Archive for the ‘Tips & Tricks’ category

2 Ways to Remove Gallery from Windows 11 File Explorer

March 11th, 2024 by Admin

How do I remove the Gallery shortcut from File Explorer’s side panel? If you click the Gallery shortcut, it allows you to access your photo collection, including all pictures which you can see in the Photos app. However, if you find that the Gallery folder is of no use, here are 2 ways to remove it from File Explorer navigation bar in Windows 11.

Method 1: Remove Gallery from Windows 11 File Explorer for Current User

  1. Open Registry Editor and go to the location: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID. Right-click the CLSID key and select New -> Key.

  2. Name the new key as {e88865ea-0e1c-4e20-9aa6-edcd0212c87c}, and then right-click it to choose New -> (32-bit) DWORD Value.

  3. Name the DWORD as System.IsPinnedToNameSpaceTree and set its value data to 0.

  4. Close Registry Editor and relaunch File Explorer, you’ll find the Gallery button will no longer show up in the navigation pane of File Explorer. Whenever you want to restore the Gallery button, just set the value data of System.IsPinnedToNameSpaceTree to 1.

Method 2: Remove Gallery from Windows 11 File Explorer for All User

  1. Open Registry Editor and navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace_41040327\{e88865ea-0e1c-4e20-9aa6-edcd0212c87c}. Right-click the {e88865ea-0e1c-4e20-9aa6-edcd0212c87c} key and choose Delete.

  2. When asked for confirmation, click Yes.

  3. Close Registry Editor. Reopen the File Explorer and the Gallery item should be missing from the File Explorer left panel. If you want to add Gallery back to File Explorer, you need to recreate the key {e88865ea-0e1c-4e20-9aa6-edcd0212c87c} which you’ve deleted in the step 1 above.

That’s it!

Fix: Downloads are Blocked from Running in Windows 11

March 4th, 2024 by Admin

Whenever I download an app off the Internet, double-click it to run but nothing happens.

Eventually I found out that Windows 11 blocks the downloads from running if they’re not digitally signed. If you right-click the downloaded program in File Explorer and select Properties from the context menu, you’ll see the security warning “This file came from another computer and might be blocked to help protect this computer.

To allow that file to run, you need to check the “Unblock” box and click OK. You can repeat this procedure to manually unblock each program you’ve downloaded. To permanently fix the problems of blocking your downloads, simply follow this tutorial to configure Windows 11 not to mark your downloaded files with zone information.

How to Fix: Downloads are Blocked from Running in Windows 11

  1. Open the Local Group Policy Editor and browse to: User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Attachment Manager. On the right pane, double-click the policy called “Do not preserve zone information in file attachments“.

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

  3. Close the Local Group Policy Editor. Now Windows 11 will no longer block your downloaded files from running. If the Local Group Policy Editor is not available on your PC, you can open Registry Editor and go to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies, create a subkey Attachments and select it. On the right pane, create a 32-bit DWORD SaveZoneInformation and set the value data to 1.

No matter you use the group policy or Registry Editor to unlock your downloads in Windows 11, the changes will take effect immediately. No need to reboot or log off your computer.

Forgot PDF Permissions Password but I Know User Password?

February 23rd, 2024 by Admin

My PDF document is protected by a user password which I know, but I forgot the permissions password? How can I retrieve the PDF security permissions password? Adobe Acrobat may demand a permissions password when you try to edit, add or remove a PDF page. If you’ve tried every password to no avail, you can take use of the PDF Password Recovery software. This step-by-step tutorial can help walk you through the process of how to remove a forgotten PDF permissions password when you can still remember the document open password.

Forgot PDF Permissions Password but I Know User Password?

  1. To get started, download the PDF Password Recovery application. Follow the simple instructions in the installation wizard to complete the installation.
  2. After starting the program, click the button to choose your password protected PDF document, and then select the “Remove Owner Password” option. Click Next.

  3. You will be prompted for a user password (also known as document open password) when it detects your PDF document has both an open password and a modify password. Type the password and click OK.

  4. A decrypted copy of your document will be created in a short time. Click the “Go to folder” button and you can quickly navigate to the location where the decrypted document is saved.

  5. If you open the decrypted copy, it will no longer prompt you for the document open password. When you try to edit or add a page, no permissions password is required as well.

That’s it!

Tutorial: How to Search for Large Files in Windows 11

February 6th, 2024 by Admin

How to search for files based on size in File Explorer? A good way to free up storage space is to find large files on your system, then delete or move them elsewhere. In this tutorial we’ll show you how to search for large files in Windows 11, without using third-party software.

How to Search for Large Files in Windows 11

Open File Explorer. Type * in the search box in the top right corner.

Then “Search options” button will appear in the toolbox, and you can click it to select the size of the files you’d like to find, ranging from Empty to Gigantic.

If the above search criteria don’t meet your needs, you can manually specify the minimum size of large files to filter. For example, when you’re looking for files larges than 1GB (about 1000 Mb), simply type size:>1000mb in the search box.

Once the large files are found, you need to determine if they can be deleted or moved to external hard drive. Deleting the system pagefile or hibernate file straightforward may cause system failure, but you can shrink their file size with the following proper methods:

That’s it!

2 Methods to Disable or Enable Reserved Storage in Windows 11

January 23rd, 2024 by Admin

How can I reduce or turn off reserved storage in Windows 11? Disabling the reserved storage won’t affect the hibernation or virtual memory page file, and you can reclaim the reserved storage when your PC is running low on disk space. In this tutorial we’ll show you 2 methods to disable or enable reserved storage in Windows 11.

Method 1: Disable or Enable Reserved Storage via Windows Terminal

  1. Before getting started, open the Windows Terminal as administrator and then run the following command to check whether the reserved storage is already enabled or disabled on your system.
    DISM /Online /Get-ReservedStorageState

  2. To disable reserved storage, simply execute this command:
    Dism /Online /Set-ReservedStorageState /State:Disabled

    If you want to enable reserved storage later, run this command:
    DISM /Online /Set-ReservedStorageState /State:Enabled

  3. After disabling reserved storage, your PC will perform smoothly as long as it has enough disk space to download and install Windows updates. If you open the Settings app and go to: Storage -> System & reserved, the “Reserved storage” section will no longer show up.

Method 2: Disable or Enable Reserved Storage via Registry Editor

  1. Open Registry Editor and navigate to the location: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ReserveManager. Next, we need to change the values for the DWORD MiscPolicyInfo and PassedPolicy on the right-side pane.

  2. In order to turn off reserved storage, just set MiscPolicyInfo to 2 and set PassedPolicy to 0. Whenever you need to turn on reserved storage, set the values of both MiscPolicyInfo and PassedPolicy to 1.

  3. Close Registry Editor and reboot your computer to see the changes.

That’s it!

2 Ways to View Reserved Storage Size in Windows 11

January 16th, 2024 by Admin

Reserved Storage is a portion of storage space which is used by Windows 11 to save temporary files for system processes like Windows Update, so you’ll no longer experience Windows Update issue because of low disk space. Note that reserved storage is completely different from system reserved partition, it should be some special folders which can be accessed only by Windows Update or other processes. In this tutorial we’ll show you 2 methods to view and find the current size of the reserved storage on your Windows 11 computer.

Method 1: View Reserved Storage Size from Settings App

  1. Open the Settings app. Select System from the left-hand menu and then click Storage on the right pane.

  2. Click the “Show more categories” link.

  3. Click the System & reserved option.

  4. Under the Reserved storage section, you can see how much storage Windows reserves to facilitate proper performance and successful updates of your device.

Method 2: View Reserved Storage Size from Windows Terminal

  1. Open Windows Terminal as administrator, and then run the following command:
    fsutil storagereserve query C:
  2. It will give you the details of each reserved space. Just add the sizes of each Space Guarantee and you can find out how much disk space is allocated for reserved storage.

    If reserved storage is disabled on your Windows 11 PC, all the sizes of Space Guarantee should be zero.

That’s all!

How to Check Hard Drive Health in Windows 11 with Ease

January 5th, 2024 by Admin

Is my hard drive still healthy? When should I replace my SSD? If there is a way to predict when a hard drive is about to die, we can take preventative actions before disk failure. Luckily, Windows 11 comes with a built-in feature to monitor the hard drive health, so you can get an estimated remaining life and temperature about your hard drive. Currently, this option is only available for NVM SSD. In this tutorial we’ll walk you through the steps of checking hard drive health in Windows 11.

How to Check Hard Drive Health in Windows 11 with Ease

  1. Open the Settings app. Choose the System category in the left-side pane and then click Storage on the right.

  2. Under the “Storage management” section, click the “Advanced storage settings” option.

  3. Click the “Disks & volumes” setting underneath.

  4. Click the Properties button next to your hard drive, not volumes.

  5. Scroll down to the “Drive health” section, you can see the current temperature and estimated remaining life about your disk.

    It might be able to help you catch a failing drive. You’ll get a warning when significant media-related errors or an internal error to the NVM subsystem is detected.

Conclusion

That’s how you can use the built-in feature in Windows 11 to check your hard drive status. However, it doesn’t work with SATA SSD or hard disk drives (HDD). If you need to perform a health check for USB, Intel RAID and NVMe, the freeware CrystalDiskInfo might be your good choice.

2 Methods to Remove Time and Date from Taskbar in Windows 11

December 29th, 2023 by Admin

How can I hide time and date in the system tray on Windows 11? Previously we’ve covered a tricky way to achieve it. Luckily, starting with Windows 11 23H2, the system provides built-in options to remove time and date from the taskbar. In this tutorial we’ll show you another 2 methods to remove time and date from system tray in Windows 11 with ease.

Method 1: Remove Time and Date from Taskbar via Settings App

  1. Open the Settings app. Choose Time & language in the left navigation pane, and then click Date & time in the right side.

  2. Turn off the toggle switch for “Show time and date in the System tray“.

  3. The clock in your system notification area will disappear immediately.

Method 2: Remove Time and Date from Taskbar via Registry Editor

  1. Open Registry Editor and navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced, then double-click the DWORD HideSystrayDateTimeValueName in the right-side pane.

  2. Just change its value data from 1 to 0, click OK.

  3. Close Registry Editor. You’ll instantly see that the time and date is missing from the taskbar in Windows 11.Whenever you need to get back the time and date, just set the value data of HideSystrayDateTimeValueName to 1.

That’s it!

How to Enable or Disable Location Services in Windows 11

December 22nd, 2023 by Admin

How can I disable location tracking in Windows 11? Can’t turn on my location service because it’s greyed out? Some apps might require accessing the location services so it can provide you with information which is more relevant to your PC’s geographic location.

However, turning on location services may arouse privacy concerns. In this tutorial we’ll show you 3 methods to enable or disable location services in Windows 11.

Method 1: Enable or Disable Location Services via Settings App

  1. Launch the Settings app. Select Privacy & security on the left side, and then click Location on the right side.

  2. You can then toggle the switch next to “Location services” to turn on or off location services in Windows 11.

Method 2: Enable or Disable Location Services via Registry Editor

  1. Open Registry Editor and navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\CapabilityAccessManager\ConsentStore\location. Next, double-click the string entry called “Value” on the right pane.

  2. Type “Allow” in the value data box to enable location services, or type “Deny” when you need to disable location services, click OK.

  3. Close Registry Editor.

Method 3: Permanently Disable Location Services via Group Policy

Whenever you need to permanently disable the location services or prevent others from turning on location services from the Settings app, the group policy method is a good choice.

  1. Open the Local Group Policy Editor and browse to: Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Location and Sensors​. Next, double-click the “Turn off location” policy.

  2. Choose the Enabled option, click Apply and then OK.

    If Local Group Policy Editor is not available on your Windows edition, try the alternative method: open Registry Editor and navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\LocationAndSensors and set the value of the DisableLocation to 1. Note: If either the subkey LocationAndSensors or the DWORD DisableLocation doesn’t exist, you need to create it manually.

  3. Close the Local Group Policy Editor. When you open the Settings app and go to Privacy & security -> Location, you’ll find the “Location services” option is greyed out.

That’s it!