There are numerous ways to show the desktop on Windows 7 and 8, and some new ones that are often overlooked.

How to Show your Desktop

The easiest way of course is to click on the “show desktop” bar, in the notification bar area next to the clock in the lower right hand corner. In this picture below, look at where the red arrow is pointing.

There is an often overlooked but really neat feature that is built into Windows 7 and 8. This feature is not included Windows 7 Starter or Home Basic,

Shake the Title Bar

By simply grabbing the Title Bar at the top of any window and shaking it side-to-side, you can minimize and maximize all the other open windows all at one time. The image below shows where to grab, and shake.

Other Handy Windows Shortcut Keys

Press the Windows logo key +D. To restore minimized windows, press the Windows logo key +D again.

Press the Windows logo key +M to minimize open windows, and press the Windows logo key +Shift+M to restore them.

Starting with Windows 8 and Microsoft Server 2012, Microsoft removed the Shortcuts for Shutdown, Restart, Control Panel, and the Startup Menu.

Here are some useful shortcuts to get to all this and more.

If you press WINDOWS KEY + X, this will bring a menu were the START button used to be, with shortcuts to all the missing buttons.

Also you can press WINDOWS KEY + I, and this will bring up the left hand side menu with shortcuts for Control Panel and for Shutdown,  Power Off, and Restart.

Large MS keyboard

If you want to get to the STARTUP menu to add items you would like for Windows to load at startup, the easiest way is to do this through the RUN box.

Instructions for accessing the STARTUP Menu on Windows 8 and Microsoft Server 2012.

1: Press WINDOWS KEY +R, this will bring up the RUN dialog box.

2: Type into the RUN dialog box SHELL:STARTUP

Once you press enter is will automatially open the entire folder to the STARTUP folder, the very same you had on all versions of Windows up to but not including Windows 8.

You can then paste shortcuts into the box.

Help, the START menu is gone! How do I get to the CONTROL PANEL, how do I SHUTDOWN? What was Microsoft thinking?

(Here is a link to our article with some helpful shortcuts to geto allot of buttons that have been removed.)

If you find yourself in this situation, your not alone. Allot of people were so frustrated with the interface for Windows 8, Microsoft had to come up with the 8.1 patch in order to make it more like the older versions Windows.

THIS IS WHAT WINDOWS 8.1 LOOKS LIKE – NOTICE THE START MENU IS BACK

You will need to register an account with the Microsoft for new product downloads and certain types of downloads such as the Windows 8.1 update.

If you would like to upgrade to 8.1, here is the link to Microsoft website.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/upgrade-to-windows-8

Space City Tech recommends people upgrade  to Windows 8.1 if the computer is a desktop and has no touchscreen.

Symptom: I can connect to the Internet but I keep getting an error in the lower right hand corner telling me I don’t have internet access.

Starting with Windows Vista, Microsoft added a service called Network Connectivity Status Indicator (NCSI) service. NCSI does not log anything into Event Viewer.

NCSI (Network Connectivity Status Indicator) or Network Awareness is unable to test for certain websites, and even though you can surf the web, NCSI cannot test for specific sites.

The error occurs because Windows cannot access and verify website that were pre-programmed by Microsoft to test for Internet access.

If you have a content filter in place such as Sonic Wall or other types of filtering to remove objectionable material, most likely certain websites and addresses are being blocked.  The information is supplied to the user by NCSI (Network Connectivity Status Indicator), or Network Awareness.

Network Awareness queries DNS for a host name, and then connects to that host name via HTTP. Content filters are designed to block web traffic that has not been permitted. This is the main cause of the error “No Internet Access” to be displayed.

The Steps Windows takes to test Internet Access are as follows:

1: The computer will query DNS for “dns.msftncsi.com” and ensure that it resolves to “131.107.255.255”.

2: If DNS is functioning, Windows will request the following web address “http://www.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt” to ensure that it results predefined text: ”Microsoft NCSI”.

How to fix this error:

1: ensure the computer can query the DNS records and Windows can access the website;

2: use a registry entry to disable this feature in Windows.

Disable Via Registry Entry

To disable this feature you will have to modify the registry with this value:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NlaSvc\Parameters\Internet

Under the “Internet” key, double-click “EnableActiveProbing”, and then in “value data” type “0”.

The default for this value is 1. Setting the value to 0 prevents NCSI from connecting to a site on the Internet connectivity checks.