Two Major Windows 8 Irritants & their Solutions

Windows 8 has mostly received a positive response from computer users across the world. The operating system’s incredible smoothness coupled with a most unique user interface has sure made it popular across a wide cross-section of professional as well as personal users. Having said that, Windows 8 is still only a year old (counting the release of beta versions) and this shows in the manner in which minor irritants seem to crop up every now and then. Although not exactly hampering, these bugs do tend to frustrate the user at times. This article takes a look at 2 such common irritants and their respective solutions.

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Lock Screen Blues

Lock screens came into existence with mobile phones/tablets. So it is quite natural to wonder what a lock screen is doing on an operating system for a desktop PC. All that does is add another click to Windows 8’s seemingly never ending sea of controls. Fortunately, there is a way for you to do away with Windows 8’s lock screen.

Blue Doors Locked

First, you need to open the command box (search for ‘Run’). You can also do this pressing a combination of keyboard strokes i.e. Windows + R. Yet another way of getting the command prompt is to move the mouse pointer towards your desktop’s left lower corner followed by right clicking and then selecting ‘Run’ from the Quick Access menu.

gpedit.msc, this is the command you need to type in the box followed by pressing enter. This opens the ‘Local Group Policy Editor’. Now navigate the below given path in the left pane of this editor,

Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Control Panel -> Personalization

Here you will find an option with the title ‘Do Not Display the Lock Screen’, which you need to double click on. This causes another main window to open, where you need to select the radio button named ‘Enabled’. Now click on ‘OK’ and you are done.

DVD Playback Absent

Windows Media Player was always liked by users for its neat and simple interface coupled with its support for DVD playback. While the former is still included with Windows 8, the new version does not support DVD playback. Although there is an option whereby users can download the official Media Center Pack from Microsoft that costs a princely $10, there is another solution that does not need users to pay any money.

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Downloading and installing VLC will amply take care of all your video playback needs. While the free and open source software is nowhere near as good as the Media Center program, it more than makes up for the same with its sheer utility factor. Here’s an example, with VLC you can playback and rip DVDs, watch podcasts and internet videos, choose among many transcoding options and even enjoy reasonably good support for Blu-ray playback.

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