FIX THE WINDOWS PROBLEMS MICROSOFT NEVER WILL
Learn these clever do-it-yourself solutions
Protect yourself against deleted system restore points
You can delay Windows updates temporarily (longer on Windows Pro than Home), but they’ll get you in the end. What Microsoft doesn’t make clear, however, is that your treasured system restore points (SRP) may get wiped during an update, removing what you thought was a vital safety net.
Readers frequently contact us following major Feature updates (the latest is the April 2018 Update), asking what happened to their restore points. At the very least we think you should be warned about this at the start of the update process.
There’s no indication that updates will stop wiping SRPS, so you’ll need to take matters into your own hands. The best advice we can give is to regularly create a complete system image that backs up your entire hard drive.
The built-in system image tool in Windows 7 and 8.1 was removed from Windows 10 as part of 2017’s Creators Update (version 1703), but there are free alternatives. We recommend Macrium Reflect 7 Free Edition ( www.macrium. com/reflectfree), which lets you create images of your Windows partition or entire hard drive, letting you quickly reverse any Windows updates that are causing you problems.
Stop annoying low-space warnings
If one of your hard drives is starting to run out of space, Windows alerts you with a pop-up warning. While useful, it can become tiresome being badgered about a drive that you’re more than happy to be nearly full.
When we recently filled up a secondary drive on our PC, we were bombarded with low-space warnings every few minutes. Clicking the warning icon in the notification area of the taskbar temporarily silences the alerts, but they will appear again next time you restart Windows.
Thankfully, there is a DIY fix. Be warned that it stops all low-space warnings – and if the drive Windows is installed on runs out of space, your computer may slow to a crawl. The fix also involves tweaking the registry, so we’d recommend backing up before proceeding.
First, click Start, type regedit, rightclick the ‘regedit’ icon at the top of the Start menu, then select ‘Run as administrator’. Next, in the left-hand pane, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_ User\software\microsoft\windows\ Currentversion\policies\explorer. From here, click Edit, New, then select the DWORD option in the list. An entry will appear in the right-hand pane labelled ‘New Value #1’. Right-click this entry, select Rename, and type Nolowdiskspacechecks (see screenshot below). Finally, double-click the entry, set ‘Value data’ to 1, then click OK. All those low-space warnings will now be banished. To reverse the change, set the Nolowdiskspacechecks value to 0.
Edit read-only docs in Office
For some Microsoft Office users, the Windows 10 Anniversary Update in August 2016 was no cause for celebration.
Shortly after it was released, reports emerged of Word, Excel and other Office documents opening in read-only mode, preventing any edits being made.
Microsoft acknowledged the problem, suggesting several workarounds ( www. snipca.com/28148), one of which blames overzealous antivirus tools. However, it also admits an official fix is still a work in progress. Until it arrives, your only option is to save a copy of the read-only document and edit that instead.
Shut down without updating
Shutting down your computer should be quick and painless. But when Microsoft releases updates, the ‘Shut down’ option is replaced with ‘Update and shut down’. Because updates often take a while to install, this can be annoying if your battery is running low or you’re in a hurry. One way to bypass updates is to hold down the power button and force your PC to switch off. However, this can corrupt your data, so we don’t recommend it.
A better option is to run a DIY hack that permits Windows to shut down without installing the updates and without the risk of data damage. First, save your work and close all running programs. Next, click Start, type CMD, right-click the Command Prompt option, then select ‘Run as administrator’. Now type shutdown /f /p (see screenshot below left), then press Enter. The ‘/f’ means all programs will be forced to close; while the ‘/p’ tells Windows to shut down immediately without running a timer. Windows will now shut down without updating. You shouldn’t make a habit of this, though. Many updates include important security fixes, so it’s best to install them as quickly as possible.
Change your program’s background colour
All Windows problems are annoying, but they hurt a little more when they’re the result of Microsoft dropping a previously useful feature. Back in the days before Windows 10, you could use the Control Panel to quickly change the default white background of programs to something that’s easier on the eye – great for those who stare at Excel spreadsheets all day, for example. Microsoft dropped this option in Windows 10, leaving its customers to wrestle with the registry to change things.
To turn down your programs’ background brightness levels, click Start, type regedit, right-click the ‘regedit’ entry at the top of the menu, then select ‘Run as administrator’. Next, navigate to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\CONTROL Panel\
Colors, right-click the ‘Window’ entry located in the right-hand pane, then select Modify.
The numbers (255 255 255) indicate the current background colour of white. To go for something less blinding, type 200 200 200 (take care to include the spaces) – lower values will result in a darker colour. Our screengrab above shows Excel at this lower value. Restart your PC for the changes to take effect.
Restore Outlook’s drag-and-drop function
For many years, some Microsoft Outlook users have complained that they can’t drag emails between folders. It doesn’t affect everyone (drag-and-drop works fine in our version of Outlook 2016), but if you’re experiencing this bug, it can be very annoying. Microsoft has recognised the problem on its Office forum ( www. snipca.com/28161), but has yet to fix it.
Improvised solutions have appeared in other online forums. One of the crudest, but seemingly most successful, is to hit the Escape key repeatedly when the drag-and-drop element isn’t working. It’s the computing equivalent of giving your old TV set a whack to get the picture back.