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What are some secret tricks you should know about Windows? - Quora

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Pawan Prakash

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Manigandan Balachandran, CS Undergrad

Votes by Suhas Grama, Bharadwaj Thirumall, Adithya Parthasarathy, Nagaraj
Mahajan, and 457 more.
Here are some lesser-known tricks!
1. Double Clicking on the left-top of any window closes it.
2. If you ever wanted to restart the Windows Explorer, Click on Start, press and
hold Ctrl+Shift Keys, right click on a blank space; You'll find Exit Explorer
option! (Warning, you need to open task manager and "Start a New Task (
explorer) " to get it back)
EDIT : On Windows 8 in Desk top mode, Hold Ctrl-Shift and right-click
anywhere on the task bar. (via Leonid S. Knyshov)

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Latest activity 5 Sep

3. Winkey + PrnScrn to take a screenshot of the screen. It saves the

screenshots under Libraries\Pictures\Screenshots Folder. (On Windows 8)

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followers.

4. You can change the location of your "My Documents" Folder, more here !

14,738 views on this question.

5. Ever wondered how to get the Start Menu, without using the Win Key? Try
Ctrl+Esc !

246 people are following this question.

6. To Launch first through ninth icon on taskbar, including items pinned to taskbar,
press Winkey + 1 ... Winkey + 9
7. Create a new folder, save it as
some_name.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
This is a hack that creates an access to all the settings in windows. It's very
handy. Here's a screenshot.

8. To review your computer's Reliability and Problem history, there is something

called Reliability Monitor, Simply type reliability in the Start Search box and
click on view reliability history. Try it! Most of the users do not know this!
9. The Problem Steps Recorder : Search for and run "psr" from the Start menu.
Click Start Record, and the utility will record your activities through a series of

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What are some secret tricks you should know about Windows? - Quora
screen shots, automatically including captions that show exactly where you
clicked. You can also use the Add Comment button to highlight specific areas of
the screen and insert custom annotations. When you stop recording, everything
will be stitched together and saved as a Web browser-compatible MHTML
(MIME HTML) file, conveniently pre-ZIPped and ready for e-mailing to your geek
of choice.
10. There is a utility built-into Windows that will overwrite all the free space on a
hard drive, insuring any files you've deleted stay dead. Launch a command
prompt and type cipher /w:X where X is the letter of the drive or partition you
want to wipe. Be patientthe process can take a long time if you have a lot of
free space.
*EDIT* Found another handy trick :)
11. You can create a shortcut to applications, but do you know that you can assign
them as Keyboard shortcuts? Right click on the created shortcut (To any
application) and assign a keyboard shortcut, like

Now you can simply use the *Keyboard Shortcut* to launch any application,
anytime, anywhere!
462

12+ Comments Share (16) Thank Report 25 Feb

Bharadwaj Thirumall, Student
Votes by Manigandan Balachandran, Eshaan Ghosh, Swaathi Kakarla, Anurag Jain,
and 27 more.
My friend Manigandan Balachandran inspired me to look for more. Here they are:
1) Disguise your folders as Recycle Bin:
Rename a folder with the extension {645FF040-5081-101B-9F0800AA002F954E} (eg) Recycle Bin 2.{645FF040-5081-101B-9F0800AA002F954E}
The folder will have the properties of Recycle Bin but you can copy/cut it, paste
it somewhere, delete it.
Any changes you do to the Original will be reflected here.
Now you, like my Thalaivar Rajnikanth, can delete this Recycle Bin.

2)Double Click to Lock your computer:

Create a shortcut in the desktop.
Type "rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation" (without quotes) in the
location area. Name it. (Any name)
Double click it to lock the screen.
3)Using Alt Codes to make your folders disappear:
Alt codes generate special characters.
The set of Alt codes can be found at Alt Codes List of Alt Key Codes Symbols
and http://www.wackycodes.com/
Create a new folder.
While naming it, press and hold down Alt and type 255 (Alt+255) or Alt + 0160
Your folder will not have a name now.
Now Change the folder's icon to an empty space (Right Click->Customize>Change Icon->Scroll to find an empty space ans Select it)
There, invisible.
EDIT:
4)Renaming multiple files:
To rename multiple files in Windows, select the files you want to rename.
Press the F2 key.
Rename the first file and press Enter.
All your files will be renamed and a number in parenthesis will be added to the

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end of the name.
32
1 Comment Share Thank Report 28 Feb
Gaurav Jain, E-Quaintance
Votes by Aditya Bhardwaj, Shubham Sharma, Aman Verma, Sameera Bharadwaja
H, and 65 more.
You can change any windows OS password without any clue of current
password.
Open Command Prompt (Run as administrator in windows vista/7/8)
[In search Box Type CMD, right click on this and there would be a option named
"Run as administrator", click on and choose "Yes" to proceed further ]
OR
[to run as administrator any application you can use "Ctrl+Shift+Left_click "]
1) type "net user" without quotes and press enter it will show all the active
accounts (e.g. Administrator,Guest,temp,etc..)
2) now choose an account name for which you want to change password(let say
you chose ABC account)
3) type "net user ABC" without quotes and press enter, you'll see core detail of
your account.
[NOTE: This step is just to verify whether you chose right account or not]
4) in last step you type " net user ABC * " without quotes and press enter
[Note: after account name there is a single space and then a asterisk(AKA star) ]
Now it will ask for a new password :)
enter desired password and re-enter for confirmation and You are DONE!!
[Note: when you type password you won't be able to see the password you r typing
but it is actually happening, so don't worry about that but be careful about what you
type (as you can see in below attached photo password is not visible to anyone
even i cant see)]
Here is the screenshot of this process in Windows8.

in the same way you can disable/deactivate any user account.[Warn!!]

Net user ABC /active:no
Net user ABC /active:yes
Other useful shortcuts are:
1) Select a File/Folder and press F2 = Rename file/Folder [I use frequently]
2) Win_Key + i = setting panel [In windows 8]
3) Win_Key + x = another useful shortcut in W8 for control panel,dev manager
4) Shift + Right_Click = choose "open command window here" to open CMD
anywhere in the windows. [ Useful func for programmers :) ]
5) select file or folder and rename it(Or press F2),clear current name now Hold "Alt"
key and press 0160 from right side number keypad and now release the "Alt" key =
Make folder name invisible(A folder Without name)
Now all the reserved word can be used as a file/folder name which are not allowed in
windows, e.g CON, AUX, NUL, LPT1, etc. Just Press
ALT+0160(described above) then type one of these reserved word.

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70

5+ Comments Share (3) Thank Report 23 Feb

Suhas Grama, Starting work in 2014
Votes by Suraj Menon, Harsh Mathur, Yashwant Marathe, Anmol Varma, and 36
more.
The shortcut to open the task manager is ctrl+shift+esc.
You don't have to press ctrl+alt+del and select task manager!
3 Comments Share Thank Report 20 Feb
Anonymous
Votes by Abbas Halai, Arun Kumar, James Costian, Vrashabh Irde, and 40 more.
Just open Command Prompt and execute-- telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl.
The movie will start immediately. This isn't a productive use of the Command
Prompt, nor is it really a trick or any command, but it sure is fun!
you can quickly re-enable Telnet by following these steps:
1. Start
2. Control Panel
3. Programs And Features
4. Turn Windows features on or off
5. Check Telnet Client
6. Hit OK

45
3 Comments Share (1) Thank Report 23 Feb
David Mackenzie, Video technician/consultant, Blu-ray/DVD compressionist
and disc author
Votes by Kaushik Sundararajan, Sumit Das, Sren Kejser Jensen, Sandi Bryant,
and 6 more.
Shift + RightClick a file name gives you a "Copy As Path" option. It copies the
entire path of the file to the clipboard, enclosed in "".
If you work in the command prompt a lot, you might find it useful to know you can
right-click in the command prompt window and paste.
11
Comment Share Thank Report 5 Sep
Nithin Kumar, Ethical Hacker
Votes by Vikalp Gupta, Manigandan Balachandran, James Costian, Jeff Liwag, and
3 more.
Make your laptop with WiFi into a Access Point with simple set of commands. We
can share internet to our mobile device or any friends in any critical situation it
comes very handy,
Open command prompt with admin rights and enter the following command,
netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=XXXXXX key=YYYYYYY
Change ssid - XXXXXX to your AP name and k ey - YYYYYY as your password.
netsh wlan start hostednetwork
This will start the wifi hostednetwork and u can check the wifi AP and tap in ;)
To stop the Hosted Network,

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8

netsh wlan stop hostednetwork

1 Comment Share (1) Thank Report 6 Mar
Yannis Gio Suggest Bio
Votes by Amit Kumar, Martin Fox, Arun Kumar, Nate Waddoups, and 10 more.
Some Winkey magic:
1. Winkey + D = Desktop
2. Winkey + E = New explorer window (My computer)
3. Winkey + R = Run window
4. Winkey + left arrow = Resizes current window to half screen and aligns left
5. Winkey + right arrow = Resizes current window to half screen and aligns right.
Useful in combination with (4) to compare documents side by side.
6. Winkey + up arrow = Maximize
7. Winkey + down arrow = Restore down window
8. Winkey + +(plus) or -(minus) = zoom or unzoom desktop
9. Winkey + numbers = Focus on application/window as ordered in taskbar.
Example: Winkey + 1 for first application +2 for second etc
10. Winkey + F = Windows search
11. Winkey + L = Lock computer

15
Comment Share Thank Report 27 Feb
Tushar S Bhat, Grad student, NLP, Python, Data and Science
Votes by Vivek NV and Arun Kumar.
Win key + Tab to switch between open windows.
Wik key + E opens explorer.
Win key + X opens a list of useful shortcuts in Win8.
Use it well.
3
Comment Share Thank Report 21 Feb
Pedro Cardoso Suggest Bio
Votes by Arun Kumar, Tsering Norbu, Jesudas Raj, Natesan Sivagnanam, and 2
more.
Open cmd and type:
netstat -na
then pick an ip...
Type :
shutdown -i
And then type the ip in the box to shutdown the computer!
7
3+ Comments Share Thank Report 27 Feb
Ravi Sethia, Curious Explorer, CS Student,
Votes by Abbas Halai, Jatin Batra, Vivek NV, Anurag Gupta, and 8 more.
Note-pad can be used a Personal Log File:
1. You can use this trick to create a personal log with Notepad which will
automatically include the current date and time before your note.
2. To do so, open Notepad and type .LOG in capital letters and press Enter.
3. Save the file.
4. Now, every time you open this file, notepad will automatically insert the current
time and date before the note. Just enter your note and save the file each time
after making an entry.
You cannot create a folder called CON!
"CON", nor can you rename an existing folder to "CON". "CON" and a number of
other character strings are in fact reserved names that go back to the days of DOS
and cannot be used to name folders or files. Other reserved names are:
PRN
AUX
NUL
LPT1
COM1

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Potential drive letter - A: to Z:
A number of others
If you try to name a folder using one of these reserved names, the name will
automatically revert to the default, generally "New Folder". Moreover, if you try to
use a reserved name to name a file such as a Notepad or Microsoft Word document
you will generally receive an error message similar to the following:

13

Cannot Create Windows Folder Named Con

Comment Share Thank Report 23 Feb
Kiran Kumar Manku, CSE undergraduate
Votes by Cassidy Williams, Mitul Patel, and Joshua Lee.
You can use wild cards in windows search bar.
e.g: Suppose you want to know how many songs are there in a folder which
contains many other folders, then just open parent folder and in the search bar
type *.mp3. It will list all the mp3 files from different folders!
Not only this you can use these wild cards to search for many patterns. You
can find the file that starts with particular letter, you can find files that have names
exactly n characters and so on....

4
3+ Comments Share Thank Report 30 Mar
Nate Waddoups, Senior SDE at Microsoft
Votes by Arun Kumar and Sue Ostlund.
To launch an app, press the windows key and start typing the app's name. Then
press enter when the app is highlighted. Works in 7 and 8. Maybe Vista too, I don't
remember.
With win8, try swiping in from the top, left, right, and bottom in any app. Lots of
features are buried in there.
Win8 has a built-in clock, when you swipe in in from the right at the start screen. At
least on my Surface... I just noticed today that it doesn't show up on my desktop
machine.
3
1 Comment Share Thank Report 22 Feb
Umang Kedia, Tech Enthusiast
1. One of the most useful shortcut is "shift + right click" and click "open
command window here"
2. If you have windows pro or ultimate then you can use Group policy editor (
gpedit.msc) for endless windows tricks.
3. Revamped Win+x shortcut in Windows 8. It really offers some useful options.
4. Open "My computer" from pinned Windows Explorer icon ( by default it opens
libraries). Right click Windows explorer pinned shortcut and click properties. In
target add this %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe ,::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D808002B30309D}
1
Comment Share Thank Report 23 Mar
Anonymous
Allow windows to great u...
Click on Start.
Navigate to All Programs, Accessories and Notepad.
Copy and paste the exact code given below. Dim speaks, speech

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speaks=Welcome to your PC, Username
Set speech=CreateObject(sapi.spvoice)
speech.Speak speaks

* Replace Username with your own name.

* Click on File Menu, Save As, select All Types in Save as Type option, and save
the file asWelcome.vbs or *.vbs.
& Copy the saved file.
* Navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start
Menu\Programs\Startup (in Windows XP)
and to
C:\Users\ {User-Name}\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start
Menu\Programs\Startup
(in Windows 8, Windows 7 and Windows Vista) if C: is your System drive.
App-data is a hidden folder.
So, you will need to select showing hidden folders in Folder options to locate it.
Paste the file.
Next time when you switch on your PC, It will greet you.!!

Lock folders without any software

1. Create a New Folder: Right click on desktop or in any other folder (where you
want to lock your files.) then, go to New and then choose New Folder.
Name the folder for whatever you want to.
2. Create a Text Document: Now open the folder you just created and right-click
on the blank space. Go to New and then click on Text Document.
3. Paste a Particular Text: Open the Text Document and paste the following text
in it.
cls
@ECHO OFF
title Folder Private
if EXIST HTG Locker goto UNLOCK
if NOT EXIST Private goto MDLOCKER
:CONFIRM
echo Are you sure you want to lock the folder(Y/N)
set/p cho=>
if %cho%==Y goto LOCK
if %cho%==y goto LOCK
if %cho%==n goto END
if %cho%==N goto END
echo Invalid choice.
goto CONFIRM
:LOCK
ren Private HTG Locker
attrib +h +s HTG Locker
echo Folder locked
goto End
:UNLOCK
echo Enter password to unlock folder
set/p pass=>
if NOT %pass%==
PASSWORD
goto FAIL
attrib -h -s HTG Locker
ren HTG Locker Private
echo Folder Unlocked successfully
goto End
:FAIL
echo Invalid password
goto end
:MDLOCKER
md Private
echo Private created successfully
goto End
:End

Write your Password: Now look for the word PASSWORD in the text and replace
it with your password.For e.g.- If the Password is - A4tygry
Save the Text Document: Now the Text Document in the .bat format. Name it

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aspersonal.bat. (Dont forget to change the Save as type to All files.)
1. Now open the file you made in Step 1 and again open the file personal.bat A
new folder named as Private will be created. This is the folder where you have
to paste everything you want to hide and lock.
2. Now again open the personal.bat file, a new window will appear asking Are
you sure you want to lock the folder?
3. Press Y and Enter, the Private folder will disappear.
4. Retrieve your Files: To access your locked files, open the personal.bat file.
A window will appear asking Enter password to unlock folder. Enter your
password and your folder will be back.
1

Important Note: This method is not 100% secure.

Comment Share Thank Report 26 Jul
Edward Kolis Suggest Bio
Vote by Lauren Ashley Carter.
On Windows 8, right click the empty space where the Start menu used to be on
previous versions of windows. A menu will appear with a variety of useful system
tools!

2
1+ Comments Share Thank Report 6 Mar
Selorm Nelson

Suggest Bio

1. clear any log files using. Open cmd and type:

type NUL > "C:\xampp\apache\logs\error.log"
the path
Search
"C:\xampp\apache\logs\error.log" can be any logs path within windows. u
can however save it as .bat and double click it anytime u need to clear the logs

Home

Pawan

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Comment Share Thank Report 3 May

Anonymous
Votes by Ariel Williams, Yoganand Bodlapati, Sue Ostlund, Fernando Montenegro,
and 1 more.
This one is simple but it took me a while to find out about it :) when in command
mode (cmd), you don't need to type a full path manually. If you need to go to a
complicated folder name, type: "cd", spacebar then the tab key to browse through
folders. Or type the first letter and then tab through them.
3+ Comments Share Thank Report 25 Feb

Matt Burrough, Escalation Engineer working on Windows

Votes by Abbas Halai, Eduardo Velasquez, Nitesh Singh, and James Tharpe.
These aren't secret so much as lesser-known features I use a lot:
-Resource Monitor and PerfMon
For some reason, a non-sys admins seem to know nothing about these
performance metric tools. They can be used to determine what process is flooding
your disks with access requests, leaking memory, or consuming all of your network
bandwidth. These tools alone can solve tons of problems. Resource Mon is easier
to read, but perfmon is more granular (more detailed counters).
-Launch processes as admin
If you have UAC enabled and want to launch a process as admin/"elevated", type its
name into the start menu search box, then hit Ctrl+Shift+Enter to launch it elevated;
no right-clicking required.
-Keyboard Shortcuts:
Win+P = Brings up options when you have a projector/multiple monitors for extend,
duplicate, etc. Hold the Win key and tap P to go between options. This is very
helpful for using presenter mode in PowerPoint.
Win+X on Windows 8 = brings up a power menu that gives you quick access to a
number of options without context switching into the start screen.
Win+Pause key = opens the System control panel applet

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-Win+S = a great screen snipping tool if you have Office's OneNote installed (and its
littler helper app running)
Via Ravi Sethia.
1 Comment Share Thank Report 19 Feb

Srikanth Vuppula Suggest Bio

Vote by Abbas Halai.
To delete files in folders ( including subfolders ) without actually deleting the
folder structure, you can just do

del /f/s/q folder > null ( in the command prompt - Win + R and type cmd)
f - files
s - delete specified files from all subdirectories
q - quiet mode, do not ask whether to delete.
This will actually delete the files in that folder lot faster than you go to windows
explorer and delete it or Shift + delete it, because it doesn't calculate anything. This
will save you a lot of time.
To delete the folders, you can use
rmdir /s/q folder > null
Also, to lock the windows, you can just do Win + L, instead of Ctrl + Alt + Del
and then lock it.
1+ Comments Share Thank Report 26 Feb
Uttam Mn, Newbie, explorer
1

Right click at the left bottom for shortcuts to disk management, device manager,
Running command prompt as admin and more!
1+ Comments Share Thank Report 3 Jun
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