Most of the users of Windows 8 know that there are many new hidden features in it. One of the features is that in which date and time is displayed on the logon screen. Generally the Logon screen of Window 8 is a small application which helps in getting the next version of the Windows Log On feature in Windows 7 also. It is because Window 7 does not display same date and time on the logon screen.  The main benefit of this tool is that it does not display the default logon screen of Windows 7. This technique is similar to the “clear lock software” with the help of which you can add a transparent log on screen to Window 7’s desktop. Due to its beta version you can also experience so many bugs in it. Just after running these tools you can enjoy the transparent logon screen with date, time, user’s picture and Windows 7 edition name.

This tool does not replace the default Windows 7 logo screen. This utility is pretty much similar to “clear lock software” which adds a transparent logon screen to your Vista and Windows 7 desktop. Since the application is still in beta stage, you can see many bugs in this release. Once you run this utility, you will get the transparent logon screen with user picture, Windows 7 edition name, date and time. For accessing the desktop you have to enter the username in the box and then press the arrow button.

Download Windows 8 style Logon Screen Date & Clock

There are many cases when we have to run our applications and programs with administrative right. If you are using Windows 7 or Windows Vista then you must have admin rights for running programs. In Windows 8 when you right click on the programs then it will not display run as administrator option. While Run as administrator option is available when you right click on a program shortcut on the desktop, the same option doesn’t appear when you right click on program shortcut in the Start screen. So below are the steps for running the programs with admin rights in Windows 8.

• First switch in the Metro Start screen and then type the program name for seeing your program under the list of Application.

• Now right click on the programs name for seeing the advanced option.
• Now you have to hit the advanced option then select Run as administrator option.

Beta fish boot screen is included in Windows 8 leaked versions. A Deviantart user has developed a “Windows 8 Boot screen with the help of which you can enable your Beta fish boot screen in Windows 8. Below are the steps for using Windows 8 Boot screen skin. You may also like below mentioned posts.

How to use Internet Explorer 10 in Windows 8
How to Enable Hyper-V Manager in Windows 8
How to Change Windows 8 Start Menu Background Colors
8 Free Best Media Players for Windows

1. First you have to Download and extract the Window’s 8 Boot screen contents to a folder. Check that this skin must have two folders named as “skin files” and “Windows 7 Boot Updater”.
2. Now you have to run Windows 7 Boot updater and then save the current boot screen from the file menu by hitting the save boot skin.
3. Now from the file menu you have to choose “Load boot skin” and after that choose the Window’s boot skin aka Window’s 8 Boot screen ALPHA which is extracted earlier with Windows 7 boot updater.

4. You can view and play the Window’s 8 boot screen animation from Window’s 7 Boot Updater.
5. Now, you have to click on Apply button.
6. Restart your computer when prompted.
7. Now your Windows 8 Beta fish boot screen is ready for Window 7.

Download Windows 8 BootScreen

Most of the people in the World love Windows Operating System. Most of you have downloaded the latest developer’s preview of Window 8 Operating System. Since this downloaded Operating System is in its beta version so most of you must have installed it in Virtual Machine or you must have dual booted your Window 8 with some other Operating System.

Most of you also have tried Window 8 Operating System on VMware workstation and after using it on VMware station t is found that it is the only Virtual machine which can support Windows 8. Also the installation procedure takes only 10 minutes. Now after the starting of Windows 8 the first thing which you will notice in your Window 8 is the new Metro Interface. Initially you will face some problem with Metro Interface but after few attempts you can use it smoothly.

In the Metro Interface there are many Window 8 apps, when you click on these apps then none of them will work in the first attempt. So this is because Windows 8 does not have VMware Tools. But after the installation of VMware tools you can easily use all this apps perfectly. If you will try Internet Explorer in Windows 8 then you will observe that there are two version of Windows 8 Operating System, one of them is Metro UI and other one is the standard desktop browser. According to the Microsoft they use the same core. You can also see that Internet Explorer 10 is the similar program having two different skins. The Metro Interface of Internet Explorer 10 in Window 8 is a plug-in free i.e. here you can’t access Flash, Java contents and Silver Light. Remember that Metro Interface Browser is only for developers and not for general users.

The desktop version of this tool will continue to support browser plug-in and also other standard browser extension. The best thing is that both the general desktop version and Metro Interface of IE10 shares data among each other including history of browser, settings, favorite and address.

Most of the people have started testing recently released Windows 8 Developer Preview build. Many of Windows 8 Developer Preview users might have notices that the Microsoft have removed the previous start menu and replaced it with the new Start Screen. No option is available for changing the new start menu to the old start menu of Windows vista or Windows 7 style. So in this article I am going to share some information with the help of which you can easily change the new start menu to the old one. Two methods are there to do the same; I am going to discuss them one by one.

1. Using Registry Hack

In this method a small registry trick is used to enable the old start menu in Windows 8. (Note that these registry trick can disable new Metro UI stuff & ribbon in Windows Explorer.)

1. First of all press “WIN_R” key combination. Then type regedit > Enter. After that Registry Editor will open up.
2. Now you have to go to the following key: “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer”.
3. In right side pane, change value of “RPEnabled” to 0.
4. After this you can enjoy your old start menu in Windows 8.

2. By Renaming System File

In this method you have to rename a system file known as “shsxs.dll”. This will enable old Start Menu but will disable the new start screen. Like the above mentioned method this method will not disable Ribbon UI in Windows Explorer. You have to follow the given steps for doing the same.

1. First press “WIN+R” key for launching the RUN dialogue box and then you have to type %windir%. After that press Enter. A windows folder will open in front of you.
2. Now you have to look for a file named as “shsxs.dll”. Once the file is found, you have to rename it to “shsxs.dll.bac” (say). If you get an error while renaming the file, then first take the ownership of the file.
3. Now at last you have to restart your computer system and then you can enjoy your old Start menu.

If you are keeping a tab on Windows 8 new features and improvements, then you must hear about the inclusion of virtualization client in Windows 8. The Windows 8 include Microsoft virtualization manager and hyper version for proficient users, so that they don’t have to switch to Windows 8 Server in order to use Hyper- v client.

If you are not familiar with Hyper- V, also known as Viridian, it’s a hypervisor(hardware/ physical virtualization technique to run multiple guest Operating System, currently on host system) based virtualization system for x86-64 instructions set based system architecture and is already included in Windows Server 2008.

Windows 8 Hyper- V client supports one feature which is not there in Windows server 2008 R2 and that is sleep/ hibernate option. The recently released developer build of Windows 8×64 version comes with Hyper – V disabled, but you can easily enable both Hyper- V core and Management tools from the control panel. Just follow the below given steps for doing the same:

1. Firstly open the Metro control panel.
2. Now from left side select more settings to open control panel category view.
3. Now click on programs and features.
4. In the programs and features click “Turn Windows features ON or OFF” option present in left sidebar. This will open Windows feature.
5. Now enable Hyper-V checkbox, and expand it to view Hyper- V core and Hyper- V Management tools.  Make sure that both checkboxes are checked.
6. Now click OK.
7. After doing this Window 8 will start applying changes to features and then prompts you to restart your computer system. So click on “Restart Now”.
8. After rebooting the system you will see a Hyper-V Virtual Machine connection and Hyper- V manager shortcut tiles on Metro start screen.

Now you can easily import Virtual Machine from external storage medium and can create new ones.

If you have installed Windows 8 Operating System and now you want to know that how you can change Window 8 Metro start button then you must know that “My WDP Start Button” is the ideal tool to replace the default Windows 8 Start button with custom one. My WDP Start Button is a portable utility to change the default Metro Start with your own picture.

How to change Windows 8 Start Button:

1. First you have to download “My WDP Start Button tool”.
2. After that you have to launch the tool with admin rights.
3. Now click on the big picture the main image to change the Start button with an image composed of 3 orbs. Or, click on a small picture to select a single picture as Start button. (Please note that the picture file should be in PNG or Bitmap (32-bit) format.)

The tool will apply the Start button and then automatically restarts the explorer processor you. Wait for a few seconds to see the new Start button. (Please note that the tool may take a few seconds to minutes to restart the Explorer). You might see a blank screen while applying the new Start button. On our testing PC, it took 135 seconds to restart Windows Explorer. (Please note that the tool does not offer an option to revert to the default Start button. So, do not forget to create a system restore point before applying the new Start button, your Anti-virus software may warn you against this software. It is just a false positive.)

In newly launched Windows 8 you will find “green” as primary background color for copious user interface elements, ranging from Start Menu, Search, Share, and Setting pane, to User tiles and Login screen. If you are into customize Windows 8 new user boundary elements, you might like to alter the background color of Start Menu, right-side pane, login screen, etc. In this post I am going to cover 2 methods for altering Windows 8 Start Menu, Login Screen, Search, split, and Settings pane. (It must be noted that following methods can only be applied on 64-bit edition of Windows 8 Developer Build; you may not need to apply tweaks on final version of Windows 8, as it will have an in-built option to change background color of Metro user interface elements).

Both methods require advance read and write administrative privileges. You can either use Rizone Take Ownership tool to quickly replace the basic read and access permissions for System 32 system files with full read and write control or manually change System32 folder permissions from Advance Security dialog box accessible from Properties –> Security tab.

But before doing anything create backup of both uxtheme.dll and shsxs.dll files at a convenient location before applying tweaks. It is a very simple process and you can do it easily. So go ahead and follow the given points.

1. Edit Default UxTheme.Dll File: The first method is relatively difficult than second method, as it requires editing DLL file in Hex editor. First off, install HxD Hex Editor. Now move to System32 folder and search uxtheme.dll from Windows Explorer search bar. Copy the file to desktop and then open the copied version in Hex Editor. This method enables you to change Start Menu, as well as, right panes and login screen. To get started, bring up Goto dialog box via Ctrl+G hotkey combination and enter 096F30. Now under 00 01 02 03 columns replace the default OE 6D 38 FF values by custom RGBA color code.

   

    You can, for example, choose to replace the default color with D3 D3 D3 FF to apply grey background color. Using any color picker, like Instant Color Picker, or Just Color Picker, select color code of your favorite color and replace the first 6 Hex values under 00, 01, and 02 column with custom color code. This will only change colors of Windows 8 login screen and Start Menu. Nevertheless, if you want to change other UI elements as well, download the tutorial, open ‘Metro Customization – Hex Table’ text file and replace the Hex values of specified Hex offsets.

2. Using Tiles Series Purple: This method does not require tweaking with uxtheme.dll file manually. It includes pre-designed Start Screen and right-side panes by devaintArt member – thepanda-x. All you need is to take administrative read and write privileges of system 32 folder and then rename default uxtheme.dll and shsxs.dll files to uxtheme.dll.old and shsxs.dll.old, respectively. Once done, copy both uxtheme.dll and shsxs.dll files from downloaded folder to System32 folder. Now reboot your system to let changes made to uxtheme and shsxs DLL files take effect.

   

   Once rebooted, you will see purple login screen, right side panes, and Start Menu. It is advised that you should not remove uxtheme.dll.backup and shsxs.dll.backup in System32 folder; as they can be used to bring the default green Start Menu and other UI elements back. The Uninstall.bat file in tiles series purple folder will help you automatically apply default user interface color (green).