Computer Era

windows

Creating Custom Desktop Icons On Your Windows PC

by


Many of us might have got bored of the same old regular icons on our computer screens in our Windows devices. Don’t you ever want to try something new? Now, in this article today we are going to learn about creating custom desktop icons in your PC.

Creating Custom Desktop Icons

Rainmeter , the best customization tool for Windows is very good at creating custom icons for your programs. The icons range from immersive to regular. The best thing about this program is that there are already some fan-made icons available which you can make use of.

Rainmeter settings are text-based since it is necessary and important for you to learn the creation process of icons before you start downloading and installing icon packs, the more you learn, the better and more customized you will become.
Now let us see the process of creating a simple icon with this wonderful program

• Head to the C:\Users\[PC Name]\Documents\Rainmeter\Skins, the PC Name should be replaced with the name of your PC
• Right-click on a blank space and click on New, and then click on Folder
• Now name the folder that you have created, that it should represent the contents
• Now, after creating, just double click the folder and create another folder within it, name the folder with the name of the icon that you wish to create
• Then create another folder within it and name it @resources, this folder will hold your icon images

You have created three folders overall

• Now double click the second folder and right-click on the blank space and click on New, and then on Text documents
• Now open the text document created by double-clicking on it and just copy-paste the following thing

[OverwatchIcon]
Meter=Image
ImageName=#@#\[IconName].png
H=[Height]
LeftMouseUpAction=[“[Address]”]
[Rainmeter]
Update=1000

• IconName should be replaced with the name of the PNG file that you should be using for your icon
• Height for changing the size of your icon
• The address should be replaced with the address of your program or a website address
• Now go to the @Resources folder and paste your PNG file which you would like to use as an icon
• Then replace that PNG file with the parameter you have entered for the IconName
• Now replace the Height parameter in your INI file with the size of the icon

You are now done with creating the icon, let us now learn how to place it on the desktop

• Now just right click on the welcome to Rainmeter window and then click on Rainmeter and then click on Manage
• You can see a window open, you can see your created icon under active skins option
• Select the folder that you have created earlier and double click on the INI file, that is it you will see the skin on your desktop

This process may seem a bit long and may need a bit of mind into it, but remember that this will your Windows PC a new look and you must definitely give it a try and create your custom desktop icons.

Learn A Few Easy Ways To Hide Folders In Windows

by

It is very much important to protect your privacy and which is also a difficult task these days if you are sharing your computer or laptop whichever device you use with someone else like your colleagues or friends. There arises the need to secure your files in a safe place. So, we are here to help you know the various methods using which you can hide folders in your Windows PCs or laptops.

 Hide Folders:

  • Open File Explorer, then click on Tools>Folder Options
  • Then in the Folder options window switch to the View tab
  • Then under the option Files and Folders, select Hidden Files and Folders and then check the radio button with the option don’t show hidden files, folders or drives and click on ok
  • Then head back to the file explorer and select the particular file that you wish to hide and right-click on it and from the pop-up menu select properties
  • Then in the properties, make sure you check the hidden option in the general tab

You can access the files by temporarily making the hidden folders visible under folder options.

Make Folders Invisible:

This is yet another method which helps you in making the folder invisible rather than just hiding it.

  • As a first step you need to hide the name of the folder that you would want to make invisible, just select the folder and press F2, then while holding the ALT key type 0160 and press enter
  • In the next step, you need to make the folder invisible, right-click and select the properties of the folder and switch to the customize tab and click on change icon. Choose a blank icon and click ok

 Hide Folders With A Tool:

There are many useful tools that will allow you to hide your various folders in Windows. My Lockbox is one such a tool that you can try using to hide your folders. But unfortunately, the free version of the tool will allow you to secure only one folder at a time. You can change the folder from time to time as you wish.

Best Clipboard Manager Apps For Windows That You Must Check

by

We don’t actually acknowledge the power of the clipboard, but we use it quite often. We have been very much used to it that we don’t actually realize we are using it. However, the default clipboard manager in Windows doesn’t have many features, so here are some of the best clipboard applications that have some wonderful features and allow you to excel in copy and paste.

Best Clipboard Manager Apps

ClipClip:  

It is the best clipboard manager application for Windows. Whatever you may copy whether a text, image or a web link, this will have them stored in the form of clips. You can view the saved clips by clicking the icon in the system tray. You can organize your clips in folders. Just dragging and dropping the links from the ClipClip window will paste the link wherever you want.

Ditto: 

This is one of the oldest and the best clipboard managers for Windows. You can find this one as well in the system tray like the ClipClip. The aesthetics and interface of the application look quite old and will take you some time to understand the app. It is a really powerful clipboard application, but the users need to try hard to understand it’s usage.

1Clipboard:  

This app has the best interface and looks very good. You can find this app also on your system tray after you install it on your PC/Laptop. Using start you can mark important on links that you feel are important. Drag and drop to paste is not available in this application.

CopySpace:

This is a pretty much different application from the other ones. It has a different design. IT opens a window and will not be available from the system tray. This is available in the Windows Store. But its functionality is yet to improve and it has some bugs also.

Don’t just copy and paste in an old regular routine way, use these applications and enjoy these features.

How To Open Files/Folders With Just With A Single Click In Windows

by

We are very much used to the interface of the Windows and even it has very user-friendly options that everyone can easily get used to. Opening files/folders on our PCs and laptops has been done by us very casually and some unintentionally as well. Have you ever thought how much easier it would have been if the task of opening the files or folders happens with just a single click? Yes, it can be, and all you have to is changing a simple setting in your system. Follow the simple steps below

Steps To OPne Files/Folders In A Single Click

  • Open the File Explorer on your computer and navigate to File> Change Folder and search options
  • In the new tab, click on the General tab
  • Navigate to the Click items as follows section
  • Then just mark the checkbox with the option single click to open an item
  • And below that option make sure to mark the Underline icon titles only when I point at them a checkbox
  • When you are done, just click on save

And if you ever want to you can also revert back to the double-click option again.

If you are thinking about switching to the single click option as you are very much used to the double click thing, then you have another option using which you can speed up the response time to double click and make the files/folders a bit faster. And the process to do that is pretty easy. Just head to Settings> Devices> Mouse> Additional Mouse Options> Double Speed. Here adjust the slider accordingly and apply the changes.

Thus you can either speed up the traditional double-click option or can also replace it with the single click option in your Windows run desktop PCs and laptops. Try this simple process with a few steps and make clicking easy.

Learn How To Clean Your Computer’s Right Click Menu

by

The thing or the window that pops up when you right click on something in windows is known as the context menu. This menu opens when you right click on something anywhere on your desktop or even inside the windows explorer. As we keep on installing new softwares, the vendors add useless options to the menu which will make the menu very confusing and clumsy as well.

Sorting Out Your Computer’s Right-Click Menu

Who doesn’t love a shortcut? Thanks to the guy who programmed in the right-click menu, we get to take some of them while working or browsing on the computer.

Luckily, we have a few options to edit the menu with the help of some tools. There are a few popular tools available on the internet. The tools include ShellExView, Context Menu editor, FileMenu Tools of which the first tool is a bit complicated and will be difficult to use for the regular PC users,

Using these very simple menu editors, you can easily remove any of the options that you don’t like to have there. FileMenu Tools can be useful to edit the menu that you can remove the unwanted options and get them back if you feel they are needed but the other two tools don’t have this getting back option.

All you have to do is just run the downloaded tools as an administrator as they make changes to your windows registry. The choice of decking up your right-click menu depends on the kind of power you want to give it. But it’s a certainty that you will be spoilt for choice with the free software available.

So, if you also feel your right click window has a lot of useless and unwanted options, then do try these tools and sort it as you like.