Group Policy Editor: Take Full Control of Your PC

The Group Policy Editor, often overlooked, is a powerful tool that lets you tweak various settings to customize your Windows experience. By default, this feature isn’t available on home editions of Windows, but it’s possible to force enable it.

How to Enable Group Policy Editor on Home Editions

To enable the Group Policy Editor on Windows Home editions, follow these steps:

1. Open a command prompt as administrator.
2. Enter the following commands:
   • FOR %G IN ("%SystemRoot%\*.dll") DO REGsvr32 /s "%G"
3. Wait approximately 30 seconds for the process to complete.

Once completed, you’ll have access to a range of settings, allowing you to hide certain settings, disable Windows’ phone home features, and much more. If this method fails you can use Policy Plus, an open source alternative for group policies.

Task Scheduler: Automate Your Windows Experience

Task Scheduler is another underrated tool that enables you to automate various actions on your PC. This is particularly useful for applications that require admin privileges on startup, eliminating the need for repeated permission requests.

Creating Automated Tasks

Here’s how to set up an application to run on startup without constant prompts:

1. Open Task Scheduler.
2. Create a basic task and set the application to launch on login.
3. In the general settings, check the box labeled “Run with highest privileges”.
4. Go to the settings tab and uncheck the box that says, “Stop if the computer switches to battery power”.

Task Scheduler allows you to set various conditions, such as running tasks only when on a network connection, making it highly flexible.

PowerToys: Enhance Your Windows Productivity

Microsoft’s PowerToys is a collection of utilities designed to add extra functionality to Windows. PowerToys are like an experimental ground for Microsoft engineers to try out new features.

Key Features of PowerToys

• Fancy Zones: This feature is essential for users with large or non-traditional monitor setups. It allows you to snap windows to specific portions of your screen, providing a level of control not available with standard window management.
• PowerToys Run: Similar to Apple’s Spotlight search, this feature offers more accurate and useful search results compared to the default Windows search. It also supports calculations and unit conversions.
• Keyboard Manager: This tool allows you to remap keys or create macros on a per-app basis, without the overhead of third-party software.

Sysinternals: Under the Hood Windows Utilities

Sysinternals, a suite of advanced tools acquired by Microsoft, offers detailed control over your operating system. These tools are designed for troubleshooting and diagnosing problems under the hood.

Key Sysinternal Tools

• Auto Runs: Provides an overview of all startup items, services, and DLLs registered within Windows, invaluable for diagnosing malware or misbehaving drivers.
• Process Explorer: An advanced version of Task Manager. It allows detailed insights into processes including performance history, open connections and loaded files.
• TCP View: Shows real-time network connections on your computer, grouped by the process that’s using them.
• Reg Jump: quickly navigate to specific keys in the Registry Editor.

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL): Run Linux on Windows

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) allows you to run full-blown Linux distributions directly on Windows. This feature is available on both Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Getting Started with WSL

• Open a terminal as an administrator and type wsl --install.
• After a reboot, you can install different Linux distributions.
• Use wsl -l -o to list available alternatives.
• Use wsl --install -d DistroName to install your chosen distro.

WSL is not just for experimentation; it also allows file explorer to show Linux folders which is useful for dual booters and system admins managing Linux servers.

Quake Mode Terminal: Access a Terminal Anytime

You can use a drop down terminal called Quake Mode in Windows. This provides quick access to terminal whenever you need it.

How to setup Quake Mode Terminal

• Open Windows Terminal.
• Go to Settings, and then to actions.
• Add a new action and select show/hide quick window.
• Set it to hide in notification area once minimized.

For extra customization, you can use Oh My Posh from the Microsoft Store, which allows you to modify terminal interface similar to oh my zsh on Linux and MacOS.

Windows Package Manager: Installing software from Terminal

Windows Package Manager via winget enables you to install applications directly from the command line, similar to package managers on Linux.

With winget you can also install other third party package managers like Chocolatey which gives you a wider variety of options in terms of applications to install.

SSH Support: Remote Access

Windows has built-in SSH support for both client and server operations.

Setting Up SSH

• The SSH client is built-in and can be used like any other SSH client.
• The SSH server needs to be installed through optional features.
• You can set up private keys and port forwarding through sshd underscore config file.

Useful Windows Shortcuts and Commands

Windows has many useful shortcuts and commands including application menu and shutdown commands

Accessing Application Menu and Shutdown Commands

• Application menu: If a window ends up off screen, you can select it from the taskbar then activate the menu via shortcut (alt + space) and then press M. use arrow keys to move it then click to set it down.
• Shutdown Command: Use shutdown /r /t 0 to instantly reboot the PC.
• You can use shutdown /r /fw /t 0 to reboot directly into your UEFI settings.
• Use shutdown /r /o /t 0 to reboot into advanced startup options.
• You can also shut down a different computer using a command such as: shutdown /m \\computername /r /t 0