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Scheduling Automatic Creation of System Restore Points in Windows 10

June 17th, 2020 by Admin

How can I get system restore points created on a schedule? A system restore point can roll back Windows to an earlier working state if it becomes unstable or unbootable. In this tutorial we’ll show you how to create automatic system restore point on a daily schedule in Windows 10.

How to Create System Restore Point on a Daily Schedule in Windows 10

Before getting started, you need to turn on System Protection and disable system restore point frequency. This can be done with the methods described in our previous article. Afterwards you can use the Task Scheduler to schedule automatic creation of system restore points daily.

  1. After opening Task Scheduler, right-click the item “Task Scheduler Library” in the left pane and then select Create Task.

  2. On the General tab, enter a descriptive name for the task. Choose the “Run whether the user is logged on or not” option and tick the checkbox named “Run with highest privileges“.

  3. Go to the Triggers tab. Click on the New button.

  4. Under the “Begin the task” drop-down list, select “On a schedule“. Choose the Daily option and specify a time for the creation of the restore point. Click OK.

  5. Go to the Actions tab. Click on the New button.

  6. Choose “Start a program” by clicking the Action drop-down list. Enter the powershell.exe command in the Program/script field. In the “Add arguments” field, type the following and then click OK.
    -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "Checkpoint-Computer -Description \"My Daily Restore Point\" -RestorePointType \"MODIFY_SETTINGS\""

  7. Go to the Conditions tab. Uncheck both “Stop if the computer switches to battery power” and “Start the task only if the computer is on AC power“. Click OK.

  8. Enter the password of your current Windows account when prompted, and then click OK.

Now, system restore points should be created automatically at your specified time every day. You can check if new restore points are created successfully by following this tutorial.

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How to View All Available System Restore Points in Windows 10

June 16th, 2020 by Admin

How can I view a list of system restore points available in Windows 10? To prevent your PC from crashing or freezing, make sure you have created at least one system restore point recently. In this tutorial we’ll show you easy ways to view all available system restore points in Windows 10.

Method 1: View Available System Restore Points via System Properties

  1. Press Windows + R keys together on the keyboard. When the Run dialog box opens, type rstrui and hit Enter.

  2. In the System Restore window, click on Next.

  3. This will list all available system restore points. Based on the description and the creating date, you can identify the restore point you’ve created.

  4. When finished reviewing your restore points, click on Cancel to close System Restore.

Method 2: View Available System Restore Points via PowerShell

  1. Right-click the Start button or use the Windows key + X keyboard shortcut to open the Power User menu, and then select Windows PowerShell (Admin).

  2. Run the following command and all available restore points will be listed with Creation Time, Description , SequenceNumber and other information.
    Get-ComputerRestorePoint

That’s it!

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How to Create Special Characters in Windows 10 without Third Party Software

June 15th, 2020 by Admin

Unable to type a special character using your keyboard? Can’t find the symbol you need in the Character Map utility? In this tutorial we’ll show you how to create your own special characters using Windows built-in tool – Private Character Editor, and insert the custom characters into a Word or any other document.

Part 1: Create Special Characters in Windows 10

  1. Press the Windows key + R to bring up the Run dialog. Type eudcedit and hit Enter to open up the Private Character Editor utility.

  2. First, click any empty box in the grid and it will generate a hexadecimal code that is used to identify your custom character uniquely. Click OK.

  3. You will then be presented with a drawing board. Click on the Tools menu and select Item, you can find different tools which you can use to design your own character.

  4. To save your character, click on the File menu and select Font Links.

  5. When you are asked if you want to save this character. Click Yes.

  6. Select the “Link with All Fonts” option and click OK, you’re done.

Part 2: Insert Your Created Characters into Any Document

  1. Press the Windows key + R to bring up the Run dialog. Type charmap and hit Enter to open up the Character Map utility.

  2. Click on the Font drop-down list and select “All Fonts (Private Characters)” from it.

    Move your cursor over a character in the grid and you can see its associated hexadecimal code. Just find and click your created character.

  3. Your selected character should appear in the “Character to copy” field below. Click on Select and then click on Copy.

  4. Now, you can use Ctrl + V to paste that character into Microsoft Word and Notepad.

With Private Character Editor you can create your own special characters easily. However this tool doesn’t have options to export or import characters, so you might be unable to transfer your created characters to another computer.

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Easy Ways to Access Private Character Editor in Windows 10

June 12th, 2020 by Admin

Private Character Editor is a hidden tool included with all versions of Windows. It allows you to create your own characters, symbols or fonts and use them in your document. In this tutorial we’ll show you different ways to access Private Character Editor in Windows 10.

Method 1: Open Private Character Editor via Run Command

Press Windows + R keys to launch the Run dialog, and then type eudcedit. Once pressing Enter, Private Character Editor will open up.

Method 2: Open Private Character Editor via Cortana Search

Enter “private” into the Cortana search box on the taskbar, and then click on the Private Character Editor shortcut to start the program.

Method 3: Open Private Character Editor via Control Panel

Open Control Panel and type “private” in the Search box in the upper right corner, then you can click on the Private Character Editor shortcut in the list of results.

Method 4: Open Private Character Editor via Settings App

Press Windows + I keys to launch the Settings app, and then click inside the Search box and type “private“.

You can access Private Character Editor from the listed result.

Method 5: Create a Desktop Shortcut for Private Character Editor

Right-click any blank area on the desktop and choose New -> Shortcut. In the Create Shortcut wizard, type the follow location and click Next.
%windir%\system32\eudcedit.exe

Name the shortcut “Private Character Editor” and you’re good to go.

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2 Ways to Change Registry Editor Font in Windows 10

June 10th, 2020 by Admin

How can I change the default font style or size for the Registry Editor app itself? Starting with Windows 10 build 14986, Registry Editor allows you to change font size or customize font face. In this tutorial we’ll show you 2 easy methods to change Registry Editor font for all user accounts in Windows 10.

Method 1: Change Font via Registry Editor Menu

  1. Press the Windows Key + R shortcut on your keyboard. Type regedit and hit Enter. When the Registry Editor window opens, select the View menu and click Font.

  2. In the Font dialog box, you can pick up your preferable font face, style and size.

  3. Once you are done, click OK and the font changes should be visible now.

Method 2: Change Font via Registry Tweak

  1. Open Registry Editor and navigate to the following key:
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RegEdit

    Next, double-click on the DWORD FontFace in the right pane.

  2. Type the name of your preferable font in the Value data box and click OK.

    Tip: open File Explorer and browse to the C:\Windows\Font folder, you can find the name of any font installed on your current system.

  3. Close Registry Editor and relaunch it to see the changes.

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How to Prevent Windows Update from Installing Microsoft Edge Chromium

June 9th, 2020 by Admin

The classic Edge browser will soon be replaced by the newest Chromium-based Edge via Windows Update. If you’re comfortable using the classic version or you don’t like Microsoft Edge Chromium, you can disable automatic delivery. Here are 2 simple methods to prevent Windows 10 Update from automatically installing Microsoft Edge Chromium.

Method 1: Block Microsoft Edge Chromium Update via Registry Tweak

  1. Open Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft. Right-click on the Microsoft key in the left pane and create a subkey named EdgeUpdate.

  2. Select the newly created key EdgeUpdate. On the right side, right-click the blank area and choose New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value.

  3. Name the DWORD DoNotUpdateToEdgeWithChromium and change its value data to 1.

  4. Now, Windows Update shouldn’t download and install the Chromium-based Microsoft Edge automatically on your computer.

Method 2: Block Microsoft Edge Chromium Update via Group Policy

Microsoft has released the Microsoft Edge Blocker Toolkit, which can import the new Group Policy settings to prevent the new Microsoft Edge browser from installing through Windows Update.

  1. Before getting started, download the Blocker Toolkit from Microsoft. Run the executable file and extract to any folder on your system.

  2. The extracted files contain a Group Policy Administrative Template (.ADMX and .ADML). You need to copy the EdgeChromium_Blocker.adml file to C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions and the EdgeChromium_Blocker.admx file to C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions\en-us.

  3. Next, open Local Group Policy Editor and browse to the following location, you can find the new policy named “Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) Blockers“.
    Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Update

    In the right side, double-click the policy “Do not allow delivery of Microsoft (Chromium-based) through Automatic Updates” to edit it.

  4. Select Enabled and click Apply.

    This will block Windows 10 from automatically installing Chromium-based Microsoft Edge via Windows Update.

That’s it!

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How to Export Saved Logins from Firefox Lockwise

June 8th, 2020 by Admin

How can I move saved logins and passwords in Firefox to new computer? Like other browsers, Firefox will soon allow you to export saved logins from its built-in Lockwise password manager. This feature is already implemented in Firefox Nightly. Here we’ll walk you through the steps to export saved passwords from Firefox Nightly to a CSV text file on Windows 10.

How to Export Saved Logins from Firefox Lockwise

  1. Open Firefox and click the three-line menu icon in the upper right corner, and then select “Logins and Passwords” from the pop-up menu.

  2. The Firefox Lockwise page will open in a new tab. Click the three dots icon to open the Lockwise menu and choose “Export Logins“.

  3. You’ll get a warning saying your passwords will be saved in plain text and readable to anyone who has access to the exported file. Click on the Export button to continue.

  4. Enter your Windows password to confirm your ownership of the system. Click OK.

  5. Select a target location for saving the exported logins, and click on Save.

  6. You’re done. Open the exported CSV file in a text editor or Microsoft Excel and you can view the plain-text passwords, website URLs and other information.

If you’re using an old version of Firefox which doesn’t support exporting logins, just download Password Recovery Bundle and you can extract saved credentials from Firefox as well as many other popular web browsers with ease.

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How to Turn off Search Suggestions in Microsoft Edge

June 3rd, 2020 by Admin

When you start typing in the address bar of Microsoft Edge, it will instantly display search and website suggestions based on each letter you type.

If you think those search predictions are not useful, here’s how you can disable or turn off search and site suggestions as you type in Microsoft Edge.

How to Disable Search Suggestions in Microsoft Edge

  1. Open Microsoft Edge and click on the three horizontal dots (…) on the upper right corner of the browser, then select Settings from the drop-down menu.

  2. Click on the Privacy & security tab. On the right, scroll down until you find “Show search and site suggestions as I type” and turn the slider off. You’re done!

    If you’re running the new Microsoft Edge based on Chromium, select the Privacy and services tab. On the right, scroll down to the bottom, click on Address bar under the Services category.

    On the next page, turn off the “Show me search and site suggestions using my typed characters” switch.

That’s it!

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How to Prevent Windows from Turning off Hard Drive after Idle

May 29th, 2020 by Admin

By default, Windows will automatically turn off your hard drive after 20 minutes of idle time. This can help save energy and extend a laptop’s battery life. When you try to access a hard disk that is turned off, you will notice a slight delay for the drive to spin back up. Constantly spinning down/up can reduce the life of the hard disk, so I recommend you leave the drive spinning all the time, or set the drive to turn off after a longer period (one or two hours) of inactivity. In this tutorial we’ll show you 2 methods to prevent Windows from turning off hard drive after idle.

Method 1: Prevent Turning off Hard Drive via Power Options

  1. Press the Windows logo key + R to open the Run box. Type the following and hit Enter to open the Power Options window.
    control.exe powercfg.cpl,,3

  2. Expand Hard disk and Turn off hard disk after, change the value to 0 and click OK.

    Your hard drive will never fall into sleep after idle.

Method 2: Prevent Turning off Hard Drive via Command Prompt or PowerShell

  1. Open the Command Prompt or PowerShell as administrator.

  2. Run the following commands one by one, replacing “seconds_of_idle” with 0.

    powercfg /SETDCVALUEINDEX SCHEME_CURRENT 0012ee47-9041-4b5d-9b77-535fba8b1442 6738e2c4-e8a5-4a42-b16a-e040e769756e seconds_of_idle

    powercfg /SETACVALUEINDEX SCHEME_CURRENT 0012ee47-9041-4b5d-9b77-535fba8b1442 6738e2c4-e8a5-4a42-b16a-e040e769756e seconds_of_idle

  3. When it’s done, your hard drive should keep spinning all the time and it never goes to sleep after idle.

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How to Switch from RAID to AHCI without Reinstalling Windows 10

May 25th, 2020 by Admin

Is there a way to switch from RAID to AHCI without losing everything and having to reinstall Windows? Sometimes an SSD might not be detected by bootable CD when in RAID mode, and you have to enable AHCI mode. In this tutorial we’ll show you how to switch from RAID to AHCI without reinstalling Windows 10.

How to Switch Windows 10 from RAID to AHCI?

  1. To get started, you need to force Windows 10 to boot into Safe Mode by default. Just open the Command Prompt as administrator and run this command:
    bcdedit /set {current} safeboot minimal

    or launch Windows PowerShell with admin privileges and execute this command:
    bcdedit /set safeboot minimal

  2. Next, restart your computer and press either F2 or DEL key to enter the BIOS Setup depending on your particular computer.
  3. In the BIOS Setup, look for an option such as “SATA Mode”, “Configure SATA As” or “SATA Mode Selection”, and change it to from RAID to AHCI.

  4. Then, save and exit the BIOS. Your computer will automatically boot to Safe Mode. Once logged in, open an elevated Command Prompt again and run the following command to disable Safe Mode:
    bcdedit /deletevalue {current} safeboot

    or launch an elevated PowerShell window and type this command:
    bcdedit /deletevalue safeboot

  5. Reboot again and Windows 10 will automatically start with AHCI drivers enabled. Whenever you want to switch back to RAID again, just try the same process above to enable RAID mode. It is important you should first boot into Safe Mode after changing the SATA mode in the BIOS.

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