Windows 8 introduced a new boot loader that decreased the speed that Windows 8 starts. Unfortunately, in order to do this Microsoft needed to remove the ability to access the Advanced Boot Options screen when you press the F8 key when Windows starts. This meant that there was no easy and quick way to access Safe Mode anymore by simply pressing the F8 key while Windows starts. Instead in order to access Safe Mode, you would need to either start Windows 8 and then tell it to restart into safe mode or for Windows to fail to start, where you could then tell Windows reboot again into safe mode. Regardless of how you did, it became a 2-3 step process to access the Windows 8 Safe Mode rather than a 1-step process that we have become familiar with.

If your C: drive starts to run out of space, one of the most frustrating experiences can be figuring out what can be deleted or moved to another drive in order to free up storage. This is especially true with modern computers that are commonly configured with small SSD drives as their C: drive, which can easily run out of space due to their smaller storage capacity. If you are using Windows Live Mail it will store your email by default on your C: drive. If you are like me and save almost all of your email, then your Live Mail mail store can grow to a very large size. Thankfully, the program provides the ability to easily change the location where your mail is stored so that you can you move it to another drive that may have more free space available. This tutorial will walk you through changing where your Windows Live Mail e-mail is stored.

If you are a system administrator, IT professional, or a power user it is common to find yourself using the command prompt to perform administrative tasks in Windows. Whether it be copying files, accessing the Registry, searching for files, or modifying disk partitions, command-line tools can be faster and more powerful than their graphical alternatives. This tutorial will walk you through creating a command-line toolkit that contains useful programs and utilities that can make administering and using your computer easier and more efficient. The tutorial will also walk you through configuring your PATH environment variable so that these tools are available whenever you need them without having to specify the complete path to your toolkit folder. At the end of the tutorial we have listed a variety of command-line programs that are included with Windows or are by 3rd party developers that you can use as part of your command-line toolkit.

The Windows 8 Start Screen contains tiles that allow you to launch an associated app. These tiles also have the ability to display notifications containing new information from that particular tiles application. For example, the Weather app will show updated weather information, the Stocks app will show recent stock quotes, and the News app will show the latest news stories. This tutorial will explain how you can clear these tiles when you logoff Windows 8.

In the Internet Explore app on the Windows 8 Start screen you can open different tabs that each contain a different a web page. This allows you to have multiple sites open at the same time that you can switch between as necessary. This tutorial will explain how to create new tabs, remove existing tabs, and switch between tabs in Internet Explorer on the Start Screen.

In Internet Explorer 10 you have the ability to switch between two different modes. The Windows UI mode is when use Internet Explorer from the Windows 8 Start Screen. The desktop mode is the normal full-featured desktop app and is opened on the Windows 8 desktop. When using Internet Explorer 10 from the Start screen it is possible to switch to the desktop mode and open the same you are currently viewing. This tutorial will explain how to switch to the Internet Explorer desktop mode when you need more features that are not available the in slimmed down app mode.

When you wake up Windows 8 after it has gone to sleep, you will be presented with the lock screen. You will then have to enter your password to start using Windows 8 again. For those who feel that their computer is in a secure environment, this feature can be annoying as it requires a few extra steps to get back to what you are doing. This tutorial will explain how you can disable the requirement to enter your password when you wake Windows 8.

A increasingly popular technique for rootkits is to install malicious drivers that start very early in the boot process. Malware launching in this manner makes it very hard to detect or remove infections without using specialized tools and techniques. To combat this, Microsoft has added a new feature to Windows 8 called Early Launch Anti-Malware Protection. This feature allows certified antivirus programs that support early launch to load their own driver before almost all Windows boot drivers. This antivirus driver will then scan each and every boot driver that attempts to load and depending on how early launch is configured and whether the driver was detected as malware, will block it from loading. If these malware boot-start drivers are unable to load, then the rest of the malware infection does not become activated and it is much easier for your antivirus software to remove the infection.

As malware continues to evolve, more computer infections are starting to use boot drivers to load rootkits and other types of malware early in the boot process. This makes detecting and removing these types of infections much more difficult. Windows 8 includes a very important security feature called Early Launch Antimalware that allows antivirus programs to scan boot drivers for viruses before they are loaded. If the boot driver that is about to initialize is considered malware the antivirus program can then prevent the malicious driver from loading.

Windows 8 has a feature where you can use a 4 digit PIN to sign-in to your Windows account. If you are a domain user, though, this feature is disabled by default. It is possible, though, for an Administrator to enable a policy that allows this feature to be used by domain users.