Tag: Windows 8

Will Existing Windows Phone 7 Devices Be Stranded?

If Microsoft is good at any one thing at the moment, it’s muddying the waters and casting doubt on the fate of existing devices and potential upgrades. I’m talking about nothing other than the uncertainty surrounding existing Windows Phone 7 devices and their ability to receive an upgrade to Windows Phone 8 (which will be …

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How to Shutdown Windows 8

I have had a number of people who are trying out Windows 8 that are stumped by how to actually execute a shut down. Since Windows 95, you could shut down a computer by clicking “Start” then “Shut down” but with Windows 8 that doesn’t work as the Start Menu has been replaced with the …

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Windows 8 Tablets Can Beat Retina Displays

Today, Microsoft published a blog entry about Windows 8 and its requirement and ability to scale to different screen sizes and resolutions with differing ranges of pixel density. One interesting thing caught my eye which was this diagram. The thing that interested me most was not what was on the right hand side of the …

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Internet Explorer 10 x 2 = ?

Here’s something else to bear in mind for people trying out Windows 8 and the two different versions of Internet Explorer 10. If you don’t know already there are two versions of Internet Explorer 10: the Metro-style app and the traditional desktop app. More confusingly, these two instances of Internet Explorer 10 are not named …

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Don’t Waste Time Reinstating the Legacy Start Menu in Windows 8

The title pretty much says it all but there are some solutions out there such as Start8 trying to recreate some form of a Start Menu in Windows 8 which eschewed this fundamental feature introduced in Windows 95. Eighteen years of the Start Menu can be long enough to have users rusted on to a …

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Search for Apps Quickly in Windows 8

Here’s a short and sharp tip tonight for those cutting their teeth on the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. While the full screen Metro interface looks pretty you could potentially find yourself overwhelmed when trying to find an app when you have many more installed as time progresses. You can group applications into logical groups but there will …

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Task Manager Under Windows 8

Task Manager has been one of those handy things since Windows NT to kill off applications and processes that are consuming too much of a system’s resources and has evolved over the years to become more sophisticated. With that in mind, people may be shocked with what is initially presented to them under Windows 8. …

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64-bit Windows 8 in a VM Requires Hardware Virtualisation

Here’s a quick tip for tonight relating to the Windows 8 Consumer Preview which I have written up yesterday as well as the installation process. If you want to use the 64-bit version of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview you need to make sure that you computer can provide hardware virtualisation. This function allows a virtual …

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Windows 8 Comsumer Preview

Well, the Windows 8 Consumer Preview is upon us and every nerd and their Aibo (robot dog, get it) has been trying it out and sharing their thoughts with the world. Of course, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity being one to try things as soon as they become available so I thought I’d share my …

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Workaround Windows Terminating HDMI Audio Playback When Sleeping Monitors

A quick tip for tonight. One disappointing “feature” in Windows 7 is when you are playing back audio to a television over HDMI and the power saving feature kicks in to turn off connected screens it also stops audio from being transmitted over HDMI. This can be annoying when you are relaying sound to a …

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