Tag: Windows

Windows 8 Tip: Making All Apps Tile and Shortcut Real Easy

I recently upgraded my main work machine, Dell Studio 1558, to Windows 8 Pro. Only had one issue, where my ATI display driver was making Windows 8 Pro to crash after few minutes into the start screen. Other than this no issues. Smooth sailing so far :)

chall3ng3r-start-screen

There’s one thing that I realized after few hours of using Windows 8 start screen, the All Apps option is hidden under a right-click contextual menu. And I was accessing it a lot of times during the day.

I thought there might be a tile that I can place on the start screen, and can just place it on there and All Apps will be just a click away as compared to right-click then click All Apps button in lower-right corner. I’m a lefty, and the start menu we all are so used-to made me look for more apps button in the lower-left corner all the time :D

After some research, I found that there’s no built-in All Apps tile in Windows 8. So I made one myself. I don’t exactly remember where I found the snippet, but all credit goes to whoever found it. I just searched for it :D

All you have to do is make a New Shortcut on Desktop, and set its Target field to:

%windir%explorer.exe shell:::{2559a1f8-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}

And Start in field to: %windir%. You can change the icon as per your liking of course. Click Ok to create the shortcut on your Desktop.

Now, right-click on this newly created shortcut, and select Pin to Start. Now you have a nice tile that you can just click to access all of your installed applications. Should be great for touch screens as well.

Please note that this is not a perfect hack, there’s a small visual hick-up, as if you click on tile, it will take you to the Desktop for a second, then back to All Apps list in modern UI. But it works :D

You can also download this shortcut file I created for myself, so you don’t have to go through all the hacking stuff ;)

Download: AllApps_Tile_Windows8.zip

// chall3ng3r //

Reinstalling Client for Microsoft Networks in Windows 7

I recently got into a problem where I by mistake uninstalled “Client for Microsoft Networks” option for my Dell notebook’s WLAN adapter.

The main issue which I was having was that the network icon in system tray was always showing as disconnected, even if I connect to WiFi or plug a LAN cable. It always shows disconnected, which was annoying.

So, if you happen to get similar issue in Windows 7, just open Device Manager from Control Panel, and select the WiFi network adapter and Uninstall it. Do not check “Delete the driver software for this device” Option.

ms-network-2

After this, from Actions menu in Device Manager, click “Scan for hardware changes”, which will reinstall the driver back from the drivers’ cache, and will also fix the network icon issue.

Now back to the original issue at hand. To reinstall the Client for Microsoft Networks, you first need to open the Properties window for the network adapter.

Click Install, and select Service, then there will be only option for “Flash and Printer Sharing Service for Microsoft Networks”,  select it to install.

Now go back to same window and this time click Install and select Client from the list. You will get option for “Client for Microsoft Networks”,  select it and install. That’s it!

ms-network-1

Now if you are connected to network, disconnect, and connect again so you can start accessing the file sharing service on your LAN.

I hope this will help someone in need :)

// chall3ng3r //