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How to disable the blur effect on the Windows 10 login screen

transparency effectWith the general widespread deployment of the Microsoft Windows 10 May 2019 Update, you may have noticed one particular change in your PC’s behaviour more than the others – this update blurs the background image on the standard login screen.

This change may not appeal to all users, but there are three ways to disable this effect.

1. How to disable the blur effect using the Personalization Settings

The blur effect created by the Windows 10 May 2019 Update is, in reality, a transparency effect and can easily be turned off through the Personalization Settings. Click or tap the Start Menu button in the lower left-hand corner of the Windows 10 desktop and select the Settings icon. Choose Personalization from the list of settings and select the Colors item found in the left-hand navigation menu.

Scroll down the page until you see Transparency effects. If you turn off ‘transparency effects’ the next time you reboot your PC and log in, the blur effect will be gone. The downside with this option is that all the other transparency effects common to the Windows 10 Operating System will disappear as well. This may not be the result you were looking for. However, you do have two more alternatives.

2. How to disable the blur effect with an edit of the Registry File

If you need to amend the Windows Registry always make sure that you back up your Registry settings before proceeding and create a valid Restore Point before you proceed.

If you would like to disable the blur effect, but only for the Windows 10 login screen, you can do this by editing the Registry File. Type “regedit” into the desktop search box and select the registry editor from the results. In the editor, navigate to this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System

As you will see there are no values in the System folder, so you will have to create one.

Right-click the System folder and select New | DWORD (32-bit) Value and give it the name DisableAcrylicBackgroundOnLogon. Double-click the new key and change its value to 1, and click OK.

This change will disable the blur effect from the Windows 10 login page but will maintain all the other transparency effects.

3. How to disable the blur effect with Group Policy settings

If you have Microsoft Windows 10 Professional, you can disable the blur effect with the Local Group Policy Editor and avoid the hassle and danger of editing the Registry File.

Type “group policy” into the Windows 10 desktop search box and select the editor from the list of results. In the editor, navigate to this folder:

Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\Logon

In the right-hand list of settings, find the ‘Show clear logon background item‘.

Double-click the ‘Show clear logon background’ item to open the group policy settings screen. Change the setting to Enabled, click OK, and you will have successfully disabled the blur effect from the Windows 10 login page.

If you ever want to reenable the blur effect, navigate to the same group policy setting, and change it to Disabled.

How to know when your Solid State Drive could fail

Crucial 500GB SSDThe main difference between Hard Drives and Solid State Drives (SSD’s) is this: The area of a hard drive that can hold data can be rewritten as many times as is needed, and will always be usable as long as the drive is functioning (until bad sectors begin to cause problems). This is not the case with SSD’s: Each cell that holds data can only be written to, or programmed, a finite number of times before it is effectively dead. That’s because every time a write operation needs to be performed, any data in the cell has to be erased before it’s used. This process of writing/erasing/rewriting causes wear and tear on the cells and erosion of the insulator between cells. So eventually, individual cells can no longer hold a charge.

Different types of flash memory have different life cycles depending on how many bits there are per cell. Fewer bits equal fewer problems over time, and more bits seem to cause more issues.

The most common form of flash in SSD’s is called MLC, which stands for Multi-Level Cell. This means each cell can hold two bits of data, and this type of flash, generally speaking, can handle 3,000 or so cycles of erasing the cells and reprogramming them.

More recently, SSD manufacturers are using a type of flash called TLC, which stands for Triple-Level Cell. This adds one more bit to each cell, thus improving density – but at the cost of endurance. This type of flash can generally withstand 1,000 cycles, or about one-third the endurance of MLC.

All this means your SSD has a finite lifespan, usually measured in “terabytes written” (TBW). Manufacturers don’t often quote these numbers, and your SSD might die way before it hits this magic number, or long afterward, depending on a multitude of factors.

Typically, most SSD’s that are heavily used will last at least 5 years and possibly even longer.

Coveniently most SSD’s include software that will tell you how much data has already been written to your drive.

Different brands of SSD’s offer their own utilities. Here are links for Crucial, Sandisk, and Intel.

You can also use a third-party tool – Crystal Disk Info

If Windows 10 Update stops Working

Windows Update ProblemsA lot of people have reported issues with Windows Update in Windows 10 Home and Widows 10 Professional. Check first that you have upgraded to the ‘Windows 10 Fall update’. If you are still getting problems, download and run the ‘Windows Update Trouble Shooter’, then reboot and try Windows Update again.

If the update problems still persist, first check that System Restore is configured and create and name a restore point. With this done, use the Windows Search box and type ‘command prompt’ (without the quotes)’. When it appears at the top of the list right click it and select ‘Run as Administrator’.

When the Administrators Command Prompt opens type cd/ and then type ‘net stop wuauserv’ (without the quotes) and hit Enter, followed by ‘net stop bits’ and Enter. You should see confirmations that each service was either stopped or wasn’t running.

Next, open Windows Explorer, navigate to C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution, and delete its contents including any sub-folders you find there.

Now reboot your PC, open Windows Update and click Check for updates. Hopefully, these steps should resolve any problems you have been experiencing with Windows Update.

If Windows 10 Lock Screen Gets in the Way

If you return to a locked Windows 10 device you will normally see a pretty picture. That’s all very nice, but it’s a needless obstacle in the way of logging into Windows 10.

If you want to disable this use the Start Menu to search for ‘regedit’ and run the Registry editor.

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows. If you don’t already see a key named ‘Personalization’, select the Windows key, right-click it, choose New>Key and rename this new key to Personalization. Right-click the Personalization key, choose New again then select DWORD (32-bit) Value. Select ‘New Value #1’ in the right-hand pane and right click it and select Rename. Now rename it as NoLockScreen. Now double-click NoLockScreen and change its Value data to 1 and click OK. After a reboot, the lock screen will be gone!

What Can You Disable in Windows 10’s Task Manager Startup List?

Task Manager Startup Tab and impactOne reason your Windows 10 PC may feel a bit sluggish is that you’ve got too many programs running in the background – programs that you may never use, or only rarely use. If you stop some of these programmes from running, your PC will run a bit more smoothly.

To start this process, right click your Taskbar and select Task Manager from the list of options. Now click on the Start-up tab. (If you don’t see any tabs, click the More details link at the bottom to expand Task Manager to show all the tabs)

Once you click the Start-up tab you will see a list of the programs and services that launch when you start up your Windows PC. Included in the list is each program’s name as well as its publisher and whether it’s enabled to run on start-up or not. It also shows the program’s “Start-up impact,” which is how much it slows down Windows 10 when your PC starts up.

To stop a program or service from launching at start-up, right-click it and select “Disable.” This doesn’t disable the program entirely; it only prevents it from launching at start-up – you can always run the application after launch if you need to use it. Also, if you later decide you want the program to launch at start-up, you can just return to this area of the Task Manager, right-click the application and select “Enable.”

If you want to completely remove a program because you no longer use it you will need to take advantage of the program’s uninstaller app, if this was provided by the program’s developer. If there is no uninstaller app try a utility like the excellent Autoruns, part of the Microsoft Sysinternals collection.

How to view the power usage for apps with Task Manager

Alongside the vast aray of improvements and new features, the Windows 10 October 2018 Update (version 1809) also ships with a much improved version of Task Manager, which adds two additional columns to the “Processes” tab that you can use to analyze the power usage for all the apps and services running on your PC.

The new feature uses the processor, graphics, and disk power information to calculate the energy impact, and it will help you to understand which apps and services use the most power versus those that use the least power. So, if you use a laptop or tablet on the go, you know which apps to avoid to optimize the battery life. Or if you’re noticing that your battery is draining faster than usual, this information can give you an idea of which app is causing the problem.

Even with a Desktop PC this new and improved Task Manager can quickly tell you which process are causing the biggest impact on the computers performance.

To open Task Manager right click the Taskbar and select the Task Manager option. When it opens click on the Processes Tab (this may already be open).

While in the Processes tab, you’ll notice two new columns, including “Power usage” and “Power usage trend.”

Using the “Power usage” column, you can see the power an app or service is drawing in real-time.

Then using the “Power usage trend” column, you can also see the power usage of apps and services, but as a trend over two minutes. (When you first start the app, it’ll take two minutes to populate the information.)

Windows 10 Mixed Reality Viewer

The Windows Fall Creators Update installed the Mixed Reality Viewer app on your Windows 10 machine, even if you didn’t know it was there.

Do a quick Cortana search and open the Mixed Reality Viewer app to play around with 3D models – either one you have created in Paint 3D or downloaded from Microsoft’s library of thousands of 3D models.

If you own one of Microsoft’s Windows Mixed Reality partner headsets or want to start playing around with 3D and mixed reality development, this app is your way to start a possible new career!

Of course, if your PC has not been updated with the Windows Fall Creators Update you can still ask Cortana to open Mixed Reality Viewer but she will offer you the 3D Viewer, which is an app from the Microsoft Store. This can still create great 3D models and there are plenty of templates you can base your models on.

Vista User Profile Service Fails to Logon

Recently we had a Dell Laptop in for repair, running Windows Vista, that had a damaged user account that could not be accessed. 

This is a typical ‘Vista User Profile Service’ problem and there are certainly still plenty of posts across the Internet about this difficulty. It seems to occur when there are two or more user Profiles set up. But there are a small number of single users who also report the same problem. It does not seem to matter whether the users are ‘administrators’ or ‘standard’ users.

It seems that the affected users Profile has somehow been damaged and is frozen. As a result, Vista has changed the Profile’s extension to .bak – a backup file. This makes the user Profile unavailable and so produces the message: ‘The User Profile Service failed the logon‘. 

This laptop exhibited the same User Profile Service problem. Thankfully it had two user accounts set up, one administrator and one standard user. It was the standard users account that had frozen.

Of course if you are the only user of your PC you’ve probably got only one user profile set up and you are no doubt the administrator. So if this account is frozen your only option is to try and repair Windows Vista.

Turn on your computer, and press and hold F8. You will see on the screen that appears the option to ” Repair Your Computer”. Select this and hit Enter. (use your own administrator user name and password).

On the next screen you will see the first Category “Startup Repair”and the second “System Restore”. Click on Startup Repair. When this finishes restart your computer.

If the Startup Repair doesn’t work try the second option – System Restore. Again when its done, restart your computer.

Hopefully, your user account is now working again.

A Suggested Fix For The Two Accounts Set Up

If you have two or more user accounts set up then the following solution works. We fixed the Dell Laptop by taking these steps.

First, you need to log on with an administrators account.

Now go to Start and in the Search Box type regedit. Get past the nagging security box and wait till regedit opens.

Now go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\

Go through the listed Profiles to find the damaged Profile. The key to the damaged profile should have a .bak appended to it.

There should also be another identical key except for the .bak extension. Rename this other key to something else (e.g. one number above the highest number).

Also rename your damaged Profile by removing the .bak extension. Now change the State property of this Profile (listed in the right hand window) from 1 to 0.

Restart your PC and try logging on with your Profile. It should now work.

How to take a screenshot in Windows 10

There are several good reasons why you might want to take a screenshot in Windows 10, but the built in screenshot controls aren’t exactly obvious unless you already know what keys to click.

Here are three built-in Windows screenshot keyboard shortcuts, most of which will also work in earlier versions of Windows.

1. Print Screen

The old screenshot standard still exists in Windows 10. Just press the PrtScn button on your keyboard and your entire screen is copied to the Windows clipboard. From there you can paste it into any program that allows you to paste in an image, such as Paint, GIMP and Photoshop.

2. PrtScn + Windows key

An upgraded version of PrtScn available since Windows 8 is Windows key + PrtScn. Tap those two keys simultaneously and your screen (or screens) will “blink” fora second, just like a camera shutter opening and closing. Open your Pictures folder and then open the new Screenshots folder that has appeared, and your screenshot will be sitting there waiting for you.

3. Print just the current window

If all you need is a screenshot of the current program you’re using – such as Chrome, Word, Excel, or PowerPoint just tap Alt + PrtScn. That will copy an image of the window currently in focus to the system clipboard. Just like using the PrtScn shortcut, you can then paste the image into a photo-editing app or some other image-friendly program.

How to enter your PC’s BIOS

On Windows 7 and previous builds you start your PC and pay really close attention to the first screen that appears. Look for a notification that tells you which key or combination of keys to press to enter the BIOS settings. If you miss this notification the first time, just simply restart your computer again.

Usually, the key to press is likely to be: Delete, F1, F2, F3 or Esc. If you are not sure, consult the manufacturer of your computer for the answer. When you are sure which key to press to enter your PC’s BIOS, restart your PC again. Press the key to enter the BIOS settings and you will see yourself in the BIOS within a few seconds.

Windows 10 and the Fast Start-up Problem

On Windows 10, the fast startup feature is adopted, so, you cannot press the function key to enter the BIOS configuration when booting your PC, as you get no chance to press the appropriate key.

Another problem with older PC’s is they may have both PS/2 and USB keyboard connections. And the USB connection is usually set as the default. So, if you are using a USB keyboard it will not even be recognised until after the PC passes its start up commands (Power On Self Test (POST)) so you will not be able to use it to enter the appropriate key to enter the BIOS (however you could get an old PS/2 keyboard and use this to enter the key commands).

Thankfully there are a couple of ways to enter the PC’s BIOS if you are using Windows 10.

Option One

This method worked well for me with my USB based Microsoft keyboard (see above).

1) Press and hold the Shift key, then turn off your PC.

2) Now press and hold the function key on your Windows PC that allows you to go into BIOS settings (usually Delete, F1, F2, F3 or Esc) then turn your PC on again.

DO NOT release the function key until you see the BIOS screen display.

Option Two

1. Go to Settings. You can get there by clicking the gear icon on the Windows Start menu.
2. Select Update & security.
3. Select Recovery from the left-hand menu.
4. Under Advanced Options click Restart Now. During rebooting it will bring you to an Advance Startup Screen, once there click the Troubleshoot option.
5. Now click Advanced options. The resulting screen shows six choices. Select UEFI Firmware Settings.
6. Now click Restart. Your PC will now restart and take you straight to the BIOS.

NOTE: The UEFI Firmware Settings interface which was present in earlier Windows 10 versions has been removed from the latest builds so you now get a Launch Recovery Environment instead. This makes this Option unworkable unless you have an older version of Windows 10.

By the way, DO NOT make changes to your BIOS settings unless you are well aware of the possible consequences.

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