Tutorials Navigation
5 Ways to Improve the Windows 8.1 Startup Experience
Tutorial Name: 5 Ways to Improve the Windows 8.1 Startup Experience
Category: PC Tutorials
Submitted By: TomorrowLand
Date Added:
Comments: 0
Views: 3,107
Related Forum: PC Building Forum
Share:
Hey, another tutorial and this one is 5 ways that can improve your Windows 8.1 startup experience.
There are lots of things to love and hate about Windows, but if you're going to have the best possible experience, its important that things get off to a good start. Getting off on the wrong foot with a slow or irritating startup is going to taint your computing time. Here are five of the best tips that will help you to iron out niggles, eliminate bottlenecks and generally improve the startup process of Windows 8.1.
1. Boot straight to the desktop
This is something that has annoyed Windows 8 users ever since the operating system was released booting to the Start screen rather than the desktop. With the release of Windows 8.1, Microsoft saw fit to address users concerns and introduced the option to boot straight to the desktop. You'd be forgiven for not having notice the option immediately as its not blatantly obvious.
Access the desktop, right click an empty section of the taskbar and select Properties. Click the Navigation tab and then tick the box labelled Go to the desktop instead of Start when I sign in and then click OK.
2. Jump straight to Apps on the Start screen
Despite Microsofts push of Modern apps, most of us are sticking with regular desktop apps. The fact that the Start screen lists tiles and Modern apps first can be annoying and may mean that it takes longer to launch the program youre looking for.
If you'd rather see a more familiar list of apps, call up the Taskbar and Navigation properties dialog and move to the Navigation tab as in the previous step. You should then tick the box labelled Show the Apps view automatically when I go to Start and click Apply.
You probably have a number of applications that are configured to start automatically with Windows. Windows 8 tries to be helpful by staggering the launch of your startup programs to try to avoid bottlenecks building up. In reality, you may well find that it just takes longer for the apps you need to reach a usable state. By editing the registry, it is possible to completely eliminate this delay so that all startup apps will be launched as soon as possible.
Press Windows key + r, and type regedit. When the Registry Editor loads, navigate to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows \CurrentVersion\Explorer
Beneath this, you may find a key called Serialize. If not, you can create it by right clicking the Explorer key and select New -> Key. Type Serialize before pressing Enter.
With this key selected, right click in the right hand pane of the Registry Editor and select New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value. Enter StartupDelayInMSec. Next, double clicking on this the newly created key and set the value to 0.
4. Automatically log into your user account
Having to enter a password just to use your own computer can be a pain. There are certainly security benefits to it, but if you are the only person who has access to your computer, you may want to be able to get straight down to work. We've previously looked at how you can skip the Welcome Screen in Windows 7. The same technique can be used in Windows 8.1 as well.
Press Windows key + r and type netplwiz. Select your user account from the list that is shown or whichever account you would like to have load automatically and then untick the box labelled Users must enter a username and password to use this computer. Click the Apply button.
Enter and confirm your password before clicking OK, and youll now be able to boot straight to Windows without having to enter your password again.
5. Make use of Sleep or hibernation modes
Whatever you do to help speed up your computer, the boot process always seems to take a little too long. Its easy to forget, but Windows can be put into Sleep mode in which the current state of the computer is saved to memory so it can be very quickly restored resuming from Sleep is much, much faster than cold booting.
But the process of putting your computer to sleep (just as with shutting down or restarting) means having to navigate through various menus. A quicker option is to create your own shortcuts so you can enter sleep mode with a quick click.
Right click an empty section of the desktop and select New -> Shortcut. Type the following into the text field:
rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState 0,1,0
Click Next, type a suitable name for the shortcut and click Finish. You can then drag and drop the newly created shortcut into the taskbar so a quick click is all it takes to put your computer to sleep in future.
Cheers, Joe.
There are lots of things to love and hate about Windows, but if you're going to have the best possible experience, its important that things get off to a good start. Getting off on the wrong foot with a slow or irritating startup is going to taint your computing time. Here are five of the best tips that will help you to iron out niggles, eliminate bottlenecks and generally improve the startup process of Windows 8.1.
1. Boot straight to the desktop
This is something that has annoyed Windows 8 users ever since the operating system was released booting to the Start screen rather than the desktop. With the release of Windows 8.1, Microsoft saw fit to address users concerns and introduced the option to boot straight to the desktop. You'd be forgiven for not having notice the option immediately as its not blatantly obvious.
Access the desktop, right click an empty section of the taskbar and select Properties. Click the Navigation tab and then tick the box labelled Go to the desktop instead of Start when I sign in and then click OK.
2. Jump straight to Apps on the Start screen
Despite Microsofts push of Modern apps, most of us are sticking with regular desktop apps. The fact that the Start screen lists tiles and Modern apps first can be annoying and may mean that it takes longer to launch the program youre looking for.
If you'd rather see a more familiar list of apps, call up the Taskbar and Navigation properties dialog and move to the Navigation tab as in the previous step. You should then tick the box labelled Show the Apps view automatically when I go to Start and click Apply.
You probably have a number of applications that are configured to start automatically with Windows. Windows 8 tries to be helpful by staggering the launch of your startup programs to try to avoid bottlenecks building up. In reality, you may well find that it just takes longer for the apps you need to reach a usable state. By editing the registry, it is possible to completely eliminate this delay so that all startup apps will be launched as soon as possible.
Press Windows key + r, and type regedit. When the Registry Editor loads, navigate to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows \CurrentVersion\Explorer
Beneath this, you may find a key called Serialize. If not, you can create it by right clicking the Explorer key and select New -> Key. Type Serialize before pressing Enter.
With this key selected, right click in the right hand pane of the Registry Editor and select New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value. Enter StartupDelayInMSec. Next, double clicking on this the newly created key and set the value to 0.
4. Automatically log into your user account
Having to enter a password just to use your own computer can be a pain. There are certainly security benefits to it, but if you are the only person who has access to your computer, you may want to be able to get straight down to work. We've previously looked at how you can skip the Welcome Screen in Windows 7. The same technique can be used in Windows 8.1 as well.
Press Windows key + r and type netplwiz. Select your user account from the list that is shown or whichever account you would like to have load automatically and then untick the box labelled Users must enter a username and password to use this computer. Click the Apply button.
Enter and confirm your password before clicking OK, and youll now be able to boot straight to Windows without having to enter your password again.
5. Make use of Sleep or hibernation modes
Whatever you do to help speed up your computer, the boot process always seems to take a little too long. Its easy to forget, but Windows can be put into Sleep mode in which the current state of the computer is saved to memory so it can be very quickly restored resuming from Sleep is much, much faster than cold booting.
But the process of putting your computer to sleep (just as with shutting down or restarting) means having to navigate through various menus. A quicker option is to create your own shortcuts so you can enter sleep mode with a quick click.
Right click an empty section of the desktop and select New -> Shortcut. Type the following into the text field:
rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState 0,1,0
Click Next, type a suitable name for the shortcut and click Finish. You can then drag and drop the newly created shortcut into the taskbar so a quick click is all it takes to put your computer to sleep in future.
Cheers, Joe.
Ratings
Comments
Related Tutorials
- 01. Emulating Xbox 360 on PC for Running COD4 With Mods(1,970)
- 02. How to: Matrix Numbers | Batch File(1,555)
- 03. How to Password Protect Files on Windows(758)
- 04. How to play Socom 2/3/ and Combined Assault on PC(5,050)
- 05. Modern Warfare 2 Vac Ban Bypass Tutorial(4,978)
- 06. How to embed an image on TheTechGame(2,750)
- 07. [PC] NIOH 2 OTHER USER SAVE RESIGN(12,258)
- 08. Host bot lobbies! Full Tutorial!(9,454)
- 09. Unban yourself [Plutonium BO2](13,411)
- 10. Fall Guys - How to Change Your Name Color on Fall Guys(7,995)
- 11. Best Crosshair Settings for Valorant(6,139)
- 12. Othercide The Surgeon Boss Guide(2,200)
- 13. Othercide Remembrances Unlock Guide(3,877)
- 14. Othercide Beginners Tips and Tricks(2,418)
- 15. How to Fix Grounded Crashes, Loading Time, Low FPS and Other(4,325)
"5 Ways to Improve the Windows 8.1 Startup Experience" :: Login/Create an Account :: 0 comments