Hidden Tricks Inside Windows 10
Even if you think you know it all, you don't.
Microsoft's Windows OS isn't any one thing. It arises from a patchwork
of finely tuned features. Each individual feature is, in turn, the
result of a team of dedicated engineers who create the best (often
personalizable) experience possible. So, with such a complex, nuanced,
and vast piece of software, it makes sense that there are little tricks
and UI flourishes that most people don't even know about.
As it turns out, there are all sorts of tricks hidden beneath the
surface of the sprawling beast that is Windows. All it takes is a little
digging.
Here we present a list of 10 cool tips that will help you get a little bit more out of your Windows 10
experience. Or, at least, there are some things you may have not known
about. Some have been available in Windows for a number of generations,
while some are native to Microsoft's most recent OS.
PCMag has some dedicated Windows fans in our readership, so you likely
know at least some of these features, but you probably don't know them
all. I tested these on a pair of Lenovo laptops, one running Windows 10
and the other (when accessible) on Windows 7 Professional.
Secret Start Menu
If you're a fan of that old-school (i.e. non-tiled) Start menu experience, you can still have it—sorta. If you right-click
on the Windows icon in the bottom-left corner, it will prompt a textual
jump menu with a number of familiar popular destinations (Programs and
Features, Search, Run). All these options are available through the
standard menu interface, but you'll be able to access them quicker
through this textual interface.
Secret Desktop Button
This desktop button actually dates back to Windows 7, but I
embarrassingly only recently found out about it. On the bottom-right
corner of your page, there's a secret desktop button. Don't see it? Look
allll the way to the bottom and right, to the side of the date
and time. There you'll find a small little sliver of an invisible
button. Click that and it will minimize all your open windows to clear
the desktop. You can change the behavior of this in Settings, between
having to click or just having to hover the mouse over the corner.
Rotate Your Screen via Keyboard Ctrl-Alt-D Arrows
Alternatively, you can right-click on the desktop background >
Graphics Options > Rotation to turn your page around in all sorts of
ways. This feature is available on Windows 7 and 10.
Enable Slide to Shutdown
This trick only works on Windows 10 as far as I can tell. It's
complicated and probably not worth the effort for what you get out of
it, but here you go:
Right-click on the desktop > New > Shortcut. In the ensuing pop-up window, paste the following line of code:
%windir%\System32\SlideToShutDown.exe
This creates a clickable icon on your desktop, which you can feel free
to rename to whatever you'd like. To shut down via slide-down,
double-click on the new icon to prompt a pull-down shade. Then use your
mouse to drag it down to the bottom of the screen. Keep in mind, this
isn't sleep, this is a shutdown.
Enable 'God Mode'
Are you a power user who wants access to your PC's nitty gritty? Then "God mode" is for you. Here's how to access it:
Right-click on the desktop > New > Folder. Re-name the new folder with this bit of code:
GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
To enter the "God Mode" window, double-click the folder and go nuts.
Right-Click on Tiles
Want to personalize those tiles quick? Just right-click on them to
prompt a pop-up menu. This menu will give you various options like the
ability to un-pin from the Start menu, to resize the windows, or to turn
that live tile off.
Right-Click on the Taskbar
Here's a handy menu that will allow you to quickly access a number of
presets for the toolbars, Cortana, and window schemes. There's a lot
there, and it's just a click away.
Shake
This feature actually debuted in Windows 7, but I've found a lot of
people don't know about it or use it (but they should—it's cool!). If
you have a display full or windows, you can clear the clutter by
grabbing the top of the window you do like and "shaking" it to minimize
all the other windows. Suddenly having shaker's remorse? Shake again and
the windows will come back.
Drag to Pin Windows
This feature was available as far back as Windows 7, but has some extras
in 10. If you grab any window, and drag it to the side of the screen,
it will "fit" to half the screen.
In Windows 10, you have the option of dragging the window to any corner
of the screen to have the window take over that quarter of the screen.
If you happen to be using multiple screens, you can drag to a border
corner and wait for a prompt signal to let you know if the window will
open in that corner.
You can prompt similar behavior by using the Windows key plus any of the directional arrow buttons.
Hidden Games in Cortana
They're not games in the "fun" sense as much as they're cool little
time-killers that Cortana can help you with. You can type (or say) "Rock
Paper Scissors," "Roll the Die," or "Flip the Coin" in Cortana to have a
fun(?) graphic gaming experience. For even more Cortana tips you can
check out
our roundup
.
Quickly Jump Between Virtual Desktops
Do you like to multitask on your PC? I mean
really
multi-task? Well, you can now rejoice because with Windows 10, Microsoft
finally
provided out-of-the-box access to virtual desktops.
To try it out, first click on the task bar (the icon to the right of the
Windows menu). This will separate all your open windows into icons. You
can then drag any of these open windows to the button that says "New
desktop" in the bottom-right to create a new virtual desktop which you
will see represented at the bottom of the task menu. This would allow
you to, say, separate your work apps, personal apps, and social media
into different desktops.
Once you click out of task view, you'll be able to toggle between the
virtual desktops by pressing Windows button+Ctrl+right/left arrows. This
will allow you to automatically switch between all the open windows
which you've separated into different desktops, while leaving all the
icons on your desktop unmoved.
To remove the virtual desktops, just go back into task view and delete the individual virtual desktops—this will
not close out the apps contained within that desktop, but rather just send them to the next lower desktop.
Make Your Command Prompt Window Transparent
It appears this feature is new to Windows 10 (at least, it's
not
available in Windows 7). It will probably only be useful to a narrow
niche of user, but if you like to dig your virtual fingers into the
innards of Windows via the Command Prompt, Windows 10 provides a
ghostly
way to interface with it.
To access the Command Prompt (CP) interface in Win 10, click on the
Windows menu and type "Command Prompt" to bring up quick access to the
CP desktop app. Click that. To personalize the CP experience right-click
at
the top of the window to prompt a pop-up menu and choose
"Properties." Click over to the "Colors" tab to see a range of
personalization options. At the bottom of this tab, you'll find the
"Opacity" slider, which allows you to see
through the CP window.
This feature lets you code away in the CP while simultaneously observing
the desktop. If you are Windows-hack-y like that, go nuts.
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