2019.08.17.00:04 UTC
http://click.enews.pcmag.com/click/g6xi-19oj1x-kkd30b-b5en1jq8/
As much as we like Windows 10—and we really do like it a lot—it’s got problems. Thankfully, many are easily corrected.
Prevent Sticky Keys:
- Prevent it from ever happening by hitting the Shift five times rapidly to bring up that very dialog box.
- Click the “Disable this keyboard shortcut in Ease of Access Keyboard Settings” and uncheck the box next to “Turn on Sticky Keys when SHIFT is pressed five times.”
A few pre-installed Windows apps can be deleted:
- Type PowerShell in the Windows searchbox.
- When you see it, right-click and launch it via Run as Administrator.
- Type in “Get-AppxPackage –AllUsers” without the quotes.
- A giant list of all the stuff you’ve got installed will appear.
- It’s hard to find those apps in there, but the last one will probably clearly read Microsoft.ZuneMusic
- That’s actually Groove Music.
- Copy everything it says on the line next to PackageFullName.
- You’ll then type in a command and paste that line, so it reads something like “remove-AppxPackage Microsoft.ZuneMusic_10.16122.10271.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe”
- Yours will be different after the first underscore character. Execute it with a stroke of the return key, and if you don’t get any errors, the Groove Music app should be gone. Be careful using this on other apps—be sure you’ve picked the right one.
Reset Windows:
- It does require a copy of Windows 10 on separate media.
- Don’t have the media?
- Get it: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
- Run it and install the included ISO file onto a 4GB or larger USB drive to use in the reset now and in the future.
- Or you can just mount it as a virtual drive in Windows 10.
- Double-click the setup on that media/drive’s Setup option
- Ask to download updates
- Check “Keep personal files and apps” when it appears.
- After a few more prompts and waiting, your Windows 10 system will get the refresh it needs.
Set Cortana to local mode:
- Open the Registry Editor: Type Windows+R, then type regedit and hit Enter.
- In Windows 10 Home, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search.
- If it’s not there, create it.
- Right-click it to create a DWORD value and call it AllowCortana.
- Set that value to 0 (zero).
- Once you sign out and come back, the search box will now read “Search Windows.”
- You can put Cortana back by doing all this again and setting the value to 1 (one).
Set the default browser:
- Make it the default, so anytime you open a link, it goes to the browser you want.
- Go to Settings > Apps > Default Apps, scroll down and click Web browser.
- A list will display all your installed browsers.
- Pick the one you want permanently.
- You can always go back to whatever Redmond thinks best later by clicking the “Reset to Microsoft Recommended defaults” button.
- If you get problems with certain links, ensure the file type (like .htm versus .html) or even protocols (like http:// versus https://) are all set to your browser of choice as well.
- Click Choose default apps by file type or Choose default apps by protocol on the same screen.
- Most new browsers will try to take back the default position when you launch them the first time, so if you speed through a setup, you may need to revisit these settings to go back to your original, preferred web browser.