Category Archives: 2020.02

How to Enable Ultimate Performance Mode on Windows 10

Posted on by

The new Windows 10 April 2018 update has a lot of additional features. Some of them include although not restricted to Timeline, improvements to Edge, interface improvements, capability to add security inquiries to local accounts, HEIF image support, etc., Among the hidden features of the new April 2018 update is the ability enable Ultimate Performance mode. Allow me to demonstrate how you can let the new hidden feature on Windows 10 with just a few clicks.

What’s Ultimate Performace Mode

The Ultimate Performance mode is created specifically for high-end PCs. When enabled, this mode permits you get a little more performance from your Windows 10 machine. This performance improvement may not significant, however in games, you might visit a few extra FPS (fps).

Also, this option might not be avilable on laptops.

Look at your Windows Version

To utilize the Windows Ultimate Performance Mode, you should be using Windows 10 April 2018 update (v1803).

You can check your present Windows version from “About Windows.”

Press Win + R, type “winver” and press enter. You will notice the Windows version within the second line. The version ought to be 1803 or up. Don’t mind the build number, it will change everytime you receive a regular Windows update.

Once you are sure you use Windows 10 with April 2018 update, proceed to enable Ultimate Performance Mode.

Enable Ultimate Performance Mode

Enabling Ultimate Performace Mode is not that hard. However, when you go to the Power Options window in Windows 10, you will not see the Ultimate Performance option. All you see is the regular High-Performance option. The Ultimate Performance option is hidden automatically. To determine the Ulitmate Performance option, you need to perform simple PowerShell command.

1. To spread out PowerShell, search for PowerShell in the start menu, right-click on it and select the choice “Run as Administrator.”

2. After opening the PowerShell window, copy the below command and carry it out. You will receive (Ultimate Performace) because the output.

powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61

3. Now, look for “Control Panel” within the start menu and open it up.

4. Here, ensure that the “View by” is placed to “Large icons” in the upper right corner, scroll down, after which click on the option “Power Options.”

Alternatively, open the Settings app and go to “System -> Power and Sleep.” Click the “Additional power settings” under “Related Settings” appearing within the right panel.

5. In this window, expand “show additional plans” and select the radio option “Ultimate performance” and you are all set.

It is that easy to allow Ultimate Performance mode on Windows 10.

As mentioned, before, this feature is mainly meant for high-end PCs. Even so, you won’t use whatever significant rise in performance. But, if needed, the best Performance mode can help you ring out that extra bit of juice out of your system.

How to Add Left-hand Friendly Mouse Cursor in Windows 10

Posted on by

If you’re lefty and prefer to make use of the mouse with your left-hand then you might’ve realized that there’s are no left-hand friendly mouse pointers in Windows 10. Sure, it’s not hard to get accustomed to the right-hand mouse pointer. However, having left-hand friendly mouse cursors will help you feel at home. So, allow me to show the best way to add left-hand mouse cursor in Windows 10.

Long back, Microsoft accustomed to provide official left-handed mouse pointers. All you have to do is download the cursor package and add it to the cursor settings. However, Microsoft made a decision to take out also it no longer provides the left-hand friendly mouse pointers.

That being said, I did some digging and found the package. So, without further ado, let’s add some left-handed mouse cursors in Windows 10.

Add Left Hand Mouse Cursors to Windows

1. The very first thing you’ll need would be to download the lefty mouse pointers. Once downloaded, extract the folder inside the ZIP file.

2. In the extracted folder, you will notice three different folders which contain three various sizes of left-hand mouse pointers. In most cases, the normal-sized mouse pointers are good enough. If you are searching for bigger pointers than you should use those within the large or extra-large folders.

3. Copy the cursors in all three folders and paste them in the C:\Windows\Cursors folder.

4. Next, open the beginning Menu, search for “Mouse Settings” and click on it.

5. Within the Mouse Settings page, click the “Additional Mouse Options” link appearing underneath the Related Settings section.

6. The above mentioned action will open that old mouse settings window. Go to the Pointer tab.

7. Here, choose the “Normal Select” option under Customize and then click the “Browse” button.

8. Within the selection window, discover the cursor, select it and then click the “Open” button.

9. Do the same thing for the following mouse cursor types. Since the selection window shows a little preview of the cursor item, it should not be that hard to decide on the right ones.

Help Select
Working in Background
Busy
Handwriting
Link Select

If you’re wondering, you can ignore other pointer items out there as they side agnostic or very rarely used.

10. Once you have changed the cursor styles, this is how it appears as though within the settings window.

11. Now, click on the “Save As” button under Scheme. Don’t be concerned, we are not overwriting the default style. Rather we’re creating a new cursor style.

12. Name the new cursor style and click on “Ok”. With my case, I’m just adding “Left” to the default name.

13. Windows will automatically choose the new style. Click on the “Ok” button in the primary window.

Wrapping Up

That’s it. In the future, Windows can have the left-handed mouse pointer.

If you ever wish to restore the default right-handed mouse pointer, simply select “Windows Default (System Scheme)” in the Scheme drop-down and then click the “Ok” button. This will restore the default mouse pointer.

How to locate SID of the User in Windows 10 (PowerShell & CMD Methods)

Posted on by

Though not often, there can be instances when you should know a specific SID of a specific user account or all of the user accounts. In that case, follow the below steps to find SID of a user in Windows 10.

Windows provides several different methods to find SID of any user or all users. For simplicity’s sake, I’ve divided the post into two major sections with different methods inside them. The very first section teaches you methods to find SID of the specific user and also the second section for those users.

Note: I’m showing the process in Windows 10, but the same steps are applicable to Windows 7 and Windows 8 too.

Find SID of a Specific User

To obtain the SID of the specific user, follow among the below methods. Both work exactly the same.

Command Prompt Command:

If you want to be aware of SID of your own user account i.e, the present user, it is pretty easy. Just execute the below command.

whoami /user

Once you execute the command, it will your username and the associated SID.

To find SID of another user, you need to use the below command. Don’t forget to replace USERNAME using the actual username from the user you are trying to get the SID of.

wmic useraccount where name=”USERNAME” get sid

Because you already know the username, unlike the first command, the command will just show the SID of the target user.

Find SID of Users

To obtain the SID of all users in your body, follow among the below methods. Both work the same.

Command Prompt Command:

First, open the Command Prompt from the Start menu and execute the below command. Should you consider the command, it is pretty much like the specific user command but a tad bit different.

wmic useraccount get name,sid

Upon successful execution, the Command Prompt window can place all users on your system along with their SIDs.

PowerShell Command:

If you’re a PowerShell user, you can use a simple cmdlet. First, open the PowerShell by searching for it within theAs soon as you execute the command, PowerShell can place all user accounts on your system along with their SIDs.

What is a SID?

SID (Security Identifier) is a simple string value that is automatically generated for each user account and group. Windows uses the SID to handle something more important like user settings, control user resources, files, shares, networks, registry keys, etc. Simply put, SID is like the identity that Windows uses to manage the consumer.

That’s all. It is that easy to locate SID of users in Windows 10.

How to View Full Details of User Accounts in Windows

Posted on by

Windows lets you create however many user accounts you want with only a few clicks. Just open the Settings app, visit “Accounts > Family along with other people” and click on the button “Add a household member” or “Add someone else to this PC” depending on your need.

Every time, you produce a new user account, it will likely be added to the user’s list and displayed in the Settings app, User interface, as well as on the Lock Screen.

Apart from the user accounts you create, Windows includes a few more default accounts which are hidden from plain sight. For example, Windows includes a built-in administrator account that’s disabled by default, a guest account that’s disabled by default, and if you are using Windows 10, you will also possess a WDAGUtilityAccount account that is associated with and managed by Windows Defender to protect your PC.

Not only Windows hides some user accounts so you don’t mess with system accounts, it hides advanced details like SID information, domain, SIDType, if the user account has the ability to change the password, etc.

If you want to see all the user accounts and full user account details in Windows, it can be done. Here’s how to list and view full details of user accounts in Windows.

View Full Details of User Accounts in Windows

I’m showing the procedure in Windows 10, but it also works in Windows 7 and Windows 8 too. Just follow the steps as is and you should be great.

1. Search for “PowerShell” in the start menu, right-click on it and choose the option “Run as Administrator.” If you wish to, you should use the Command Prompt to see full details of user accounts in Windows.

2. After opening the PowerShell window, copy the below command, paste it in the PowerShell window and press Enter to execute the command.

Quick tip: to paste the command, right-click within the PowerShell or Command Prompt window.

wmic useraccount list full

3. As soon as you execute the command, the PowerShell or Command Prompt window will list full user account details of all users on your system.

For anyone who’re wondering, WDAGUtilityAccount is really a Windows Defender user account. Windows Defender needs highest privileges to scan and take away any infected files from your system. So, it’s its own user account. Don’t touch it or wreck havoc on WDAGUtilityAccount.

What exactly are all those properties in the details list?

Within the list, there might be some properties you will possibly not understand, like AccountType for example. So, allow me to detail some of the confusing jargon the thing is in the list.

AccountType: This property lets you know which kind of the account it is. You will notice a weird number related to this property. They’re as follows.

512: Default or normal account of the Windows user. This is what you normally see whenever you execute the above-provided command.
256: Local user accounts who have their primary account on another Domain. As such, these accounts will have access to this domain only, to not every other domain.
2048: System domain account that also trusts other domains.
4096: System account that’s a member of this domain.
8192: This can be a system backup domain controller account that is additionally a person in this domain.

Disabled: This property lets you know whether the account is enabled or disabled. You will see False when the user account is active and True if it is disabled.

Lockout: Lets you know whether the account is locked out or not. Generally, the account is locked out by the administrator or simply by entering the incorrect password many times.

SID: This is actually the Security Identifier (SID) of this account. Each account has a unique SID string.

SIDType: This shows the kind of SID. Depending on the value, you can know that group the current SID is associated with. Generally, the user account you create is one of the User group.

1 = User
2 = Group
3 = Domain
4 = Alias
5 = Well known group
6 = Deleted account
7 = Invalid
8 = Unknown
9 = Computer

Hope that can help.

Microsoft Brings Its Windows 10 Antivirus Arsenal to Linux

Posted on by

Microsoft keeps extending its Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) to more platforms beyond Windows, and today it’s the turn of Linux to satisfy this security suite.

The software giant has shipped a public preview of Microsoft Defender ATP for Linux, explaining that this release is dependant on feedback it received from customers across the world.

Microsoft Defender ATP isn’t Microsoft’s antivirus engine that protects Windows 10, but a complete platform whose purpose is to give enterprises a sophisticated arsenal of security tools to avoid, detect, and react to advanced threats happening within their networks.

Android and iOS versions also enroute

Microsoft Defender ATP is already integrated with a series of other Microsoft products targeted at the enterprise, including Skype for Business, Azure Security Center, Office 365 ATP, Azure ATP, and Microsoft Cloud App Security.

“Today, we’re announcing another part of our journey to offer security from Microsoft using the public preview of Microsoft Defender ATP for Linux. Extending endpoint threat protection to Linux is a long-time ask from your customers and we’re excited to be able to deliver on that,” Microsoft said within an announcement today.

“We know our customers’ environments are complex and heterogenous. Providing comprehensive protection across multiple platforms through a single solution and streamlined view is more important than ever.”

Additionally, the organization says it’s also bringing Microsoft Defender ATP to iOS and Android mobile operating systems, with further details to become shared later this year closer to the release date. A more in-depth look at the mobile push, however, is going to be offered at the RSA Conference.

“Next week at the RSA Conference, we’ll give a preview in our investments in mobile threat defense with the work we’re doing to create our solutions to Android and iOS,” Moti Gindi, Corporate V . p ., Microsoft Threat Protection, says.

The Evolution of Windows within the last 17 Years in Just One GIF

Posted on by

With Windows 7 support already pulled, Microsoft is almost all about Windows 10 right now (despite Windows 8.1 still receiving updates until 2023).

And while the organization has become recommending everyone to maneuver to Windows 10, it goes without saying that this latest version from the operating-system isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and lots of just want to stick to an older release.

A GIF which was shared now on reddit shows how the adoption of every Windows version increased and decreased within the last 17 years, highlighting the transition that so many users make from one Windows release to another.

In 2003, Windows XP was obviously the main Windows version – as a matter of fact, Windows XP continues to be used nowadays, despite no longer receiving support since April 2014; launched in 2001, Windows XP mostly operates on devices operated by enterprises or government departments with limited network access.

The Windows 10 push

Windows, however, happens to be referred to as Microsoft’s biggest flop, therefore it never took off. Fortunately, Microsoft created Windows 7, that is still considered the company’s best Windows version ever. Windows 7 rapidly increased its adoption and continued to dominate the Windows ecosystem even after Microsoft launched Windows 8 this year.

Windows 8 was the very first modern Windows version that attempted to make the transition to touch-capable devices, introducing new capabilities like a Microsoft Store and Metro apps. But at the same time, it removed popular features just like a Start menu, which approach backfired, with the most of people just staying with Windows 7.

Many attempted to resist the change to Windows 10 as well, but now that Windows 7 no longer receives support, upgrading devices is pretty much the only method to go. And as you can observe in the GIF here, increasingly more Windows users are making the change to Windows 10 nowadays.

After Microsoft, It’s Apple’s Use Be Accused of Bombarding Users with Ads

Posted on by

Microsoft has previously been charged with using Windows 10 being an adware platform to advertise some of its other products and services, and today it looks like it’s Apple’s turn to face similar criticism.

Tumblr engineer Steve Streza says iOS is bundled with adware as Apple attempts to increase the number of subscribers for a number of services, including News, the Apple Card, and Apple Music.

Within an analysis of methods Apple’s apps on iOS pushes adware to users failing to pay for a subscription, Streza emphasizes it’s impossible to bar these ads within the operating system, because the existing iOS content blocker extension system only works best for Safari.

“Lots and lots of ads, on devices that you pay for. iOS 13 comes with an abundance of ads from Apple marketing Apple services, from the moment you place it up and all sorts of through the experience. Some could be dismissed or hidden, but most cannot, and therefore are purposefully designed into core apps like Music and also the App Store. There’s a term to describe software that has lots of unremovable ads: adware, which what iOS has sadly become,” Streza explains.

Apple won’t stop here, he warns

The Tumblr engineer procedes to explain that most people don’t discuss this aggressive way to push ads in iOS since they subscribed to the services that Apple promotes in the first place.

But things will get worse, he warns, unless Apple users themselves start making themselves heard.

“This issue is not going to get better. Apple is going to expand its services, both breadth and depth, and the adware problem is only going to get worse, unless people on-site visit Apple for what they’re doing,” Streza says.

Just like Apple, Microsoft itself has come under fire for using Windows 10 to promote items like Office and Microsoft Edge. Ads that showed up within the Start menu, and which Microsoft calls tips or suggestions, recommended Windows 10 users to install other products that do not come bundled using the OS, in some instances so that they can drive them from other rival solutions.

This Add-on Brings Much more of Ie towards the New Microsoft Edge

Posted on by

Microsoft itself recommends against using Ie like a daily browser, and regardless of the company only shipping security updates and no additional features to devices where it’s installed, so many people still depend on this app to navigate the net.

Chiefly the result of certain Ie features not available in modern browsers, and web browser expert Stefan Van Damme says the menu bar is an of them.

“Since time of Microsoft Internet Explorer, everyone uses and likes to navigate with the classic menu bar. That includes recption menus items File, Edit, View, History, Bookmarks, Window, and Help. To allow them to get quick access towards the menu for editing and printing an internet page. However, that menu bar isn’t available anymore in the new Microsoft Edge web browser,” he explains.

Proper Menubar

So to make everyone’s lives easier, Van Damme created extra time that virtually brings the classic Internet Explorer menu bar towards the new Microsoft Edge running on Chromium, making the knowledge using the browser a little bit more familiar for those who only now result in the switch.

Windows 7 has recently reached no more support, so the number of users upgrading to Windows 10 and presumably testing out the new Edge browser, is higher nowadays. Considering this en-masse migration to Windows 10, such an extension could really prove useful for individuals who just want to stick with a well-recognized approach in Windows.

“I understand the frustration that there is no menu bar on the internet browser. That is why I like a internet browser expert created this free Proper Menubar Microsoft Edge extension. So users can experience the actual classic window menu design in his internet browser. That from underneath the address bar and also in the extension icon as a vertical menu bar,” the developer explains.

Needless to say, the extension can be obtained totally free and can be installed from the Microsoft Edge Addons page using this link.

How to Uninstall McAfee on Windows 10 (Complete Removal)

Posted on by

If you are using McAfee and cannot uninstall it properly, do as instructed before to uninstall McAfee on Windows.

McAfee includes a pretty trash reputation one of the PC community and rightfully so. McAfee is slow, utilizes a large amount of memory for simplest of products, consumes CPU like no other and for whatever reason, it takes up nearly 1GB of disk space. On top this, why is McAfee annoying is it often behaves like adware and makes it hard to uninstall it from Windows 10.

Generally, you will find McAfee on pre-built PCs where OEMs and PC manufacturers install either the trial version or perhaps a variant of the paid version. Once you reach the time limit, McAfee starts bugging you to upgrade or renew the merchandise. Inside a world where Windows Defender does very good there are a couple of other good free antivirus software like Avast and AVG, there is no reason to use McAfee. Especially, Microsoft is actively improving Windows Defender with new features like Windows Defender Sandbox, Ransomware protection, etc., So, if you are searching to totally remove McAfee from your Windows system there is how to uninstall McAfee on Windows 10.

There are two methods to remove McAfee from Windows 10. The first method is to make use of the control panel and also the second method uses the McAfee removal tool. First, try the first method. If you feel McAfee has not been uninstalled properly or you wish to remove all McAfee products at the same time out of your system then follow the second method.

I’m showing this on Windows 10, but the below methods work on Windows 7 and Windows 8.

1]. Uninstall McAfee on Windows 10 From User interface

McAfee uninstallation improved over time. Like any software placed on Windows, you can uninstall McAfee from the user interface. Follow the below steps to uninstall McAfee on Windows 10 through the user interface.

1. Search for User interface in the start menu and open it up.

2. Within the user interface, click on the “Programs and Features” option. If you cannot find the option, make sure that the view by is placed to “Large Icons”.

3. This is when you are able to uninstall programs. Find the McAfee antivirus, right-click onto it and select the “Uninstall” option. In my case, McAfee antivirus is called McAfee LiveSafe.

4. In the McAfee uninstall screen, select “McAfee LiveSafe” and “Remove all files with this program” checkboxes and click on the “Continue” button. If you consider the bottom of the screen you will find that McAfee is not uninstalling its Web Advisor application. We need to uninstall it separately.

5. In this warning window, just click on the “Continue” button.

6. Once you click on the continue button, McAfee starts to uninstall itself. It will take serious amounts of fully uninstall McAfee on Windows 10. So, relax and wait.

7. Here, click on the “No thanks” button.

8. Click the “Restart now” button to accomplish the McAfee uninstallation process.

1.1] Uninstall McAfee WebAdvisor

9. Remember, we still need to remove McAfee Web Advisor application too. So, after restarting the machine, visit “Control Panel -> Programs and Features”, right-click on the McAfee Web Advisor and select “Uninstall”.

10. McAfee can show false data to make you keep the application. In my case, it is saying that it has protected me from id theft and password theft. Which is false. Simply click on the “No thanks, just uninstall it” button around the left side. Not the big blue button.

11. Once you click on the button, the applying will be uninstalled completely.

12. Simply to make certain McAfee is totally uninstalled, restart your system.

13. Even after uninstalling McAfee, it keeps leftover files within the Program Files folder. So, after restarting, open File Explorer, go to C:\Program Files, select McAfee and press Delete key in your keyboard.

14. If you see an alert window, just click on the “continue” button to delete the McAfee folder on Windows 10.

That’s it. You’ve successfully uninstalled McAfee on Windows 10. If you’re unsure or if cannot cleanly uninstall McAfee, stick to the second method which uses McAfee removal tool.

2]. Remove McAfee on Windows 10 Using McAfee Removal Tool

Like many antivirus software, it can be hard to get rid of McAfee on Windows 10 because of uninstallation problems or unclean uninstallation. In those situations, you should use the McAfee removal tool to uninstall McAfee on Windows 10. Actually, McAfee removal tool makes it quite easy to get rid of all McAfee products from your computer at the same time. Allow me to show you how.

1. First, visit here and download the McAfee removal tool called McAfee Consumer Product Removal Tool (MCPR). Once downloaded, double-click on the file to execute the applying.

2. In this screen, click the “Next” button.

3. For whatever reason (security?), you have to enter a captcha. So, go into the displayed captcha and click on “Next”.

4. Now, sit back and wait. The McAfee removal tool will scan the body for any McAfee products and uninstalls them automatically. It will take quite a bit of time to complete the procedure.

5. Once done, click the “Restart” button to restart Windows 10 to get rid of any residual McAfee files.

That’s all. The removal tool will even remove leftover files from Program Files folder in C drive. So, it’s not necessary to bother to manually take them off.

How to Adjust the Windows 10 Volume from the Command Line

Posted on by

Adjusting the amount level in Windows 10 is dependant on just a few clicks, and needless to say, you can also perform the same thing if you’re already using a multimedia keyboard with dedicated volume keys.

But what if you want to do the entire magic from the command line? Is such a thing possible in Windows 10?

It’s, there are several third-party apps available allowing you to do that, but one from the easiest to make use of is known as SetVol.

Having a pretty self-explanatory name, SetVol is supposed to let you?- well, set the amount fitted device, all from the very basic command line interface.

The actual way it works is extremely simple and doesn’t even need you to install the app – SetVol ships in a ZIP archive, so just extract the files and then run the command line app to adjust the volume.

The very first thing you want to do after launching the app for the first time is turn on the help section, which is supposed to let you learn how to use everything in the command line. To get this done, run the app after which type:

setvol ?

You should then visit a listing of all commands based on the app and which you can use to regulate the volume of your Windows 10 device.

In addition to basic features like increasing and decreasing the mater volume, SetVol also enables you to configure channel levels for the configured audio devices. This can be done with the following command (provide a couple of seconds prior to the changes are created):

setvol balance [ratio]

For instance, if you want to use a 50:100 balance, the command may be the following:

setvol balance 50:100

However, should you just want to set the volume to some specific level, just type the fundamental command followed by the desired level (which must be something between 0 and 100), because it follows:

setvol 70

This allows you to set the audio level to 70.

If you want to decrease or increase the volume level by a certain percent, the commands are these two (the example below utilizes a 10% level as example, however, you can change it with any value you want):

setvol +10
setvol -10

SetVol also allows you to easily mute and unmute the actual volume, once again having a very simple command:

setvol mute
setvol unmute

Of course, as it’s the situation of any command line tool, you are able to combine these commands to adjust the actual level based on your requirements. For example, if you would like the audio level to become configured to 70 percent having a 50:100 balance, the command is the following:

setvol 80 balance 50:100

For almost all users, many of these don’t make any sense given you can always adjust the amount from the flyout in the system tray, however this little app enables you to automate tasks in a way that could really prove useful at certain times.

SetVol is working flawlessly on all Windows 10 versions currently on the market. I also tested the app on Windows 10 version 2004, the OS version that’s projected to launch early in the year of the year, and everything appears to be running as expected. Windows 10 version 2004 was already finalized and is now within the last testing phase, so you can try it out by enrolling in the Windows Insider program on Windows 10.