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Don't Wait For Windows 8: Five Programs That Will Get You A Better Windows Now If looking at the clouds in the sky inspires you as much as it inspires Jonathan Miller, this desktop might be right up your alley. A few well placed and unobtrusive widgets positioned around the top and sides of the screen so they’re in view while he’s working, and some little fluffy clouds in the centre for when everything else is minimised, and you have an attractive, functional desktop that doesn’t get in the way of your work.
Dear Lifehacker, Am I able to restart my computer and have it automatically reopen whatever programs and files I had open? For instance, when I uninstall a program, it often asks me to restart to complete installation. However, I usually have numerous programs running, files that I’m editing, tabs open in Firefox and so on. To restart I have to save and close everything, restart, then reload and open everything. Surely there’s an easier way? Thanks, Boot Polish
If you’ve ever rebooted an ageing Windows PC, you’ve probably experienced the annoyance when the CHKDSK utility kicks in and decides to carefully and slowly check your drive for possible errors. CHKDSK isn’t disappearing entirely in Windows 8, but it is getting somewhat smarter.
Windows: Lots of videos have built-in thumbnails in Windows Explorer, so you can see a quick preview of each file, but this only works with popular video formats that work out-of-the-box in Windows. Media Preview is a small utility that adds preview thumbnails to nearly every video format you can think of.
Windows/Linux: Free image-editing tool GIMP has received a big update to version 2.8 that includes an overhaul to the interface and makes it a bit easier to use and navigate windows. It also comes packed with a bunch of bug fixes, a new layer groups option and new dock window management.
One final and possibly unwelcome clarification on media options in Windows 8. If you don’t install Windows 8 Pro and also buy into the Media Center upgrade, your computer may not play DVDs any more.
One major annoyance I discovered with Windows Vista was making the Details folder view stick. Fortunately, it wasn’t too difficult to fix with a registry hack and Windows 7 appears to have addressed the problem entirely. Something I’ve never been able to handle smoothly with the Details view is that, more often than not, directory and file names will be obscured by columns of insufficient width.
If you like the look of OS X but don’t want to give up all your games and programs — or if you just don’t want to buy a Mac — the Mountain Lion Skin pack will bring all the great looks and great features of OS X to your Windows desktop with one simple installation.
There was something of an outcry when Microsoft announced that Windows Media Center would only be available as an add-on to the Pro version of Windows 8. Microsoft has clarified that it will also be available to users of the Standard Windows 8 edition — but you will still have to effectively upgrade to Windows 8 Pro to get it.
Windows/Mac: If you have more than one computer at your workspace, ShareMouse will let you control them all with a single keyboard and mouse, as well as copy and paste text between them and drag files back and forth.
