Tech/Software

15 Windows 10 hacks and tricks

Windows 10 hacks and tricks

Windows 10 has been officially released for several years now. A lot has happened since the release on May 29, 2015 and numerous patches and updates have been automatically applied to further adapt Microsoft’s new flagship and improve the user experience. Far from being as openly communicated or even advertised as we would like as users, not all of Microsoft’s features are communicated or even advertised. Here are 15 Windows 10 hacks and tricks.

On the contrary. Some small but extremely practical Windows 10 hacks and tricks would remain unknown forever if there weren’t the many resourceful users out there in the vastness of the Internet. Such clever tricks and hacks could make your Windows 10 life much easier if you knew about them when using your computer or even getting started on a computer as a beginner.

15 clever Windows 10 hacks and tricks

Trick 1: Place Shortcuts on the taskbar

Who doesn’t know it, the good old taskbar? You have always been able to put on your frequently used programs and access them with just one click. But did you know that this now works with shortcuts, i.e. keyboard commands?

Windows 10 hacks and tricks

From left to right, all programs placed on the taskbar have an assigned number from 0 to 9. If you press the Windows key and at the same time the corresponding digit on your keyboard, then the respective program starts without a mouse click. However, the order of the digits is fixed and cannot be changed by the user. If you want to start a program e.g. with the button 5, then you have to sort it to 5th place, so make sure that 4 more programs appear to the left of it.

Trick 2: Just play God: The God-Mode

Windows 10 hacks and tricks

What at first sounds like a cheap cheat command from a computer game turns out to be one of the most practical Windows tricks & hacks ever: The God-Mode. If you activate this, you are indeed a God. At least on your computer and in your own little Windows world. Many practical and useful options, which were previously only accessible through endless menu cascades, are now available directly at the click of a mouse. How does this work?

You create a new folder on your desktop (right click on it Desktop => New => Folder) and give it the following name: “GodMode. “ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C” (without the quotation marks). The result: A double click on the folder so changed reveals true worlds of gods …. for computer earths.

Trick 3: Show hidden file extensions

Windows 10 hacks and tricks

Number 3 of our small list of clever Windows Tricks & Hacks provides a small but fine security plus on your computer: the hidden file extensions. Normally, Windows hides them for better clarity. Here, as is so often the case, the saying is: “The opposite of well-intentioned is well-intentioned.” What should be practical reveals at the 2nd glance quite a security risk: Many unwanted programs, including malware, viruses and Trojans, like to camouflage themselves with pseudo-filenames like Document.doc.exe. What at first glance looks like a harmless Word document is actually an executable program with unknown content. To permanently show the extensions, go as follows:

Click on “View” in the menu of an open folder, then on the far right on “Options”. Here you will find under the tab “View” a point “Hide extensions for known file types” and remove the check mark there.

Trick 4: offline navigation

Microsoft’s Google Maps competition is simply called “maps.” Similar to the competitor Google, all data can be downloaded and stored offline. This is always particularly practical if, for example, you are travelling with your tablet in the car and once again end up in one of the numerous radio holes. To make a map available offline, do the following: Open the Maps app by clicking the Windows Start button. There you type in the word “maps” and then click on the corresponding app. At the top right you now click on the 3 horizontal points and then on “Settings”. At the top you will find a button called “Select Maps” under the “Offline Maps” section, which you click on. Clicking on “Download Maps” leads to a selection of the continent and the desired country and the download is started.

From now on, this map is then available at any time without an internet connection and navigation can start.

Trick 5: Disable quick access

In my opinion, the most annoying feature of the new folder view of Windows 10 is quick access.

Basically always in the way, if you are looking for something, it never contains what you are looking for and simply disturbs the overview without end. In addition, anyone who comes to the PC after me can easily see which files and folders I had last opened. If this annoys you just as much and you would like to have a little more clarity and privacy, then simply turn off the quick access.

To do this, under the View tab, click Options, and then click Change Folder and Search Options. In the opening window, you then select the entry “This PC” at the top under “Open File Explorer for:” and confirm with “OK” at the bottom.

Trick 6: The Professional Windows Defender

Admittedly, number 6 of our Windows tricks & hacks is actually more of a bug or at least an unwanted feature on the part of Microsoft. Originally published exclusively for corporate customers, yet with a little trick available to everyone: The Windows Defender in the professional edition, so to speak.

The highlight of the matter: in addition to the normal 08/15 functions that every user knows, the professional version also raises the alarm for so-called adware. Everyone has probably experienced the problem at least once: after installing a program that is useful and intentional in itself, a changed search bar appears in the browser or completely unknown icons on the desktop. Then there was so-called “adware at work”.

In order to unlock the professional version for you, a small trip to the registry editor is necessary: To do this, you press the Windows key and the R key at the same time and type the word “regedit” into the command line. Then navigate to the entry “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / Software / Policies / Microsoft / Windows Defender / MpEngine”. Here you create a new 32-bit DWORD entry with the name “MpEnablePus” and a value of 1 by right-clicking, save everything and restart Windows.

Adware gone!

Trick 7: Lesser-known shortcuts

Everybody knows you can copy with [Ctrl] + [C] and paste with [Ctrl] + [V]. But did you already know these clever shortcuts?

  • [Ctrl] + [Z]: undo last command
  • [Ctrl] + [Y]: repeat last command
  • [Ctrl] + [F]: search in the open document (or on the currently open website)
  • [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [F] / [K] / [U]: display the selected text in bold, italic or underlined
  • [Ctrl] + [P]: print current document
  • [Alt] + [F4]: Exit current program
  • [Windows] + [E]: Open Explorer

Trick 8: The Snipping Tool

Windows 10 hacks and tricks

Screenshots in themselves are not a witchcraft and are also taken in seconds by key combination [Alt] + [Print]. It gets annoying when you only want a small part of the screen instead of all your screen content on your screenshot. Until now, you had no choice but to load the screenshot into a graphics program and edit it afterwards. Thanks to the pre-installed Windows tool “Snipping Tool”, you can at least save this step in the future. Simply type the word “Snipping Tool” into Windows Search, open the app and click “new”. You can already drag and drop a frame around the desired screen area.

Trick 9: The mouse wheel can do much more than scroll

I have to admit: I didn’t know number 9 of our Windows Tricks & Hacks until now. Like most users, I only knew the mouse wheel as a tool to scroll up or down long websites or documents. But the small disc between left and right mouse button can be much more. For example, if you click on a link on the Internet with the mouse wheel, this link opens in a new tab. A mouse wheel click on the tab of a tab, on the other hand, closes the tab directly. If you scroll with the mouse wheel with the [Ctrl] key pressed at the same time, you can increase or decrease the zoom factor without much click.

Trick 10: Hide files

Don’t want your brother or sister sniffing around in your files? Nothing easier than that: just hide the files.

  • go to Windows Explorer and navigate to a folder you want to hide
  • After you select it, you select the “View” item at the top of the menu bar and then select the item “Hide Selected Items”
  • In the opening window you now select point 2 and confirm with “OK”
  • If the check mark on the left of “Hidden Items” is not set, the previously marked folders disappear as if by ghost

But beware! All those who use the same computer and know this mechanic could also show all the hidden elements again via this very way. If you don’t know this feature, the hidden files are relatively safe before your eyes.

Trick 11: The Dark Side of (Windows) Power

Number 11 of our Windows Tricks & Hacks doesn’t really bring a new feature, but a slightly different look. Who always wants to have the same boring window design? The Dark Theme of Windows 10 – as the name suggests – provides a solution with a gloomy version in plain black. Activation is easy:

  • Open the Windows 10 settings
  • Select the “Personalization” section and select the “Colors” sub-item
  • Scroll all the way down to the “Select default app mode” entry
  • You now set it to “Dark” and the change becomes active immediately.

Welcome to the dark side of power (of Windows).

Trick 12: Free up space

Especially after upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10, the hard drive appears fuller than before.

The simple reason: Windows leaves all the old files, as well as the patch and upgrade files on the hard drive, unquestioned. Even if the installation has been successful for a long time, and you could use the storage space more sensibly. This will save you up to 30GB of valuable hard drive space, which you can easily release again.

To do this, click on your Windows Startup button on the left, and then type the word “Disk Cleanup.” Launch the appropriate app. Clicking on the “Clean up system files” button and after a short scan, another window opens with – among others – the entries “Temporary Windows Installation Files”, “Temporary Internet Files” and “Log Files for Windows Upgrade”.

You can safely mark all these 3 boxes and release them for deletion by clicking on “OK”.

Trick 13: The transparent start menu

You don’t stand by the classic standard design and would much rather have a transparent start menu?

Then off to the registry editor with you.

Clicking on the start button and entering the command “regedit” opens the same quick and easy. Then navigate to the entry “HKEY_CURRENT_USERSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionThemesPersonalize” in the tree directory on the left and double-click the entry “EnableTransparency” in the right side of the window. Set the value to 1. After a last click on “OK” and then restart of your computer, your Start Menu now appears transparent.

Trick 14: Read Wi-Fi keys

You forgot your Wi-Fi key again and now your computer asks for it instead of logging in automatically?

This is no reason to panic as long as you can still connect to the network with at least one of your computers at home! Your friend’s laptop also works for this, provided they have saved the access ID. In this case, you can read the saved key directly from the Control Panel.

Right-click the Wi-Fi icon on the right side of your taskbar and open your Network and Sharing Centerin the next window. Click here on the appropriate WIFI connection and then on “Wireless Properties”. In the next window, simply activate the “Show character”switch under the “Security” tab and the saved WI-Fi key will appear in plain text.

Trick 15: Virtual Desktops

Another, hitherto almost unknown feature of Windows 10 are the so-called virtual desktops, which is no 15 of our Windows 10 hacks and tricks.

With this, you can not only open different windows at the same time and put them through at will – as far as you already know this from Windows – but also summarize them sensibly in groups. Then you can switch back and forth between the entire desktops, not just between the individual windows. So-called Multi-Tasking 2.0.

To create a virtual desktop, print on [Windows] + [Tab] and then click the plus sign in the lower right corner. In this way, you can create as many desktops as you like and then press [Windows]+[Ctrl]+[Arrow] conveniently.

If you combine this with a second monitor, there are almost no limits to multitasking. You only have to keep track of yourself 

15 small but valuable Windows tricks

That’s our 15 Windows 10 hacks and tricks to make Windows life a little easier or more convenient. We hope there were one or two hacks that you can put into your everyday life, and that your daily work with your notebook or PC will become a little easier for you. 

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