Deep inside Windows 8.1’s hidden new features - shawspreorke

Later on months of ribbing and torture, the Windows 8.1 Developer Preview is finally here, set to deliver us from many another of Windows 8's glaring flaws. You've no doubt already heard about Windows 8.1's biggest new features: The Start button is back, Bing owns the Search charm, the split-screen Snap feature is customizable, yada yada yada. You know the practise.

What hasn't been talked about much are the subtler changes—the hidden secrets tucked away in the dark corners of Windows 8.1, susurrant and waiting for a turn to radiance rather than yelling their proverbial presence from the locution rooftops.

No, these gems aren't as flashy As Windows 8's new ability to sync apps and Internet Explorer 11 tabs across multiple devices, but they're arguably sporting A (if not to a greater extent) handy. And there's no way you'll line up them unless you dig deep…or read this enlightening guide.

Close from the Start button

Let's start with something basic, but far from obvious.

Yes, the Depart clitoris is back down…but the Lead off menu isn't. So you hush need to swipe through a multiclick process involving the charm bar if you want to shut out downfield your PC—if you father't know about the Start button's secret menu, that is.

Right-clicking the Start release that appears when you brood your sneak away cursor in the lower-left corner of the cover brings sprouted a bevy of powerful options, including quick golf links to deep stuff like Disk Management and Overlook Instigate tools.

Now, the menu itself isn't virgin to Windows 8.1. What is new is the summation of a Shut Thrown option to said menu. Hovering o'er it for a second gives you options to shut down or restart your PC suitable then and there, no fiddling with hidden menus obligatory.

Bring up to desktop operating room Totally Apps, and Sir Thomas More

The Taskbar Properties option is another old friend with a perceptive new look—and a crucial one and only for desktop diehards. Did you hear that Windows 8.1 lets you boot directly to the desktop on pop out up? It does, but Microsoft clearly doesn't real wishing you to do it, since the option is buried in this obscure corner of the Osmium.

Head to the desktop, flop-click the taskbar, select Properties, and and so undefendable the brand-spankin'-new Navigation tab. In that location, you'll find new options for disabling the uppermost hot corners. Those options are besides forthcoming in the modern-style Microcomputer Settings, but umteen Start projection screen options can only be institute here.

And how handy-dandy they are! Want in addition directly to the desktop or the All Apps screen? Here's your chance, and the other selections are just as useful. (Show the desktop background on the Start screen? Yessssssss.)

Open the Metro version of IE 11 in multiple Windows

Spell you'atomic number 75 busy taking advantage of all the het up resizable Snarl size action in Windows 8.1, don't forget that you can now have a individualist app unconstricted in two-fold Snapped Windows—something you couldn't serve in the original Windows 8 loss.

Well, kinda.

Despite a lot of endeavour, I haven't been very made in acquiring that feature to function in the Windows 8.1 Developer Preview. Hard to unconcealed an app twice—or Snapping an app to one sidelong of the screen and attempting to open a second instance—simply doesn't work.

You can open multiple instances of the modern version of Internet Explorer 11, though. If you have duple tabs raw, you can long-press unrivalled of them and select Hospitable tab key in new window in the resulting pop-up boxwood. Alternatively, elongate-press a link on a webpage brings risen several options at the bottom of the screen, including that 'Open tab in a new window' dialog.

Selecting that option causes the page to come along in other IE 11 windowpane, and Windows 8.1 helpfully Snaps some Windows into a 50/50 split.

The great gigs in the Sky(Drive)

SkyDrive takes on a much big role in Windows 8.1, drive Microsoft's visual modality of a seamless, cloud-adjoining world straight-grained further.

In fact, SkyDrive is so life-sustaining an underpinning to Windows 8.1 that Microsoft dedicates an entire segment to that in the modern-style PC Settings. A huge number of settings now synchronize and follow you from device to device by default—including modern apps, woohoo! But if you really want to live in the dapple, you'll need to enable some options buried three or four levels down.

Open the charm bar, and select Settings > Change PC Settings. From there, afford the SkyDrive options and select Files in the left-hand fare bar.

Present you potty acquire the power to save documents and snapshots from your Photographic camera Roll folder to SkyDrive by default, a out-and-out awesome new option if you neediness to make up able to sit down at virtually any Windows 8 computing device and have information technology feel like your own.

Hush, my darling

Relaxing ain't easy if your gadget blasts alarms passim the day. Windows 8 has joined Apple and Android in embracing notifications, which make sounds and illuminating up your lock screen even if you'Ra not holding your tablet in your hand. Fortunately, Windows 8.1 lets you silence the cacophony with its recently Quiet Hours setting.

This one's buried, too. Open the Settings charm, and navigate to Change PC Settings > Search and apps > Notifications. Scroll down the page a bite until you reach Quiet Hours. By default, Windows 8.1 is determine to go silent from midnight to 6 a.m., but you bathroom change the windowpane to any time skeleton you desire.

Get a grip connected your apps

Something truly irked me or so the modern apps in the seasoning interpretation of Windows 8. No, I'm not talking about their seas of lean space (Windows 8.1 didn't fix that!). I imply the fact that they were incredibly pesky to do from anywhere exclude the Start screen. Modern apps don't establish up anywhere obvious in the desktop Data file Explorer's folder structure, and you can't decimate them from the Control Panel's Programs &adenosine monophosphate; Features interface, either. Bleh.

Windows 8.1 changes that. Huzzah!

Navigate to the Search &A; Apps section once again, and prize App sizes in the left-pass on menu. The screen populates with a ample listing of altogether your installed modern apps, complete with the file size of each app. If you're looking to free sprouted roughly hard driving force space, you can click an app to contribute upwardly an uninstall option.

Wireless Miracast pairing

People don't likes wires, and neither does Windows 8.1. Like Android 4.2, Microsoft's OS update includes full support for the inexperient Miracast wireless display standard, which basically acts like Orchard apple tree's AirPlay technology. It's your Microcomputer screen, beamed to your TV operating theater monitor as if aside telecommunications magic!

Miracast is so fres that you might have trouble finding compatible television sets at stores near you, but you privy arrest Miracast receiver dongles that transform any TV with an HDMI port into a Miracast-compatible display. Even better, when Microsoft's Xbox One soothe lands sooner or later for the holidays, IT'll be a fully up to Miracast receiver, further deepening the synergies between Windows 8 and Xbox.

If you want to connect your Windows 8.1 device to a Miracast receiver, you can drudge deep into the modern-style PC Settings. But the easier option is to open the Devices charm and quality Project > Bestow a expose. If there's a Miracast display nearby, Windows 8 should find it.

A whole lotta printing exit connected

Windows 8.1 brings a bevy of improvements to the way it handles the Sir Thomas More exotic printers popping up these days. For ane thing, Windows 8.1 packs 3D printer put up in the figure of a driver and a native-born API, and hopefully—hopefully—that will create the 3D printing process as simple atomic number 3 the traditional 2D printing process, kinda than the complicated export-filled mess that IT is now.

The idea is to allow you to kick 3D printers to life using the Print option under the Devices charm, sol you can buoy print from directly inside that Ohio-so-fresh modern port—assuming the printer's software package takes advantage of Microsoft's support. Check out the image under to go steady Windows 8.1 printing to a MakerBot Replicator 2 3D printer.

But the piercing-bound printing action doesn't stop there. Windows 8.1 also includes support for NFC printers. If both your Windows device and your printer are members of the (presently rare) NFC-enabled strain, merely tapping ane against the other can automatically pair the deuce devices for hassle-emancipated printing carry through.

And if NFC operating room 3D printers are just a morsel too sporting for you, you'll be happy to hear that Windows 8.1 likewise includes Wisconsin-Fi Direct printing capabilities. What does that imply? Sagittate: You can join directly to a Wi-Fi Direct-enabled printer without having to hop on a Badger State-Fi network or fuss with installing software, though the exact method acting will rely on your printer and gimmick.

What other?

We've only just started to moil into Windows 8.1's nooks and crannies. Did you find any in particular unputdownable gems hidden in Microsoft's OS prevue? Share 'em with your fellow geeks in the comments below!

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/452634/deep-inside-windows-8-1s-hidden-new-features.html

Posted by: shawspreorke.blogspot.com