Showing posts with label Windows 8. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Windows 8. Show all posts

How to Make your Windows Start-up Faster

Does your Windows computer take really long to start-up?

Well, you are not alone with this problem but fortunately, with some minor tweaks, you can get your sluggish Windows to start much faster without re-installing Windows or adding any new hardware.

The logic is fairly simple. Your computer loads quite a few software programs and services during start-up (look at all the icons in your Windows System tray). If you can trim this list, your computer’s boot time will decrease.

I have been testing a free utility called Soluto and it helped reduce the start-up time of my Windows computer from 3.15 minutes to around 1.25 minutes. All this with a few easy clicks and without confusing the user with any technical jargon.

 

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After you install Soluto, it sorts your start-up programs list into three categories:

  • No-brainer – remove these programs from start-up with giving a second thought.
  • Potentially removable – another list of start-up programs that may also be removed provided you know what these programs do.
  • Required – Certain programs and services are required to run Windows properly and therefore should not be removed.

Depending upon the software app, you may then either choose “Pause” to completely remove that app from the start-up queue or choose “Delay” when you want the app to run automatically but not immediately at start-up. Soluto will launch the “delayed” app once the boot up is over and your system is idle.

You can also hover the mouse over any program name and Soluto will display the number of seconds that the app adds to the start-up time. And don’t bother about making mistakes because Soluto has a useful “Undo all” feature that will restore the start-up list to the original state with a click.

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Once you are done classifying your start-up programs list, reboot the computer and you should notice a difference between the start-up time.

Where to download Soluto?

The official site for Soluto is soluto.com but in order to download the program, you should head over to mysoluto.com.

Alternatives to Soluto

If you are tech-savvy, you can also use a utility like Sysinternals Autoruns to manually prevent all the non-essential Windows processes and programs from running at start-up.

Just uncheck all the Autorun entries and Services that you don’t wish to load at startup and reboot your system. You’ll however need a separate program to get the “delay” feature which is so handy in Solute.

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How to Install Windows 8 on VMware

Here is a tutorial that explains how to Install Windows 8 on VMare. This tutorial explains how can you install Windows 8 on a virtual machine, side-by-side on your main operating system. So, you can have both Windows 7 as well as Windows 8 working together on a PC.

How to Install Windows 8 on VMware:

At this point I believe that you already created a virtual machine for installing Windows 8 in your VMware Workstation 8. Your new virtual machine will appear as a tab with the name you given to it while creating it. Below is a snapshot of my newly created virtual machine for Windows 8 with all details.

  • Click on the “power on virtual machine”.

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  • After your virtual machine is powered on, you need to provide the path of the windows 8 .iso image file to start the booting process.
  • Select VM from the menu bar.
  • Select removable devices from sub menu.
  • Select CD/DVD (IDE) and click on settings.
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  • The virtual machine settings dialog box opens.
  • In the hardware tab, select CD/DVD(IDE).
  • In the connection Field, select the option “use iso image file”.
  • Click browse and navigate to the folder in which window image file(.iso) is located. Select the .iso file and click ok.
  • Click ok to close the virtual machine settings dialog box.
  • Now Restart the virtual machine.

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Sit back and relax. Now you are all set to see the first screen of windows 8.

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  • After loading of some files, the screen shown above appears. Nothing new here. If you could recollect it is same as that of Windows 7. You will see some other screens similar to that of Windows 7. Just keep clicking next.
  • Now there is something new. It is the first new look of windows 8. Enter a name of your choice.

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You can choose between windows live Id or local account. With Windows Live id, you can log in to your copy of Windows 8 by using a email id and password. I choose local account.

image Fill in all the details.

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Sit back and relax. You are ready to see a new world. And here it comes. Awesome isn’t it? Welcome to windows 8.

image Once you have completed all the steps, you will have Windows 8 installed on VMware. This will co-exist with your main operating system, that could be Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7.

Windows 8 Developer Preview Product Key

If Windows 8 Developer Preview installation failed during first attempt or if you’re planning to use Reset your PC setting on Windows 8 or reinstall Windows using installation disk, you should know:  you need to enter Windows 8 Developer Preview Product key during installation as the setup asks you. Without entering the product key you can’t proceed forward, Microsoft employee shared the Product key on MSDN forums as answer to this question which you can use.  This key an be used by all users using Windows developer preview.

It’s better to note down this key on win8 DVD using marker pen.  Here is the key.

6RH4V-HNTWC-JQKG8-RFR3R-36498

Other articles on Windows 8:

Windows 8 Consumer Preview (Beta) Setup Screenshots Leaked
How to Activate Windows 8
Microsoft Windows 8 Developer Edition in ISO pack
Difference Between Windows 8’s Refresh your PC and Reset Your PC Settings

How to Activate Windows 8

After installing Windows 8 Developer Preview it will be activated automatically once you connect to internet, to customize lock screen and to access other Windows settings and features activation is necessary you can activate Windows 8 from metro and classic interfaces.
Activating Windows 8
Before activation, first user need to install drivers for network adaptors that windows failed to install after that create a connection to the internet.
Activating via metro screen
Click on Control Panel icon on Metro Screen to open Metro Control Panel,  activation process will begin automatically and let me tell you activation doesn’t takes too long.
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Activating via conventional interface
Open desktop Control Panel>System Security>Action Center where for the shown “Activate Windows now (important)” message under Security click on “Go To Windows  Activation”
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Click on Activate Online in Windows Activation window.
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The chances are that your Windows 8 PC automatically activated when you’re online without needing any one of above steps to perform on behalf of you. If activated, you’ll see the below  like window. 
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If Windows asks product key enter the below one.
6RH4V-HNTWC-JQKG8-RFR3R-36498

Microsoft Windows 8 Developer Edition in ISO pack

 

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Windows 8 Developer Preview with developer tools English, 64-bit (x64)

Download (4.8GB)

Sha 1 hash - 6FE9352FB59F6D0789AF35D1001BD4E4E81E42AF

All of the following come on a disk image file (.iso). See below for installation instructions.

· 64-bit Windows 8 Developer Preview

· Windows SDK for Metro style apps

· Microsoft Visual Studio 11 Express for Windows 8 Developer Preview

· Microsoft Expression Blend 5 Developer Preview

· 28 Metro style apps including the BUILD Conference app

Windows 8 Developer Preview English, 64-bit (x64)

Download (3.6GB)

Sha 1 hash – 79DBF235FD49F5C1C8F8C04E24BDE6E1D04DA1E9

Includes a disk image file (.iso) to install the Windows 8 Developer Preview and Metro style apps on a 64-bit PC.

Note: This download does not include developer tools. You must download the Windows 8 Developer Preview with developer tools 64-bit (x64) to build Metro style apps.

Windows 8 Developer Preview English, 32-bit (x86)

Download (2.8GB)

Sha 1 hash - 4E0698BBABE01ED27582C9FC16AD21C4422913CC

Includes a disk image file (.iso) to install the Windows 8 Developer Preview and Metro style apps on a 32-bit PC.

Note: This download does not include developer tools. You must download the Windows 8 Developer Preview with developer tools 64-bit (x64) to build Metro style apps.