Archive for the ‘Others’ category

2 Methods to Enable or Disable Live Captions in Windows 11

January 2nd, 2023 by Admin

How do I turn on or off closed captions? Live Captions is a new accessibility feature in Windows 11 which can provide automatic transcription for a movie or audio. This is really useful for people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. In this tutorial we’ll show you 2 simple methods to enable or disable Live Captions in Windows 11.

Method 1: Enable or Disable Live Captions via Settings App

  1. Press the Windows key + I to launch the Settings app. Choose Accessibility on the left side, and then click Captions on the right pane.

  2. You will see the toggle switch for Live captions. When turning on Live Captions the first time, it will prompt you to download the live captions language files (about 98.3Mb).

  3. If you want to change the style of the captions, click the “Caption style” drop-down list and you can select “White on black”, “Yellow on blue”, “Small caps” or “Large text”.

  4. When Live Captions is turned on, it will automatically convert video/audio being played on your computer into easily readable text.

Method 2: Enable or Disable Live Captions via Action Center

  1. Press Windows key + A on your keyboard (or tap the WiFi or Volume buttons in the system tray) to open the Action Center pane. Next, click the Accessibility icon.

  2. In the next pane, you can click the toggle next to Live captions to enable or disable the Live captions feature.

That’s it!

How to Add Tags to Files in Windows 11 without Third-Party Software

December 15th, 2022 by Admin

Tags are part of metadata information you can add to specific file formats (.jpg, .mp4, .docx, .xlsx, .pptx). If you have a lot of documents and pictures, you can use tags to describe the file contents so you can then search by tags instead of the filenames.

At present, Windows 11 only supports adding or editing tags for .jpg/.jpeg files only. If you need to add tags to your documents or videos, you have to use Microsoft Office or third-party software. In this tutorial we’ll show you how to add tags to .jpg/.jpeg files and search files by tags in Windows 11.

Part 1: Add Tags to .jpg/.jpeg Files

  1. Open File Explorer and browse to the location where your .jpg/.jpeg files are stored. Select one or multiple files and right-click on them and choose Properties. Note: this method allows you to add tags for multiple files in one action.

  2. When the Properties dialog box appears, go to the Details tab.

  3. Click the Tags field and its value will become editable. You can enter more than one keywords at once. Make sure each keyword is followed by a semicolon.

  4. Click OK to save the tag information.

Part 2: Search Files by Tags

  1. Open File Explorer and navigate to the location of your tagged files. Right-click the empty space and choose View -> Details from the pop-up menu.

  2. Right-click on the column header in File Explorer and select the Tags option.

  3. You’ll be able to see the tags of all files. Click the down arrow to the right of the Tags column header.

  4. Check the boxes next to your desired tags, and Windows will immediately display the files you’re looking for.

    You can also search your tagged files using Windows Search, just type tag: your_keyword in the search box from the top-right corner of File Explorer.

That’s it.

How to Enable or Disable Camera On/Off Notifications in Windows 11

December 6th, 2022 by Admin

Most of modern laptops and tablets come with built-in cameras, which allow you to take photos or record video with ease. If you want to improve privacy and find out when your webcam is in use, it’s recommended to enable camera On/Off indicator, so you’ll get the “Camera on/off” warning message when your camera is being used by any programs, even including the background apps.

In this tutorial we’ll walk you through the steps to enable or disable camera on/off on-screen notifications in Windows 11.

How to Enable or Disable Camera On/Off Notifications in Windows 11

  1. Open Registry Editor and browse to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\OEM\Device\Capture, then double-click the DWORD NoPhysicalCameraLED in the right pane.

  2. Change its value data from 0 to 1 for enabling camera privacy notification. Close Registry Editor and reboot your system to apply the changes.

  3. The next time you use any app to take photos or videos, the “Camera on” warning message will automatically pop up on the taskbar for half a second and then disappear. When you stop using the camera, the “Camera off” notification will display for a while.

    If you want to disable camera on/off on-screen notifications, just change the value data of NoPhysicalCameraLED to 0 and it will work.

That’s it!

2 Ways to Disable the Settings App in Windows 11

November 29th, 2022 by Admin

The Settings app is the most used tool in Windows 11, which lets you control almost all aspects of the system. When you need to share your PC with others, you may want to disable access to the Settings app. In this tutorial we’ll show you 2 simple methods to disable the Settings app in Windows 11.

Method 1: Disable the Settings App Using Group Policy

  1. Open Local Group Policy Editor and browse to: User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Control Panel. On the right pane, locate and double-click the “Prohibit access to Control Panel and PC settings” policy.

  2. Choose the Enabled option. Click Apply and then OK.

  3. Reboot your computer to apply the changes. The next time you right-click the Start button and choose Settings, the Settings app will no longer launch.

Method 2: Disable the Settings App Using Registry Editor

  1. Open Registry Editor and navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer. In the right pane, right-click the blank area and select New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value.

  2. Name the newly created DWORD as NoControlPanel, and set its value data to 1.

  3. Close Registry Editor and restart your system. The Settings app will no longer be accessible to anyone using your computer.

That’s it!

How to Backup and Restore PowerToys Settings in Windows 11

November 25th, 2022 by Admin

How can I transfer PowerToys settings to another Windows 11 computer? Need to create a backup of your PowerToys settings before reinstalling Windows? In this tutorial we’ll walk you through the steps to backup and restore PowerToys settings in Windows 11.

Part 1: Backup PowerToys Settings with Ease

Once you open PowerToys, select the General category. On the right-hand pane, scroll down to the bottom and you should see the “Backup & restore” section. Click the Browse button to choose the location where you want to save your backup, and then click the Backup button.

You’ll immediately get the message saying “Backup completed”.

The backup file ends with .ptb extension, which is actually self-extracting archive. If you rename the file extension to .zip and unzip it, you’ll see a bunch of .sqlite files.

Part 2: Restore PowerToys Settings on the Same or Different PC

Before getting started, transfer or copy the .ptb file you’ve backed up previously to your target computer. Next, follow these steps to perform the restore:

Open the PowerToys app and choose the General category. Under the “Backup & restore” section, click the “Refresh” link to make sure your target .ptb file is detected by PowerToys. If there are multiple .ptb files at the backup location, just the file with the latest date will be used for restoring.

Click the Restore button. PowerToys will automatically restart and apply your new settings.

Find out Which Process is Locking a File in Windows 11 / 10

November 21st, 2022 by Admin

Cannot delete file because it is being used by another process? When you try to delete a folder / file, you might get the error message saying “The action can't be completed because the file is open in another process.” If there are many processes running in the background, it’s really difficult to figure out which process is locking the file and preventing you from deleting it. In this tutorial we’ll walk you through the steps of using Microsoft PowerToys to find out which process is locking a folder or file in Windows 11 / 10.

How to Find out Which Process is Locking a File in Windows 11 / 10

  1. Open the Microsoft Store app. Type PowerToys in the search box at the top and the “Microsoft PowerToys” app will appear. You can then click it to install.

  2. After installing, you can use the Search button in the taskbar to launch the Microsoft PowerToys app.

  3. When the PowerToys Settings window opens, choose “File Locksmith” in the left sidebar. Click the “Enable File Locksmith” toggle switch to set it to On.

  4. Open File Explorer and right-click any file which is currently locked by another program, choose the “What’s using this file” option from the context menu. On Windows 11, you will first have to select the “Show more options” and then choose the required option.

  5. The File Locksmith dialog box will display the list of processes which are locking your chosen file. You can click the “End task” button to terminate the process.

That’s it!

2 Methods to Stop Apps from Opening on Startup in Windows 11

November 17th, 2022 by Admin

How can I stop Discord from running automatically when I start my computer? If your PC takes a long time to boot up, it could be the result of having too many startup programs. To speed up the boot process, you can disable unnecessary startup programs. Unlike previous versions of Windows, Windows 11 no longer allows users to disable startup apps using the System Configuration (msconfig) utility.

In this tutorial we’ll show you 2 methods to stop apps from opening on startup in Windows 11, without using third-party software.

Method 1: Disable Startup Apps in Windows 11 Using Task Manager

  1. To open Task Manager in Windows 11, right-click the Start button in the taskbar and choose “Task Manager“.

  2. In the left sidebar of Task Manager, click the “Startup apps” icon. Scroll through the list of apps and locate the app which you want to stop from opening on startup. Right-click it and choose Disable.

  3. The apps you have disabled will no longer automatically start up when you reboot your PC.

Method 2: Disable Startup Apps in Windows 11 Using Settings App

  1. Press Windows key + I keys to open the Settings app. On the left-hand sidebar, click on Apps. On the right pane, scroll down to the bottom and click Startup.

  2. You’ll see a list of apps which can be configured to launch at startup. To disable startup apps, turn off the toggle switch next to the apps you want to disable, it will no longer launch automatically once you restart your PC.

Conclusion

These are the most common ways to disable startup programs in Windows 11. Some apps (such as anti-virus software, Discord, Steam, instant messenger) also offer built-in settings to disable automatic launch at startup through the apps themselves.

Add a Context Menu to Permanently Delete Files in Windows 11 / 10

November 14th, 2022 by Admin

When you right-click a file and select Delete, or press the Delete key on the keyboard, Windows will move the file to the Recycle Bin by default. To permanently delete that file, you have to empty the Recycle Bin. In this tutorial we’ll show you how to add “Permanently delete” to context menu in Windows 11 / 10, which can help you permanently delete files without sending them to Recycle Bin.

How to Add a Context Menu to Permanently Delete Files in Windows 11 / 10

  1. Open Registry Editor and navigate to the location: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shell. In the left sidebar, right-click the shell key and select New -> Key.

  2. Name the new key Windows.PermanentDelete and select it. In the right pane, right-click the blank area and choose New -> String Value.

  3. Name the new DWORD ExplorerCommandHandler, and then double-click it and set its value data to {E9571AB2-AD92-4ec6-8924-4E5AD33790F5}.

  4. Use the same method to create another three different string values: Icon, Position and CommandStateSync. Set the value data of Icon to shell32.dll,-240. The value data of Position could be Top or Bottom, while leaving the value data of CommandStateSync to be empty.

  5. Close Registry Editor. When you right-click any folder or file, you’ll see the “Permanently delete” option appear in the top or bottom of the context menu.

  6. When you click the “Permanently delete” option, a pop-up dialog will ask you to confirm before permanently deleting your chosen folder or file.

That’s it!

2 Ways to Stop Taskbar Icons from Flashing in Windows 11

November 10th, 2022 by Admin

See the Microsoft Teams icon blinking orange to indicate you got a new message? When a background app needs your attention, the taskbar icon may start flickering 7 times. If you easily get distracted, you can stop taskbar icons from flashing or blinking in Windows 11.

Method 1: Change How Many Times Taskbar Icons Flash

  1. Open Registry Editor and navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop. In the right pane, double-click the DWORD ForegroundFlashCount to modify its value.

  2. Set its value to 1 so taskbar icons will only flash once. Keep in mind that setting the ForegroundFlashCount value to 0 won’t disable flashing.

  3. Close Registry Editor. Reboot your computer to see the changes.

Method 2: Disable Flashing on Taskbar Apps

  1. Right-click the empty space in the taskbar and choose “Taskbar settings“.

  2. When the Settings app launches, click the “Taskbar behaviors” option to expand it.

  3. Uncheck the “Show flashing on taskbar apps” option.

    This will completely prevent taskbar icons from blinking orange when apps need attention of the user.

That’s it!