How to make full use of Windows 8 Recovery features

You might know that Microsoft Windows 8 and above versions has impressive recovery features which you can use to get your operating system back on track if something goes wrong. These features include the familiar face of System Restore and the all new  Refresh and Reset options. Additionally, if your PC has come with a recovery partition, you can save space by creating a recovery drive in the form of a USB flash drive and deleting the recovery partition.

To find these features

Go to Charms bar (Win+C)
Click Settings
Click Change PC settings
Click Update and Recovery
Click Recovery and you will find Refresh and Reset options as below screen

Update and Recovery

If you want to delete everything and re-install windows you can do so from by using the Reset option

But, if you only need to repair your Windows installation and keep all your data, Refresh should be your choice. You will have to keep in mind that the Refresh option will remove all your Desktop applications and will leave you a list of applications removed during the Refresh process.

However, their's a neat trick that you can use to Refresh your OS while keeping all your software applications. 

Steps

1. Go to Start screen, type cmd, right click on Command Prompt and click "Run     as administrator"

2. Type the below command and press Enter
    recimg -CreateImage drive:\folder (don't forget to replace "drive:\folder"     with an actual location on your hard drive

Doing this not only create a recovery image (CustomRefresh.wim) on the given location, it also registers that image as the default and will be used when you Refresh your OS. 

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Useful keyboard shortcuts for Windows 8

Keyboard shortcuts not only makes your life easier, it makes you an instant expert in other peoples eyes. Therefore, knowing your way around the keyboard is never a waste of time. I have put together some extremely useful keyboard shortcuts that you can use on Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 (don't forget Windows 10 Technical Preview).

Ctrl + C = Copy
Ctrl + X = Cut
Ctrl + V = Paste
Ctrl + Z = Undo
Ctrl + A = Select all
Win = Start screen
Win + R = Run
Win + D = Desktop
Win + X = Advanced context meny
Win + L = Lock the session
Win + F = Search
Win + I = Settings charm
Win + U = Ease of Access
Win + C = Display Charm
Win + E = Windows Explorer
Win + Arrow keys = Snap
Win + O = Auto rotation on/off
Win + M = Minimize selected Window
Win + K = Display connect charm
Win + H = Share charm
Alt + Tab = Cycle through open apps
Alt + F4 = Closes the selected app/ Shut down
Ctrl + Shift + Esc = Task Manager
Ctrl + Alt + Del = Task Window

Note that some of these keyboard shortcuts can be used in other versions of Windows as well

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How to enable Hyper-V on Windows 8 and Windows 8.1

If you know what virtualization is and do make use of it for practical or educational purposes, the great news is that the latest client operating system from Microsoft, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 has Hyper-V, the same virtualization engine used in Microsoft Server operating systems such as Windows Server 2012 R2.

First of all you need to check whether your PC or laptop has the required features to support Client Hyper-V.

Prerequisites 

• 64bit processor with Second Level Address Translation (SLAT)
• BIOS-level Hardware Virtualization support

To check whether your machine supports above features 

Go to Run and type msinfo32 and hit enter

System Information

scroll down on System Summary tab and at the very bottom you can see if these features are supported and enabled.

If the Hyper-V - Virtualization Enabled in Firmware has it's value as "No", it is probably disabled in your BIOS settings. 

The actual name and the location of the setting may differ with the model of the PC (mine is HP ProBook 4540s and it shows as below)

Virtualization Technology (VTx) Settings

• 64bit operating system of Windows 8 (or 8.1) Pro or Enterprise
• 4GB or RAM (Minimum)

You can check these by going to System Properties

System Properties

Steps

Now that you are certain your machine and the operating system is supported

1. Go to Control Panel
2. Click Programs and Features
3. Click Turn Windows Features on or off

Windows Features

The Feature window will pop up and all you have to do is put the tick on Hyper-V (sub components will be selected automatically) and click OK. 

After a restart, The Hyper-V Manager will appear on the start screen.

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