Folder button.

Make sure your network location is selected and click the OK button.

Now you can Turn on File History.

When you click on the “turn on” button a message will pop up asking you if you wish to recommend the location that you used for File History to other users in your HomeGroup as a place to save their File History. If you have a HomeGroup and want to have a central location where all users in the HomeGroup can store their File History you will probably want to say yes, otherwise it’s OK to choose no. File History will now be set up and working.

Restoring A Deleted File Or Folder

In this example I have 1 file in the Documents Library called “My Plans To Take Over The World”, and I am going to accidently delete the document and restore it using File History

I’ve now deleted the file permanently by doing a Shift-Delete as I don’t think I will be taking over the world anymore. I have also created two new files called “New File 1” and “New File 2”, making the library look like this:

A few days later, my partner in crime phones me and tells me that he is free this week, and it looks like a good week to conquer the world. The problem is that I deleted my plan. Luckily I had set up File History a while back and can recover the document, we need to recover the Document without effecting “New File 1” or “New File 2”. To do that we to that we select the File History button on the ribbon.

This will launch the File History browser, and give you all the different versions of the Documents Library.

If I scroll back to Version 3 of 4 using the arrow that’s pointing back (left), you will see that my document called “My Plans To Take Over The World” is there.

I can now select my file and click on the Blue Orb  to restore the document. File History will launch the folder that you are busy working with and show you that the file is now there.

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