How to Clean Install Windows 10

The Windows 10 upgrade process drags old files, settings, and programs from your previous Windows system to your new one. Microsoft allows you to get an entirely fresh system by performing a clean install, but the activation process can be a bit confusing.

This is also useful if you’ve purchased a new Windows 10 PC and it includes manufacturer-installed bloatware you don’t want. Or, you may need to perform a clean install on a computer without an existing Windows system after installing a new hard drive.

Note that you won’t be eligible for the free “Windows DVD Player” app offered to users of Windows Media Center if you perform a clean install. However, you can always

How to Change the Login Screen Background on Windows 10

Windows 10 allows you to change the lock screen background, but the login screen background always features the default Windows 10 background. Use these tweaks and you can set any image or color you want as the background.

This changes the image that appears on the sign-in screen after you leave your lock screen. On Windows 8 and 8.1, this was just a flat-color background. The trick for changing Windows 7’s login screen background no longer works the same way on Windows 10.

Use a Single Color Instead of an Image

Rather than seeing a background image whenever you type your password, you can choose to disable the login screen background and see a single, flat-color background — just as Windows 8 and 8.1 used. This requires a quick registry tweak.

Download our Disable Logon Background Image on Windows 10 registry hack. Double-click the included “Disable Logon Background Image on Windows 10.reg” file to add the tweak to your registry. We’ve also included a .reg file that will undo the change, if you like — just double-click it.

If you’d like to do it yourself, open the Registry Editor and create a DWORD value named “DisableLogonBackgroundImage” under “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System” with the value “00000001”. Delete the value or set it to “00000000” to go back to the default Windows 10 “hero image.”

After you perform the registry hack, the Windows login screen will disiplay a flat-color background behind the login prompt. Just press Windows Key + L to lock your PC and check. You don’t have to

What’s the Best Antivirus for Windows 10? (Is Windows Defender Good Enough?)

Windows 10 won’t hassle you to install an antivirus like Windows 7 did. Since Windows 8, Windows now includes a built-in antivirus named Windows Defender. But is it really the best for protecting your PC — or even just good enough?

Windows Defender is essentially the latest version of Microsoft Security Essentials, a free antivirus program Microsoft offered for Windows 7. Now it’s built-in, ensuring all Windows 10 PCs have some baseline level of antivirus protection.

Is Windows Defender Good Enough?

Antivirus is already running out of the box. Windows Defender automatically scans programs you open, downloads new definitions from Windows Update, and provides an interface you can use for in-depth scans.

But how good is this? Well, truth be told, Microsoft’s antivirus is a bit behind the others when it comes to

You Don’t Have to Pay $20 a Year for Solitaire and Minesweeper on Windows 10

Windows 10 comes with the Microsoft Solitaire Collection, a solitaire game that requires you to watch 30-second-long full-screen video advertisements to keep playing. Ad-free solitaire costs $1.49 per month or $9.99 per year. That’s $20 per year if you want both ad-free solitaire and ad-free minesweeper. But there’s a better way.

Microsoft has jumped on board the “free-to-play” bandwagon, which means these games are no longer actually free but have become quite expensive. Microsoft is now making money by nickel-and-diming players with in-app purchases. That helps explain why Candy Crush Saga is automatically installed on new Windows 10 PCs, too.

Solitaire and Minesweeper Have Gone “Free-to-Play”

WIth Windows 8, Microsoft removed the old desktop Solitaire, Minesweeper, Hearts, and other games from Windows. No games were included with Windows 8, but you could download the Microsoft Solitaire collection and Microsoft Minesweeper from the Windows Store for free.

With Windows 10, Microsoft includes the Microsoft Solitaire Collection app out-of-the-box. But they’re not doing this out of the kindness of their hearts. This Solitaire game will show you banner ads as well as full-screen video advertisements, making money for Microsoft.

Opting out of those ads requires a $1.50 per month or $10 per year fee, and that’s just for

How to Uninstall Windows 10’s Built-in Apps (and How to Reinstall Them)

Windows 10 includes a variety of universal apps, and there’s no easy way to hide them from the “All Apps” view in the new Start menu. You can uninstall them, but Microsoft doesn’t allow you to easily uninstall them in the usual way.

You probably don’t want to do this. These apps take up very little space on your device so it’s best to just ignore them if you don’t want to use them. But, if you really want to uninstall them, you can. If you’ve already uninstalled included apps, you can get them all back with a single command.

Uninstall the App Normally

Some apps allow you to uninstall them in the normal way. Just right-click an app in the All Apps list in the Start menu and select “Uninstall”. (On a touch screen, long-press the app instead of right-clicking.)

This trick appears to work for the included Get Office, Get Skype, Get Started, Microsoft Solitaire Collection, Money, News, Phone Companion, and Sports apps. You can also uninstall bloatware apps your PC manufacturer has installed using this trick. However, Microsoft’s other included Windows 10 apps can’t be removed in this way.

Use PowerShell to Uninstall Built-in Apps

You can uninstall most of the built-in apps — even ones that don’t normally offer an “Uninstall” option — with a PowerShell cmdlet. This trick won’t allow you to remove a few of the most important built-in apps, including Cortana and Microsoft Edge. If you try, you’ll see

15 Things You Can Do With Cortana on Windows 10

Cortana is one of Windows 10’s most visible new features. Microsoft’s virtual assistant makes the leap from Windows Phone to the desktop, and there’s a lot you can do with it. It isn’t just a voice assistant either — you can also type commands and questions

Open Cortana to see information it thinks you might care about. Cortana provides a lot of passive information, too, even notifying you when you need to leave to make an appointment on time.

If you can’t use Cortana yet in your country, there’s a way to enable Cortana anywhere in the world.

Set Reminders for Times, Places, and People

Cortana has a powerful built-in reminder feature, but there’s more you can do with these reminders than simply getting a reminder at a specific time.

Use the Reminders icon or say “Remind me” to get started. You can create a reminder and have Cortana remind you about something at a specific time, when you get to a specific location, or when you talk to a specific person. You can also just say something like “Remind me to take my pill at 8pm” or “Remind me to buy milk when I get to [name of a store]” to instantly create a reminder.

Use Natural Language Search

Cortana supports natural language search for files on your computer. For example, you can ask Cortana to “find pictures from August” or

The Windows 10 FAQ: Everything You Need to Know

Now that Windows 10 is available for public download and installation people have more questions than ever about the new version of Windows. We’ve rounded up the questions we get most frequently here at How-To Geek and compiled them to help you get up to speed about Windows 10.

For all our curious readers, neighbors, and people searching for more information about Windows 10 we’ve rounded up to most frequently asked questions we’ve come across here for your convenience.

Is Windows 10 Really Free?

There has been significant confusion regarding the pricing (or lack there of) of Windows 10 over the last year. Don’t be ashamed if you’re confused, Microsoft themselves changed their story regarding the upgrade and pricing schedule more than a few times during the development and beta testing of Windows 10.

For a huge number of people Windows 10 is really, truly, free-as-in-beer free. If you are currently running any legitimate (non-pirated) version of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 you will be upgraded for free to an equivalent version of Windows 10. Windows 7 Home/Basic/Premium users and Windows 8.1 users will be upgraded for free to Windows 10 Home. Windows 7 Professional/Ultimate users and Windows 8.1 Pro users will be upgraded to Windows 10 Pro.

You’ll note we didn’t say Windows 8; if you have a Windows 8 machine you first need to

Zombie Crapware: How the Windows Platform Binary Table Works

Few people noticed at the time, but Microsoft added a new feature to Windows 8 that allows manufacturers to infect the UEFI firmware with crapware. Windows will continue installing and resurrecting this junk software even after you perform a clean-install.

This feature continues to be present on Windows 10, and it’s absolutely mystifying why Microsoft would give PC manufacturers so much power. It highlights the importance of buying PCs from the Microsoft Store — even performing a clean install may not get rid of all the preinstalled bloatware.

WPBT 101

Beginning with Windows 8, a PC manufacturer can embed a program — a Windows .exe file, essentially — in the PC’s UEFI firmware. This is stored in the “Windows Platform Binary Table” (WPBT) section of the UEFI firmware. Whenever Windows boots, it looks at the UEFI firmware for this program, copies it from the firmware to the operating system drive, and runs it. Windows itself provides no way to stop this from happening. If the manufacturer’s UEFI firmware offers it up, Windows will run it without question.

Lenovo’s LSE and Its Security Holes

It’s impossible to write about this questionable feature without noting the case that brought it to public attention. Lenovo shipped a variety of PCs with something called the “Lenovo Service Engine” (LSE) enabled. Here’s what Lenovo claims is a complete list of affected PCs.

When the program is automatically run by Windows 8, the Lenovo Service Engine downloads a program called the OneKey Optimizer and reports some amount of data back to Lenovo. Lenovo sets up system services designed to download and update software from the Internet, making it impossible to remove them — they’ll even automatically come back after a clean install of Windows.

Lenovo went even further, extending this shady technique to Windows 7. The UEFI firmware checks the  C:\Windows\system32\autochk.exe file and overwrites it with Lenovo’s own version. This program runs at boot to check the file system on Windows, and this trick allows Lenovo to make this nasty practice work on Windows 7, too. It just goes to show that

How to Use Your Free Windows 10 License After Changing Your PC’s Hardware

The free Windows 10 license you receive is tied to your PC’s hardware. You’re still allowed to use Windows 10 on that same PC even after changing its hardware, but that may not be clear. Microsoft won’t give you a product key.

Microsoft really doesn’t want to explain how the activation process works. It doesn’t want to give pirates too much information, but that does make the licensing process confusing for legitimate users, too.

How Windows Licences and Activation Usually Work

The free Windows 10 license works very differently from previous Windows licensing systems. These all required a product key. Even modern Windows 8 and 8.1 PCs — and new PCs that come with Windows 10 — have a Windows product key embedded in their UEFI firmware. If you buy a new copy of Windows 10 — for example, to install it on a PC you’re building yourself — you’ll also have a product key.

In this case, the product key would always serve to activate Windows. But Microsoft hasn’t been handing out Windows 10 product keys to upgraders. There’s no way to find your Windows 10 product key if you’ve upgraded for free — you just don’t have one.

How the Free Windows 10 License Works

The free Windows 10 license Microsoft is providing to upgraders works differently. Microsoft won’t issue you a Windows 10 product key. Instead, when you perform an upgrade from within Windows 7 Service Pack 1 or Windows 8.1, the upgrade process registers a unique ID associated with your PC’s hardware on Microsoft’s Windows activation servers.

In the future, whenever you install Windows 10 on that same PC, it will automatically

How to activate Windows 10 build 10240

Many users who performed a clean install of Windows 10 build 10240 cannot activate it. That is because Microsoft has disabled the online activation until the end of July 2015. If you are interested in activating Windows 10 build 10240, here are a few simple steps for you to do that without using any cracks, hacks or third party software.


How to activate Windows 10 build 10240

1. Open an elevated command prompt.
2. Type the following command and