Is one of your apps or windows hidden off-screen? This is usually a problem for computers that have external monitors attached, but it can also happen due to issues with your settings. No matter the cause, we’ll teach you how to regain your hidden windows in seconds.

Because the kernel session is restored from the disk, your drivers never fully reinitialize after a "shut down." This leads to weird bugs where Bluetooth devices suddenly won't pair, USB devices aren't recognized, or your audio randomly isn't working. When you read the advice "restart your computer to fix the issue," it's because a restart is the only way to guarantee that everything actually starts from a clean slate. Turning the PC off and back on doesn't work like you'd expect, which is an extremely common problem. //

If you want your PC to actually shut down, you can do it with one command. Run PowerShell as administrator and run the following command:

 powercfg /h off

This disables hibernation entirely, which removes Fast Startup as a side effect and frees up any disk space used by the hiberfil.sys file. Every time you click shut down after that, your PC will completely shut down, just like restarting your PC or disconnecting the power.

Alternatively, clicking the Restart button will always work as you'd expect. If you don't care to disable Fast Startup, make sure to actually click Restart instead of clicking Shut Down.

Microsoft knows that these are all issues because PowerToys has fixes for all of them, except they're not fixes that make it into Windows 11.

Microsoft CTO confesses that 30-year-old code from the mid-90s still forms the bedrock of Windows 11 — ancient Win32 API still the backbone, but CTO says it's 'more relevant than ever in 2026' //

As Russinovich eloquently puts it, those of us invested in the computer scene in the 90s “were thinking flying cars and moon stations by the year 2026, not Win32.” The admission that such old software tech is still the "bedrock" of Windows today may be the CTO strategically sharing a cold, hard truth, providing a 'let's be real' moment as part of Microsoft’s latest charm offensive. //

Russinovich highlights that Win32 was also the bedrock for tools like Sysmon and ZoomIt, which he actually wrote back in 1996. These tools are now “more relevant than ever in 2026,” as parts of Windows 11 and PowerToys, respectively, reckons the CTO.

There are three types of file links supported in the NTFS file system: hard links, junctions, and symbolic links. Otherwise known as Reparse Points.

Hard Links can only be created for files. Any changes to that file are instantly visible to applications that access it through the hard links that reference it. Hard links do not support UNC paths (network paths that begin with \). Hard links to a file will not have a shortcut arrow icon on them.

Symbolic Links are soft links that are basically advanced shortcuts. You can create a symbolic link to a local or remote file, folder, or shares path, and that link will appear to be the same as the target source. Symbolic links do support UNC paths (network paths that begin with \). When you open a symbolic link, you will be redirected to the target source. Symbolic links will have a shortcut arrow icon on them.

Junctions (Directory Junction) are soft links that can only be created to a local folder (directory) path. Junction points make it appear as though folder (directory) actually exists at the location of the junction point, and your app won’t know any better. Junction points do not support UNC paths (network paths that begin with \). Junction points will have a shortcut arrow icon on them.

Deleting anything in the link/junction or target (source) folder will delete it in both folders.

Deleting the hard link, symbolic link, or junction point itself will not delete anything in the target (source) folder.

If the modern Settings UI is broken (sometimes seen after feature updates), the classic Date and Time dialog still works.

• Press Win + R, type timedate.cpl and press Enter.

When the Settings UI is unavailable, Windows provides command‑line tools to set or inspect time zone entries.
Key commands:

• Check current time zone: tzutil /g
• List available time zones: tzutil /l
• Set a time zone: tzutil /s "Time Zone Name" (the Windows time zone string, e.g., "Pacific Standard Time").

Originally, Flyby11 was a simple patcher to remove the restrictions stopping you from installing Windows 11 (24H2) on unsupported hardware.
Old PC? No TPM, no Secure Boot, unsupported CPU? Flyby11 let you install Windows 11 anyway.

After helping thousands upgrade, one thing became clear:
Bypassing checks is only half the battle.
We needed a full setup solution — one that respects user choices instead of Microsoft's defaults.

FlyOOBE was the next step:

Skip the fluff
Remove the junk
Take full control from first boot
Because your PC should work for you, not the other way around.
FlyOOBE keeps the original idea alive and pushes it even further.

Sharing is more dependable if every machine on the network has a credential built in credential manager for each of the other networked machines.

1. Open the Credentials Manager from the Windows Control Panel.
2. Go to Windows Credentials.
3. Click Add a Windows credential.
4. In the "Internet or network address" field, enter \ followed by the computer name or IP address of the computer sharing files or printers.
5. Enter the username and password for an administrator account for the machine you are trying to access. For example I network 4 computers. In each computer I created a credential for the other 3.

Note: Even if computers use the same user account name and password, even the same MS account, you still need to create a credential for it.

It must be a password, not a pin. While you can still use a pin to log in, you must restart the device and log into it using a password at least once for this to work.

Don't replace your fleet—revitalize it. Transform your existing PCs and Macs into secure, cloud-first endpoints. Deploy at scale from anywhere, with no complex IT requirements.

A retro computing connoisseur has installed and booted Microsoft Windows 3.1X on a Ryzen 9 9900X and RTX 5060 Ti PC system. That’s a 1992 OS working on a bare-metal 2024 Zen5 CPU and 2025 Blackwell GPU. The full story contains a few nuances, but basically, a system and OS separated by over 30 years of huge advances kind of play nicely together. //

This Asus motherboard’s ‘classic BIOS’ functionality doesn’t get in the way of users tinkering with old OSes like Windows 3.1X when the built-in Compatibility Support Module (CSM) is enabled. Moreover, we noticed Omores initially prepared the system using a Windows 95 boot floppy to create the bootable DOS FAT16 partition necessary for setup.

Open the Command Prompt as Administrator and run the Tasklist command; it will show you a list of all the running processes.

To view the processes, type Taskview and hit Enter.

To kill any particular process, use the Taskkill command. For example, to kill Chrome, run the command as:

Taskkill /IM chrome.exe /F

Where /F is used to kill the process forcefully. You can also kill any particular process by using its ID; the tasklist command displays the process ID’s as well. You can see the PID column in the screenshot. To kill any process using its ID, run the command as:

Taskkill /PID 2704 /F

Secure Boot is a feature of UEFI, and it's a requirement for any computer that wants to run a modern version of Windows. It exists to protect us against malware that infects your computer's bootloader. There's a security certificate stored in the UEFI which your computer uses to check the Windows bootloader, to ensure it's legitimately signed by Microsoft, and not an imposter.

So far, so good, but what happens when the certificate in your UEFI expires? Well, we're all about to find out.

There are two ways to run Caddy as a service on Windows: sc.exe or WinSW.

sc.exe

To create the service, run:

sc.exe create caddy start= auto binPath= "YOURPATH\caddy.exe run"

(replace YOURPATH with the actual path to your caddy.exe)

To start:

sc.exe start caddy

To stop:

sc.exe stop caddy

The "out of memory" pop-up says your'e running out of the limit on private committed memory—a type of virtual memory. Not that you're running out of RAM (physical memory). It doesn't matter how much available RAM you have. Having lots of Available RAM does not allow you to exceed the commit limit. The commit limit is the sum of your total RAM (whether in use or not!) plus your current pagefile size.

Conversely, what "uses up" commit limit (which is mostly the creation of process-private virtual address space) does not necessarily use any RAM! But the OS won't allow its creation unless it knows there is some place to store it if it ever needs to. So you can run into the commit limit without using all of your RAM, or even most of your RAM.

If you want to find out what's using committed memory you need to look at Task Manager's "Details" tab and enable the "Commit size" column.

Nor will the total of the "Commit size" columns add up to the "commit charge" (30.1 GB on your machine), because other things contribute to commit charge: Nonpaged and paged pool and some more "subtle" mechanisms like copy-on-write sections, pagefile-backed sections, AWE mappings... but these are usually small compared to process-private v.a.s.)

On that tab, the "Memory (Private working set)" column corresponds to what the "Processes" tab shows for "Memory". This is the RAM currently assigned to each process for its committed virtual address space. The remainder will be in the pagefile. But, again, processes have other types of address space, mostly of the sort called "mapped", and some fraction of that will be in RAM as well. There are other system-wide things created by the OS, not specific to any process, that use up RAM too.

To move the Windows 11 Start menu from the center to the left, right-click on the taskbar, select "Taskbar settings," then under "Taskbar behaviors," change the "Taskbar alignment" from "Center" to "Left." This will shift the Start button and other icons back to the left side of the screen.

Audit Mode is a special Windows setup environment used mainly by IT professionals and manufacturers. Unlike the normal Windows installation that takes you through the OOBE (where you create user accounts, set up privacy options, and connect to Wi-Fi), Audit Mode allows administrators to bypass this process.

Key characteristics of Audit Mode:

• Bypasses OOBE so the system can be configured before end-user access.
• Allows installation of drivers, applications, and updates.
• Enables creating and capturing Windows images for deployment.
• Provides administrator access without creating new user accounts.

You’ll know you are in Audit Mode if:

• You see a System Preparation Tool (Sysprep) window open automatically after login.
• The PC bypasses the OOBE setup process.
• The desktop shows an administrator account with no other user accounts available.

The most straightforward way to exit Audit Mode is by using the built-in Sysprep tool.

1. Boot your PC into Windows 11.
2. When the System Preparation Tool window appears, check the options carefully.
3. Under System Cleanup Action, select:
4. Enter System Out-of-Box Experience (OOBE).
5. Check the box Generalize if you want to remove system-specific data (optional, mostly for deployment).
6. Under Shutdown Options, choose Reboot.
7. Click OK.

If the Sysprep window does not appear automatically or you closed it, you can launch it manually through Command Prompt.

1. Press Windows + R, type cmd, and press Enter.
2. In Command Prompt, type the following command and press Enter: C:\Windows\System32\Sysprep\Sysprep.exe /oobe /reboot
3. Windows will reboot into OOBE, where you can set up your account and finish the installation process.

To automatically start a program in Windows 11, you can go to Settings > Apps > Startup and turn on the toggle for the desired app. Alternatively, you can place a shortcut of the program in the Startup folder located at

%userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\forcerunasinvoker]
@="Run without privilege elevation"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\forcerunasinvoker\command]
@="cmd /min /C \"set __COMPAT_LAYER=RUNASINVOKER && start \"\" \"%1\"\""

Save this text in <name_of_file>.reg and add it to the Windows Registry. (Double-clicking on it should do the trick.)

Afterwards, right-click the app you'd like to run without administrative privileges and select "Run without privilege elevation".

In some cases - small amount 0.1% of programs may ask twice about UAC prompt. //

You can add this to the registry for only the currently signed in user by changing the keys to :

and

Service Control - Create, Start, Stop, Query or Delete any Windows SERVICE. The command options for SC are case sensitive.