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Continuum : The next paradigm shift

Continuum, as the name somewhat suggests, provides you with an always handy & continued Windows Experience. Continuum started or was introduced as an answer to touchscreen & desktop experiences in Windows. Earlier with Windows 8, it was very much a universal computing experience, be it a tablet or a desktop | laptop.

With Continuum, Windows now has the capability to switch between tablet & desktop mode based on either the hardware you are using ( touchscreen setup ) or if your device supports a flip to tablet experience. You connect a keyboard | Mouse to your touchscreen setup, Windows detects it and goes into the normal PC | Desktop mode, where you get your usual Windows desktop & your apps go in to the mode where they can be easily resized or dragged, changed with Mouse & Keyboard.

Similarly, if you go into tablet mode, all your apps go full screen & are optimized for touchscreen & gesture support. This makes the new Continuum feature an amazing addition to Windows 10.

Now, that’s not all. With every new build, continuum is getting more polished & feature enriched. A recent blog post for Build conference showcases a video that shows how continuum can prove to be the next paradigm shift in always handy & always on computing.

Check out the video below:

May 3, 2015
Fix : Error 0x800F0906 in Windows 8
This post deals with the Windows Component error in Windows 8, where on running the DISM tool to scan health of the Windows image, you get an error 0x800f0906 in Windows 8. Below are the steps you can use to fix this error using Command prompt.
- Open Windows power menu ( Windows logo key + X)
- Open / Click on Command Prompt (Admin)
- Now type,
- net stop wuauserv (press Enter)
- cd %systemroot%\SoftwareDistribution (press Enter)
- ren Download temp (press Enter)
- net start wuauserv (press Enter)
- net stop bits (press Enter)
- net start bits (press Enter)
- net stop cryptsvc (press Enter)
- cd %systemroot% \system32 (press Enter)
- ren catroot2 temp2 (press Enter)
- net start cryptsvc (press Enter)
This should solve your problem, if not, please use the comment section to tell me & I will try to help further.
May 2, 2015
Using DISM to repair Windows Image : Windows 8
After reading this post you will be able to reset the & check the Windows system image for corruption or damaged files. This in turn helps you fix various small issues associated with your Windows Computer, specifically the components that use the Windows image access. Below are the steps to use a built-in Windows tool to scan & repair the Component store in Windows 8.
- Press Windows logo key + X ( to open the power menu )
- After the Command prompt opens,
- Type SFC /SCANNOW
- Let the process complete.
- Restart your computer
- Again, open the elevated command prompt as indicated above
- Now,
- Type dism /online /cleanup-image /scanhealth
- Now,
- type dism /online /cleanup-image /checkhealth
- Now,
- type dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
This Should solve the issue related to the Windows Component Store corruption. Please feel free to use the comments section to provide feedback or suggestions.
May 1, 2015
Fix: Diagnostics Policy Service not running in Windows 8 | 8.1
This post helps you solve an issue with your windows 8 | 8.1 PC, where, The diagnostics policy service is not running. There could be a few causes of this problem. Some of them include a device driver issue that’s stopping the service due to a conflict. A malware or other issues relating to a system service corruption.

Here are a few steps that can help you fix this issue:

Method 1
- Press Windows logo key + X (to open the power command menu )
- Now, Click on Device Manager
- Here, locate Network Adapters, Right Click your network adapter
- Click on Update Driver software
- Alternatively, you can download and install the updated version of your network adapter’s driver software from your motherboard / computer manufacturer’s support website
- Restart your computer & check if the problem is solved.
Method 2 : Starting the Diagnostics policy service
- Press Windows logo key + R
- Type services.msc
- Locate the service Diagnostic Policy Service
- Right Click the service
- Click on Properties
- Now, here, make sure that the service is started,
- if not, start it
- & set the startup type to Automatic
- Apply , OK
- Check if the problem is solved.
Method 3: Using the Windows Network Diagnostic
- Right Click the network icon on taskbar
- Click on Troubleshoot Problems
- After the process completes,
- Click on Try these repairs as an administrator
- Check if this solves your problem.
Method 4 : Command line
- Press Windows logo key + X ( power menu )
- Click on Command Prompt (Admin )
- Now, type
- net localgroup Administrators /add networkservice
- Press Enter
- Now, Again type,
- net localgroup Administrators /add localservice
- Press Enter
- You will get a message saying “ Command completed successfully”
- Exit the command prompt & check if this solves your problem
Hope this helps, You can drop in a line in the comments section below, if you have any suggestions or feedback.
May 1, 2015
Fix : Windows 8.1 error 0X800F081F
This post will help you fix an issue with your Windows 8.1 based PC, where you get an error 0x800F081F. This error can occur due to corrupted Windows update files or certain hardware failures or device driver issues. Follow the methods below to solve this issue:

Method 1 : Update Device Drivers
- Go to Windows Update,
- Go to the start screen
- Type Windows Update
- Select from Optional Updates section
- Check all the Hardware device driver updates available
- Alternatively,
- you can visit your Motherboard / Computer Manufacturer’s website to download and install the latest drivers.
Method 2 : System Update & Readiness tool
- CheckSUR tool, can be used to check & replace the damaged & missing files in Windows Update
- Press Windows logo key + X to open the power menu
- Click on Command Prompt (Admin)
- Now,
- Type dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /scanhealth
- When the process completes,
- type
- dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
- After the operation completes, Restart your computer
- Run Windows update to check if the problem has been solved.
April 30, 2015
How to remove | rollback Windows 10 preview
After reading this post you will be able to remove or roll back the Windows 10 Technical preview installed on your PC. I have been testing the Windows 10 TP from early stages & I always install any beta ( preview ) OS as multi boot & another copy as a Virtual Machine. Now, removing a VM is a fairly easy task, but uninstalling a dedicated OS is not to easy. To solve this issue, Microsoft came up with an easier solution that enables the testers / users, to uninstall or rollback the Technical Preview / Insider preview. They now have a dedicated entry on the boot selection menu that lets you remove or rollback the preview without much hassle. So, follow the steps below to rollback or uninstall the Insider preview.
- Startup your Computer
- On the boot selection menu
- Select Windows Rollback.
- Keep the system running & your Technical preview will be removed.
Hope this helps.
April 28, 2015
Windows 10 TP Build 10061 | Info

Recently, the Windows 10 build 10061 was released to the “Fast ring” testers. This build is was pushed via the windows update process. Here is what’s new in this build.

Improvements to Action Center, Taskbar & Start

With this build, the start menu can be resized and has a transparency effect. The power button has now been moved to the bottom left of the start menu making it better accessible. The start menu now features an automatic color enhancement technique, which is pulled off from the existing desktop background.

With start menu, the taskbar & action also gets the transparency effect & we can now change the color scheme across these by using the settings app & navigating to the personalization settings. This build now features the all new “ Black system” theme across Taskbar, Start menu & Action center. With that, the task view has received several updates, the icons are more refined, the thumbnails and buttons seem to be more polished. The Switch app ( ALT+Tab) and snap assist are also updated with this interface optimization.

New Mail & calendar Apps

The new email app features this new & amazing email authoring experience, which makes you use almost all the features and experience of Microsoft Word, that includes, inserting tables, adding pictures and bullets & giving different colors to your text. The UI functionality on the new email & calendar apps features the three pain UI, which is very familiar to Windows users & lets you toggles very efficiently within Mail & calendar apps. The mail app supports customizable swipe gestures which are very handy. Office 365 is supported out of the box & these apps also support exchange, outlook & other IMAP & POP accounts.

Thank you for reading this post, more feature reviews coming soon.

April 27, 2015
EMCO MSI Package Builder – Hassle Free Way to Silently Deploy Applications

EMCO MSI Package Builder – Hassle Free Way to Silently Deploy Applications

What you would do if you’ve to visit each system residing on the network just to install one or two applications?? Obviously, you can do this if the number of systems were fewer or there are merely any need for installing applications. However, this seems quite challenging and full of trouble if you’ve repeat this task over and over again. Need of a tool has been arisen that could saves you from such repetitive activities and automates the whole task of deploying applications on networked computers.

I’ve recently came across a tool entitled EMCO MSI Package builder that offers flawless operation of remotely deploying applications as much as you want. It’ll take your traditional setup files (EXE format) into account and make it ready to install on computers connected over network without needing any interaction from end user part.

What is MSI Packages?

MSI is a windows installer file format that is used to package almost any type of setup files to perform installation on the client computer. MSI files can be used for remote application deployment, performing storage related tasks and removing bogus or any other desired programs from the targeted computer. This will save your ample amount of time by collecting multiple setup files into one single package and perform installation one by one.

Need of MSI Package Builder Tool

MSI Builder tool is designed to help support professionals and network administrators in managing applications on networked computers like install, repair, update or remove programs. It offers an easy to build operation of creating MSI packages and easily distributing it over network.

You can find more details on converting exe to MSI over here:

http://emcosoftware.com/msi-package-builder/convert-exe-to-msi

Anyone can choose to create and distribute MSI packages using changes tracking technology or manually by using visual editor, the said two methods are inbuilt into the application and can be used as per requirement.

The most important and worth noticing features is its capability to perform silent installations on network computers. Silent signifies that the created MSI packages will be distributed on computers using Microsoft Group policy and doesn’t requires any participation on the end user side.

What all it takes?

From the above figure, you can have a clear idea about everything you’ll need to perform silent remote installation of any applications. Just define the project name, choose source location of targeted setup file you are going to deploy, system platform and few more. After which, tool will begin creating MSI package for that particular application and let you deploy it freely on any system. Below mentioned link contains the detailed step on how you can easily create MSI packages along with its distribution:

http://emcosoftware.com/msi-package-builder/create-msi-package

Final Thoughts

EMCO MSI Package Builder is a powerful installation authoring tool that provides unique capability and functionality to support engineers and helps in greatly reducing overall effort and time in distributing applications over networked computer. Basically, this application is available in two versions: Professional and Enterprise. The company also offers 30 days free evaluation period for this application to test it yourself and decide.

Have you ever tried any such tools or experienced difficulties in remote application deployment, feel free to share it with us!!

April 26, 2014
Fix : Cannot change Internet Explorer Start page | Home Page
This post is intended to help those users, who are unable to :
- Change their IE home page | Start Page
- Change the Search page
- Change the Default Search Provider
In many situations today, add-on programs get installed in our computers. This could be due to installing software through some Internet agency’s download manager or a free software that had some add-on program clipped on to it & that installed without your permission. Recently, I faced a similar issue & I tried everything to reset my Internet Explorer’s start page or homepage. Nothing seemed to work, I even uninstalled & reinstalled the Internet Explorer, cleared the Temp folder & all offline files etc. etc.

Below is the procedure that worked for me to Fix : Cannot change Internet Explorer Homepage | Start Page :

Method 1 :
- On your taskbar or Desktop
- Right Click the Internet Explorer Icon
- Go to it’s properties
- Now,
- In the Target Window, check the whole target link
- Check if there is a link at the end of the line ( refer the screenshot below )
- Remove the link from the end
- & make sure that you put double quotes at the end i.e. right after iexplore.exe
- Click Apply
- Click Ok
- Now,
- Open Internet Explorer
- Press ALT + X
- Click on Internet Options
- Click on Advanced
- Click on Reset
- After the resetting process completes
- Restart your computer
- Check to see if this solved your problem
If you still cannot reset Homepage , try the method below

Method 2
- Open Regedit ( Windows Logo key + R & type regedit in the box & press Enter )
- Press yes
- Now, the first thing you should do is to backup your Registry
- Right Click on Computer
- Click on Export
- Give a file name & Click on Save
- Now,
- Locate HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main
- Refer the screenshot above & Change the Default_Page_URL , Default_Search_URL, Search Page & Start Page to about:blank or anything you like
- Now, repeat the above said steps with HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MAIN
- Now,
- Locate HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchScope
- Here, Delete the entry any secondary entry, other than Bing or Google ( refer Screenshot )
- Repeat the steps with HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchScopes
- Now,
- Locate : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Clients\StartMenuInternet\IExplore.exe\shell\open\command
- here, double click Default
- Either Remove any link that appears after iexplore.exe or add the name of your favourite website ( Refer Screenshot above )
- Click ok
- Exit Regedit
- Restart your computer
- Check if your problem is solved
Hope this helps you. If not , or if you have any query, use the comment section to notify me & i will try to help.
February 5, 2014
Fix : Sleep mode not working after upgrading to Windows 8.1
After reading this post you will be able to fix an issue with your Windows PC, where, on upgrading to Windows 8.1 from Windows 8, you are unable to put your computer to a sleep power state. Windows 8.1 has been a major update for Windows 8 and has brought a lot of features to the initial Windows 8 release. But, some times, due to Reset Power settings
- Press the Windows logo key + X
- Click on Command Prompt ( Admin )
- Now,
- Type restore all your power schemes to the default Windows State.
- Restart your PC
- Now,
- Go to Power Options (Type Power options on the start screen & Click on the search result )
- Make sure the Balanced Power plan is activated
If this does not Turn on Hybrid Sleep & Selective suspend
- Go to Power Options ( Control Panel )
- Click on Change Plan Settings ( Of your Current Power Plan )
- Now,
- Click on Change advanced power settings
- Click on Change settings that are currently unavailable
- Now,
- Make sure Allow Hybrid Sleep is set to ON
- Also, make sure USB Selective Suspend is also set to ON
Check if your Problem is solved. If you still Upgrading to Windows 8.1, make sure that you update your:
- USB Drivers
- Display Drivers
- Chipset Drivers
- SATA / AHCI drivers
- To do so, Either run Windows update
- or
- Go to your Computer / Motherboard / Display ( Graphics ) Manufacturer’s support website & download / Install the proper drivers
- Now, for the settings :
- Go to the Device Manager ( Windows Logo key + X – > Device Manager )
- Expand Network Adapters
- Right Click the network adapter listed there ( If there are more than one, repeat this step for all of them )
- Go to Properties
- Go to Power Management
- Uncheck the Checkbox that says “ Allow this device to wake the computer “
- and
- Make sure that the checkbox “ Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power” is checked.
If this does not solve the problem, follow Method 4

Method 4 : Leave HomeGroup
- If you are using a Home Group for sharing, try leaving it
- Go to HomeGroup in Control Panel
- Click on Leave Homegroup
- Restart your PC
Method 5 : Testing what it could be

The Basic steps of troubleshooting anything, is to cross of any possible culprits, one by one.
- Disable Network before putting your computer to sleep
- Go to Network & Sharing Center ( Control Panel )
- Click on Change Adapter Settings
- One by one, Right Click all the listed adapters and click on Disable
- Now,
- Check if your computer goes to sleep.
- If it does, you have narrowed your trouble down to a network adapter.
- Enable the adapters one by one to pin point the exact adapter that is causing trouble
- To Enable the adapters:
- Right click – > Enable
- If you pin point the network adapter that is causing trouble, try updating it’s device drivers
- Remove non-essential ( add-on ) devices for the time being
- You might have some USB Devices like printer / scanner / USB storage etc. plugged in to your system.
- It is possible that one of the devices is causing your computer to not go into sleep mode.
- To check :
- Unplug the devices one by one & after each device is removed, try putting your computer to sleep
Hope this helps you. For any queries, please use the comments box
February 2, 2014