Windows Guides & Tips

This is a small collection of guides and tips I've used/currently use.

Windows 10 Specific

As great as Windows 10 was compared to 8.1, there's still quite a few things I don't like about it. Here's a few changes I made I scoured off of the web

  • Disable Auto Restart on W10 Home Edition
    1. Open regedit and go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU
    2. Change NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers value to 1
    3. If not there, create new DWORD-32 for it
  • W10 Insomnia Fix (Windows waking up by itself)
    1. Open Settings, type 'Security and Maintenance', and open first result
    2. Under Maintenance, click on 'Change Maintenance Settings'
    3. Uncheck the Allow to wake computer box

Device Specific

These are any device specific things I don't really have a place for

  • Gigabyte Motherboards: Restoring main bios from backup bios (From this forum post)
    • Method 1
      1. Shut your PC down (if you're reading this guide, than your PC isn't working anyways).
      2. Hold the power button until the PC starts and shuts down again.
      3. Press the power button again, your backup BIOS should kick in now and should re-flash the main BIOS if there's anything wrong with it.
    • Method 2
      1. Shut your PC down (if you're reading this guide, than your PC isn't working anyways).
      2. Hold the power AND the reset button for about 10 sec, than release.
      3. Backup BIOS should kick in anytime soon now.
    • Method 3
      1. Short out pins 1 and 6 on the main BIOS chip (pin #1 should be marked with a red dot or whatever).
      2. Press the power on button.
      3. Remove the ghetto-like jumper you're holding between pins 1 and 6 as soon as you hear a beep.
      4. Backup BIOS should kick in again and everything will (hopefully) be fine.

Miscellaneous

Random Stuff

  • Virtualbox Shared Folder Fix For Linux Guest (fixes permission denied errors)
    1. Open terminal and type 
      sudo adduser your_user_name vboxsf
    2. Reboot
  • Disable Windows Superfetch - Good usage for this is if you switch from Intel RST (Raid) to AHCI
    1. Press 'Windows Key' + 'R' to bring up run dialog box
    2. Type 'services.msc' and Run it
    3. Find the 'Superfetch' service, right click on it and select 'Properties'
    4. Under 'Startup', select 'Disabled'
    5. Reboot
  • Microsoft Mathematics Addin for Microsoft Office 2013/2016 - Original Source
    1. If using Office 2003-2010: Download and install this file
    2. If using Office 2013: Download and install this file
    3. If using Office 2016, download the 2013 file, the follow below:
      • Open command prompt as admin and navigate to the folder you saved the exe to
      • Then extract it:
        edumathaddin.exe /extract
      • Then install it (replace the section in * with the folder you extracted it to):
        msiexec /i  *FOLDER_CHOSEN_ABOVE*\edumathaddin_x86.msi fromsetup=1 word=1 onenote=1 ALREADYRUNNING=0 DOTNET4=1
  • Microsoft Pinball Debug Mode
    1. Open pinball
    2. Type in the words "hidden test" with the space to enable a secret debug mode.
    3. Now you can hold down the left mouse button and drag the ball anywhere you want :P
    4. This code also enables other hidden features:
      • Pressing H allows you to edit the high scores.
      • Pressing M displays your system memory available to windows.
      • Pressing R increases your rank.
      • Pressing Y displays the game FPS in the title bar.
      • B, F11, and F12 are also hidden keys, but their functions are currently unknown.
    5. To get out of Debug mode, just press the space bar.