22 Hidden Tricks Inside Windows 10
Think you know Windows inside and
out? These expert tips make Microsoft's Editors' Choice-winning operating
system even better.
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 customizable) experience possible. So, with such a complex,
nuanced, and vast piece of software, it makes sense that there are little
tricks and UI flourishes most people don't even know about.
Here we present a list of 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. Microsoft has rolled out two major updates in 2018 alone—the (somewhat
unimaginatively named) April 2018 Update and the October 2018 Update. So
there are plenty of new hidden features and tricks to make the most of a
constantly evolving Windows experience.
PCMag has dedicated Windows fans in
our readership, who likely know at least some of these features, but they
probably don't know them all.
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1 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 (Apps 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.
2 Show Desktop Button
This
desktop button actually dates back to Windows 7, but is handy nontheless. On
the bottom-right corner of the desktop is a secret button. Don't see it? Look allll
the way to the bottom and right, beyond the date and time. There you'll
find a small little sliver of an invisible button. Click it to minimize all
your open windows.
There's
also the option to have windows minimize when you hover over this button versus
clicking. Select your preference in Settings > Personalization >
Taskbar > Use peek to preview the desktop.
3 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 of windows, 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.
4 Rotate Your Screen
This tip
won't be useful to most, but you can rotate your screen by simultaneously
pressing Ctrl + Alt + D and any of the arrow buttons. The down arrow will flip
it upside down, the left or right arrow buttons will turn it 90 degrees on its
side, and the up arrow will bring you back to standard orientation. If you use
multiple displays, this feature allows you to orient just that display in a
particular way.
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.
5 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
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.
6 Enable 'God Mode'
Are you a
power user who wants access to your PC's nitty gritty? "God mode" is
for you. 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.
7 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, resize the windows, or turn that live tile off.
8 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.
9 Drag to Pin Windows
This
feature was available as far back as Windows 7, but has some extras in Windows
10.
Grab any
window and drag it to the side, where it will "fit" to half the
screen. In Windows 10, you have the option of dragging the window to any corner
to have the window take over a quarter of the screen instead of half. If you're
using multiple screens, 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.
10 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 for a fun (?) graphic gaming experience.
11 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, click on Task View (the icon to the right of the Windows menu). This will
separate all your open windows and apps into icons. You can then drag any of
them over to where it says "New desktop," which creates a new virtual
desktop. 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 can toggle between virtual desktops by pressing the
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.
12 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 interface in Windows 10, click on the Windows menu and type
"Command Prompt" to bring up quick access to its desktop app. Click
that. To personalize the 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 Command Prompt window.
This
feature lets you code away in the Command Prompt while simultaneously observing
the desktop. If you are Windows-hack-y like that, go nuts.
13 Silence Notifications with Focus Assist
Formerly
known as Quiet Hours, Focus Assist is a redesigned April 2018 Update features
that gives you greater control over the notifications that pop up on your PC.
Head to Settings > System > Focus Assist and then read our full how-to guide for customizing
notifications for everything from contacts and apps to task-specific alarms.
14 Pin Your People
You can
now pin your closest contacts
to your task bar the same way you would your most-used apps. Just tap on the
People icon, and at the bottom of the pop-up box will be an option to find and
pin contacts to your taskbar. Don't see any contacts? Click the Apps tab at the
top of the box to connect your Mail app, Skype, or other apps from the
Microsoft Store and import your contacts to set up the equivalent of speed dial
icons right on your Windows 10 task bar.
15 Nearby Sharing
In an open
document or photo, you can now share the file directly with nearby
devices the same way Apple's AirDrop works. Click the Share icon
atop your doc or photo toolbar to open the panel, and then click Turn On Nearby
Sharing to see which nearby recipients are in range.
16 Mixed Reality Viewer
The
Windows Fall Creators Update installed the Mixed Reality Viewer app on your
Windows 10 machine; it was recently renamed 3D Viewer. Do a quick Cortana
search and open the app to play around with 3D models—either ones you've
created in Paint 3D or downloaded from Microsoft's library of thousands of
models. If you own one of Microsoft's Windows Mixed Reality partner headsets or want to
start playing around with 3D and mixed reality development, this app is your
way to start leveling up.
17 Stop Typing, Start Dictating
Speech recognition has
always been a strong suit for Microsoft, but in the latest Windows 10 release
it's almost second nature. In Settings, go to Time & Language > Speech
> Related settings and click "Speech, inking and typing privacy
settings" to enable speech services and typing suggestions.
Once you
do that, you can use the Windows Key-H hotkey combination in any text
field to pop up a Cortana box that records your voice through your Windows
machine's microphone and dictates the speech in your text field. You'll still
need to type manual punctuation, but save yourself some typing by dictating
emails, messages, and more.
18 Control Your Smart Home
Cortana
can now control all your smart home devices through Windows 10, too. The
setting is a little tough to find, because you can't just search the Cortana
bar for smart home or "connected home." Instead, you have to search
for Cortana Notebook, which brings up a list of to-do items, reminders, and
suggested tasks for Cortana. However, to find the connected home function
you'll need to click on the Manage Skills tab at the top right of the pop-up
window.
From
there, scroll down and click into Connected Home. First, toggle the option at
the top to Enable Connected Home, after which you can log into all your smart home devices— including Nest, SmartThings,
Ecobee, Honeywell, and Hue—and connect to Cortana. Once enabled, all you have
to do is say "Hey Cortana, set the thermostat to 70
degrees."
19 Dark Mode for File Explorer
Dark Mode
has been available for the Start menu, taskbar, action center, and other apps
for a while, but now you can finally use it for the File Explorer window. You
can set up Dark Mode by going into Settings > Personalization > Colors,
and scrolling to the bottom where you'll see "Choose your default app
mode." Switch it from light to dark.
20 Cloud Clipboard
The
Windows clipboard has been around for years and hasn't seen much
improvement—until now. With the Windows 10 October 2018 Update,
Microsoft introduced several impressive features. Once you have the update,
open Settings > System > Clipboard. To start saving multiple items to the
clipboard, turn on the switch for Clipboard History. Then check out our full guide for how to use it.
21 Revamped Screen Capture Tool
Screen
capture is another feature where Microsoft is finally closing the functionality
gap with macOS in the October 2018 Update. Instead of the clunky Snipping Tool,
you can now pull up a new clipping utility called Snip & Sketch (previously
bundled in Windows Ink) with a simple Shift-Windows
key-S command to take a full-screen or rectangular screen capture. It's
like macOS Mojave's new screen capture tool, but with
the added digital inking capability.
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