Windows 8 provides configurable background images of Windows 8 Start Menu, Lock Screen of Windows 8 and Desktop Background. Changing the background image of Start Menu is limited in Windows 8 to a list of pre-defined images and background colors. However you can specify your own background image for the Lock screen displayed on your Windows 8 computer and for Desktop Background, Windows 8 provides configurable image as well. This post describes how you can change all types of background images in Windows 8 and let’s start by clicking on the Account Name as displayed in the screenshot below.

Change Account Picture Windows 8

After Clicking on the Account name a menu pops up in which you need to select the option titled Change Account Picture as displayed in the screenshot above. The Change Account Picture screen of Windows 8 will allow you to change the picture displayed for your account and will also provide you the way to change the background image of Lock Screen and for the Windows 8 Start Menu. Have a look at the given below screenshot in which you can configure your Windows 8 Start Menu Colors and change the Background Image. Windows 8 provides background images of Start Menu and all you need to do is click any of the background image to set it as the Background Image of the Windows 8 Start menu.

Change Start Screen of Windows 8

Note from the above screenshot that you can even change the color of your Windows 8 Start Menu along with the background image of the Windows 8 Start Menu. Also note that from the the top left corner, you can change the background image of Lock screen as well as displayed in the screenshot below. You can specify your own image file for the Lock screen in Windows 8 by browsing to the desired image file.

Change Lock Screen of Windows 8

There are other configurable options for the Lock Screen of Windows 8 which you can select from the Lock Screen configuration options. Apart from all above you can change the background image of your single or multiple monitor Windows 8 computer. Another post in this blog titled Different Wallpapers for different Monitors displays how you can specify different background images for different monitors or even change the background or desktop image to any image file.

Windows 8 provides easy to use Hard Disk Management Features with which you can easily reduce the size of your Hard Disk, Change Device Letters and do other type of Disk Management. There are multiple ways in which you can launch the Disk Management console in Windows 8 including Control Panel, Windows 8 Quick Menu, Desktop Shortcut, etc. The given below screenshot displays Windows 8 Shortcut Menu to launch the Disk Management Console of Windows 8. Yes you would need Admin Access to your Windows 8 Computer in order to do reduce  the size of Hard Disk.

Launch Disk Management from Windows 8

Once you have launched the Disk Management of Windows 8, everything else is really easy to do. Windows 8 automatically  evaluates the Hard Disk Size available and computes other technical bits and bytes when you instruct it to Shrink the Disk or Drive. This Disk Management Console can also be helpful to format and manage any un-partioned disk partitions or drives. The given below screenshot displays how you can launch the Shrink Disk Size option or you can simply right click on the disk whose size you wish to reduce.

Launch Shrink Drive Action from the Windows 8 Disk Management

As you can see from the above screenshot, there are other Actions available for the selected drive apart from shrinking the disk or volume. Other Actions will automatically enable or disable depending on what disk or partition you choose. Make sure that you do understand what you are doing before actually doing any of the hard disk changes. In case you are not sure run Windows 8 on a Virtual Computer and do experiment with it before actually changing your actual Window 8 installation. The given below screenshot displays Windows 8 Disk Management Console querying volume for available shrink space.

Shrink Hard Disk Space on Windows 8

Time taken for Querying of Volume will depend on our selected drive / partition and once done, a popup window will appear asking you to confirm the number of Mega Bytes by which you wish to shrink the disk size. The popup Window will indicate the Volume Name you are about to shrink / reduce and will also tell you the new size of the selected drive or partition.

Specify Shrinked Hard Disk Size on Windows 8

Reducing the size of any Disk or Drive is really easy in Windows 8 and can be helpful when you wish to have separate partitions for separate purpose. With Windows 8, you do not need to pay for any Hard Disk Utility providing you Volume Shrinking Capability and you do not even need to pay a technician when you can do manage your Disks and Drives of Windows 8 all by yourself so easily and quickly.

Yes you can run Windows 8 on a Windows 7 Computer using Virtual Machine Software. Depending on your Hardware configuration, you can choose the amount of Memory you want Windows 8 to have. Running another Operating System inside of a Virtual Machine requires you to have good computer configuration. Whether you wish to run Windows 8 on a Desktop or Laptop running Windows 7, actual hardware configuration matters as the resources of your hardware are going to be shared by both the operating systems.

Windows 8 on Windows 7

In order to run Windows 8 on your Windows 7 Computer, you can use the best Virtual Machine Software named as Oracle VM VirtualBox. Virtual Computers are often used by software developers to test 3rd party software applications on other operating systems. When running Windows 8 on a Virtual Computer, you have absolute flexibility of selection of multiple hardware configurations. You can have Multiple Virtual Hard Disks, CD / DVD ROM and even Floppy drive.

Single or Multiple Monitors on Virtual Windows 8

One of the best advantages of running Windows 8 on Virtual Computer is that you can have single or multiple monitors attached to your virtual Windows 8 computer. Separate Popup Windows will open up providing you separate monitor access to your multiple monitors to check the Multiple Monitor features of Windows 8 like taskbar, multiple monitor wallpaper, etc.

Windows 8 32 bit or 64 bit in Virtual PC

The above screenshot displays quick way to create a virtual pc for 32 bit or 64 bit Windows 8 computer. Yes there are other operating systems supported as well and you can run other Microsoft Windows and other Operating Systems as well. All you need to run multiple operating systems (like Windows 8 on Windows 7 as displayed in this blog post) on a single computer is strong enough hardware possibly with maximum possible RAM, Hardware Virtualization Support, Monitor with big resolution, etc.

Windows 8 provides lots of Shortcut ways in which you can launch the Command Prompt. This post outlines few shortcut ways in which you can launch Command Prompt to save you time and efforts. The basic thing you need to remember when dealing with command prompt is the fact that the Command Prompt is just an application and all the shortcut ways you learn in this post can be applied to other applications as well. When learning Shortcut to Command Prompt on Windows 8 in this post, you are learning shortcuts to launch application on Windows 8. Most of the information you learn in this post will be applicable to other application shortcuts as well apart from the given below shortcut way to launch Command Prompt in Windows 8 from Windows Explorer.

Open Command Prompt from Windows 8 File Explorer

The File Menu of Windows 8 Explorer is the quickest way to launch Command Prompt in Windows 8 with current directory set to the active folder in Windows 8 Explorer. The above screenshot displays how you can launch Command Prompt either with your current credentials or as Administrator easily and quickly. There is another related shortcut visible in the File Menu of Windows 8 Explorer titled Open Windows PowerShell, which is another way to do automation and scripting in Windows 8.

Keyboard Shortcut to Open Command Prompt on Windows 8

The above screenshot displays a Keyboard Shortcut Assigned to the Desktop Shortcut of Command Prompt. The Keyboard Shortcut assigned to launch Command Prompt is global and works as long as the Shortcut file is present. Another post on this website titled Command Prompt on Windows 8 describes how you can create a Desktop Shortcut to launch Command Prompt on Windows 8.

Pin Command Prompt to Windows 8 Taskbar

Pinning the Command Prompt Shortcut to the Taskbar of Windows 8 is another quick way to launch Command Prompt. The above screenshot displays how you can pin the Command Prompt program to the taskbar. In order to pin the Command Prompt to taskbar, launch the Command Prompt and right click on the Taskbar Icon and select the menu titled Pin this program to taskbar. Once you have pinned the Command Prompt shortcut to the taskbar, you can easily launch it with a single click and this can be the best shortcut way to launch Command Prompt as and when you need it. The Menu which is displayed in the screenshot above is called as Jump List and is different for different programs / applications.

Command Prompt Shortcut on Windows 8 Start Menu

You can also pin the Shortcut of Command Prompt to the Start Menu of Windows 8. Just right click on the Command Prompt Shortcut and Click on the Menu titled Pin to Start to add the Shortcut to the Start Menu of Windows 8. The above screenshot displays the Command Prompt in Windows 8 Start Menu. Once you have added the Shortcut to the Start Menu, you can drag it in the Windows 8 Start Menu to any location in the Windows 8 Start Menu just like with any other shortcut.

Open Command Prompt as Administrator Automatically

In case you would like your Command Prompt Shortcut to be launched as Administrator automatically, Open Properties of the Command Prompt Shortcut, Navigate to the Shortcut Tab and Click on the button labelled Advanced… as displayed in the screenshot above. In the Advanced Properties screen, check the checkbox labelled as Run as administrator, so that whenever the shortcut is launched to open the Command Prompt, it will always open automatically as Administrator.

This post provides quick and easy way in which you can identify whether you are using a 32 bit or 64 bit Windows 8 Computer. Details Screenshots have been provided in this post that help you to identify 32 & 64 bit Applications. With the information provided in this post, you can also decide whether you wish to but a Windows 8 Computer with 32 bit or 64 bit Operating System and how does this information can be of help to you. Part of the information provided here applies to other Windows Operating Systems as well like Windows 7, Windows Vista, etc which do have 32 bit and 64 bit variants.

32 or 64 bit Windows 8

The above screenshot displays System Control Panel Applet of a 64 bit Windows 8 Computer. Note that the System Type tells that the computer on which the above screenshot was captured was running on 64 bit Windows 8. On a 32 bit Windows 8 computer, the System type would inform that the computer is running a 32 bit Operating System.

Program Files Folder on Windows 8 for 32 Bit Applications

As a generic rule, a computer which supports more than 4GB of Memory / RAM is used with a 64 bit operating system and a computer which supports less than 4 GB of Memory / RAM is used with 32 bit Operating System. A distinctive feature of a 64 bit Windows 8 computer is the existence of a special Program Files Folder as displayed in the screenshot above. The special Program Files folder is for Windows Applications compiled to run on a 32 bit Windows 8 Computer.  Yes Applications created to work on 32 bit Windows 8 Operating System do work on a 64 bit Windows 8 Computer, however they do not utilize the full power of 64 bit Windows Architecture. Whenever installing a new Application on a 64 bit Windows 8 Computer, you should preferably download and install 64 bit compiled application.

32 Bit Application Running on 64 Bit Windows 8 Computer

The Task Manager of Windows 8 also displays whether an application is a 32 bit or 64 bit Application as displayed in the above screenshot. The above screenshot was captured on a Windows 8 64 bit computer on which the MurGee Auto Talker Application was running. As the Application running is a 32 bit Application, the Task Manager of Windows 8 adds the extra words to the title of the application in the Processes list.

In nutshell 64 bit Windows 8 is better than 32 bit version of Windows 8. You can run 32 bit applications on a 64 bit Windows 8 computer, however you cannot run 64 bit applications on a 32 bit Windows 8 computer. 64 Bit Windows 8 supports more RAM as compared to 32 bit Windows 8. For best performance of applications and general purpose computer usage, a 64 bit Windows 8 computer along with appropriate hardware is the best choice.