Windows 8 on a USB Drive, Defragging Tips, Launch Apps Fast

If you've poked approximately PCWorld in recent weeks, you've learned how to download and set u Windows 8 on a new hard-drive partition and how to install Windows 8 in a virtual machine. Today, let's talk about one of my favorite approaches for installing Windows 8, well, anywhere: by way of a news bulletin drive.

See, when you download something like the Windows 8 Developer Prevue (which anybody can break impermissible, non sporting developers), you're left with an ISO file that must be burned to a DVD before you can in reality install it. Or mustiness it?

The Windows 7 USB/Videodisc Download Tool around lets you copy that ISO file to a flash force, then employ that thrust to install Windows. And Don River't let the name horse around you: although the 1MB utility says it's for Windows 7, IT works like a charm with Windows 8. (Also notwithstanding its name, on that point's no real downloading involved.)

For this task you'll need a flash driving force with at least 8GB of available reposition. The utility will needfully erase everything connected the drive as part of the apparatus process, so puddle sure you've offloaded whatever important data. You'll also need to have downloaded the Windows 8 Developer Preview if you haven't already. I recommend the x64 version without the developer tools, though you may desire to opt the x86 version if you're planning to install it on an aged Personal computer with limited RAM (i.e. 3GB or less).

Once you ply the utility program, IT's a dewy-eyed four-step process to select the ISO file, wipe the USB drive, piddle it bootable, and burden Windows 8. So simple, as a matter of fact, that I'm non going to reiterate the stairs here. Just provide 10-20 minutes for the job to finish.

When you'atomic number 75 done, you can "safely eject" the drive, then pop it into whatever PC is going to be your Windows 8 ginzo pig. (If you have afflict booting from the private road, confabulate your manual; you may need to tweak the BIOS settings.)

I'm sorry to say you ass't actually run off Windows 8 from the heartbeat drive like you rear some versions of Linux; you'll have to go arsenic far A to install it. But it'll be a lot faster going away with the flash drive than IT would beryllium with a DVD. Plus, you can load it on a netbook, ultrabook, operating theater some other system that lacks an optical drive.

Three Surprising Things Almost Fractious Drive Defragging

Back in the bad old days of computing, hard-drive defragmentation was a big bargain. You needed a timber third-party "defragger," and you needed to run it regularly—at least formerly a calendar month—to check optimal organization performance.

Multiplication have changed. Although computer files still get separate into fragments and scattered across your hard drive's platters, the computers and drives themselves are such faster now that fragmentation International Relations and Security Network't the Lapp performance-razing problem it formerly was.

What's Thomas More, if you're a Windows 7 user, you really shouldn't have to worry astir fragmentation at all. Check out these trine important facts about hard drive defragging:

1. In Windows 7, the built-in Disk Defragmenter utility runs mechanically at regular times, usually once per calendar week. This happens by default, so chances are good your Winchester drive is already defragged. And by most accounts, the public-service corporation compares favorably with third-party alternatives, so don't spend money on some other defragger unless you have real particularised reasons for doing so.
2. You don't necessarily have to leave your computer on overnight. If Disk Defragmenter isn't able to run at, say, 1 a.m. Wednesday, it will kick in the close time your computer is idle.
3. You should never defragment a solid-state drive (SSD). Doing so can shorten its lifespan. As a matter of fact, whether you purchased a laptop computer with an SSD installed operating theatre upgraded your laptop with one, be sure to disable scheduled defragmentation in Windows 7. Click Depart, type disk, and then come home Disk Defragmenter. Click Configure schedule to disable the feature.

By the way, if you feature an external calculating drive, one that's not always connected to your PC, it may not set about the luck to benefit from Windows' scheduled defragging. Therefore, you should run Magnetic disk Defragmenter on it manually all month approximately.

For many on the case, read President Lincoln Spector's "Defragging: How, Why and Whether."

The Fast Way to Launch Programs in Windows 7

People who migrate to Windows 7 from Windows XP often overlook one of the former's best features: the keyboard-friendly Start menu. Specifically, you can run any installed platform with fitting a couple of keystrokes, no third-company launcher required.

There are, of course, various shipway to run a program. You can minimize all open Windows, retrieve the program's icon happening your desktop, and double-click it. Operating theater you buns click Start and navigate the Each Programs carte du jour until you find what you'atomic number 75 after.

Both approaches are a bite time-consuming, and some require you to reach for the pussyfoot. As a keyboard-shortcut junkie, I prefer the accelerate and ease of keeping my fingers connected my keys.

All I have to get along is press the Windows central, type the first base three operating room four letters of the program I want to pass over, then press Enter when it appears. For example, I toilet type itu for iTunes, chr for Google Chrome, exc for Surpass, or out for Outlook.

Very seldom will I have to go on the far side three letters. And the only time I might need to reach for the mouse is for something the likes of exp, which makes both Cyberspace Explorer and Windows Explorer appear in the menu. (Actually, typewriting int solves that problem.)

This may only relieve you a couple of seconds here and there, only I think once you get in the habit of running programs this mode, you won't recuperate to reaching for the mouse. IT's arguably the fastest and easiest method to load an app–and I find IT to constitute the least disruptive of my work flow.

If you've got a hassle that needs solving, send it my way. I can't promise a response, but I'll definitely read every e-chain armour I get–and get along my best to address leastwise some of them in the PCWorld Hassle-Free PC blog . My 411: hasslefree@pcworld.com . You can also sign up to have the Hassle-Free PC newsletter e-mail-clad to you each week .

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/477880/windows_8_on_a_usb_drive_defragging_tips_launch_apps_fast.html

Posted by: fowlerantin1972.blogspot.com

Share this post