HOW TO
RUN APPS AS ADMINISTRATOR
STEP-BY-STEP GUIDES TO IMPROVING YOUR PC
If an application isn’t running normally or you’ve just downloaded a new program and the installation isn’t going well, opening the app as an administrator may solve your woes. This allows you to gain full access to the app with the highest privileges. One of the easiest ways to do this is to right-click it and select ‘run as administrator’. Alternatively, right click, select properties, then in the compatibility section tick ‘Run this program as an administrator’ to always run it in this way.
TIP OF THE MONTH
SAM LEWIS STAFF WRITER
THE WINNER IS…
I had a dilemma. The choice was essentially between choosing a new handheld gaming system— the Asus ROG Ally—or swaying away from games and towards music by picking up a pair of Sony’s WH-1000XM5s. If you’ve watched the video covering our last build, then you’ll know that I was just about to embark on a vacation, and it was while I was out there that I realized what road I wanted to go down. Sorry Asus and handheld gaming, I need to amp up my audio experience. My trusty Airpods didn’t provide me with the clarity, depth, or noise cancellation that I needed.
I remember testing the previous-gen Sony WH-1000XM4s and feeling completely immersed in the sound. I didn’t feel this when I was flying, traveling from the airport and to the hotel, or by the beach or pool. There were certainly points where I would have also enjoyed having the Asus ROG Ally with me, but I’d argue that this sits on the other end of the spectrum to listening to music. You need more attention and concentration—two things I left at home! I’m also lucky to be able to game on all of the custom PCs we make and laptops we review, which makes the Sony WH-1000XM5 an easier choice. The bill won’t be tasty, but at least I’ll be able to get some chillout time, which I recommend everyone should make time for!
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MAKE – USE – CREATE
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Spruce up the Taskbar
YOU’LL NEED THIS WINSTEP NEXUS
(free, www.winstep.net/ nexus.asp), a collection of free taskbar tweakers for less drastic changes
1 SIMPLE TWEAKS
Let’s begin by addressing some of the most annoying aspects of the Windows Taskbar. Right-click the Taskbar and choose ‘Taskbar settings’ to access its settings under System. Two areas of interest stand out: the ability to remove unwanted additions in the form of the clickbait-heavy Widgets shortcut, and the Chat shortcut that’s superfluous to most.
» The second area can be found by expanding ‘Taskbar behaviors’ where you can realign the Taskbar’s icons to the left, so the Start menu is in its old, favored place. Other options worth examining include ‘Automatically hide the taskbar’—useful for freeing up a bit more screen real estate on small displays—and ‘Other system tray icons’, which lets you determine which app icons are allowed to take up permanent residence on the Taskbar as opposed to being hidden behind the ^ button.
2 DIG A LITTLE DEEPER
The Windows 11 Taskbar may look like its predecessors, but under the hood it’s a complete rebuild. As a result, many tweaking tools that claim to give you more control over the Taskbar may not be able to deliver on all their promises. A case in point is the excellent 7+ Taskbar Tweaker tool (https://tweaker. ramensoftware.com/), which doesn’t support Windows 11.
» That’s not to say you can’t tweak the Windows 11 taskbar with third-partytools—farfromit—justbeawarethatsometweaksmay
A have no effect unless you start patching Explorer itself to restore the ‘classic’ Taskbar (see the boxout across the page). One tweak that works in Windows 11, as well as earlier versions, is the ability to customize the thumbnail previews that pop up whenever you roll the mouse over an open program’s taskbar icon. You will find such a setting in both Winaero Tweaker (https://winaerotweaker.com/) under Desktop and Taskbar > Taskbar Thumbnails as shown in [Image A], and Ultimate Windows Tweaker 5.1 (www. thewindowsclub.com/downloads/UWT5.zip) under Customization > Taskbar.
3 DITCH THE TASKBAR
If you’re utterly fed up with the Taskbar, then a more radical solution is to replace it with a thirdparty dock. A dock works in a similar way to the Taskbar, but you’re given greater control over what goes on it, how items are arranged, and even where you place it on the desktop.
» Our dock of choice is Winstep Nexus, which comes in free (for personal use) and paid-for (Ultimate) builds. We’re focusing on the free version in this tutorial. Nexus is designed to closely mirror what you get from the Taskbar, so it will display running apps and—if you apply the classic Taskbar tweak—give you access to your Notification area shortcuts too.
» Start by heading over to www.winstep. net/nexus.asp and click Download under the free version to save nexus.zip to your hard drive. Once downloaded, extract NexusSetup.exe and double-click it to run through the installer, which is simple and quick to follow. Once this is complete, leave ‘Launch Nexus’ checked and click Finish.
» After a short pause, you will see the dock appear at the top of the screen. Unlike the Taskbar, this can reside anywhere © WWW.WINSTEP.NET
THE WINDOWS TASKBAR is an essential part of any PC’s desktop. It’s where you pin shortcuts to apps, access the Start menu, and monitor your system via a range of icons in the Notification area (or system tray, as it used to be called). With the release of Windows 11, Microsoft has rewritten the Taskbar’s underlying code, so if you’re unhappy with changes it has made, there’s not a lot you can do about it with the help of third-party tools.
Or is there? In this tutorial, we’ll examine two different approaches. The first is to tweak the Taskbar as it is, plus look at how you can bring back the ‘classic’ Taskbar (which still lurks under Windows 11’s hood for now) to provide you with additional options to customize it to your needs.
The second is to take a more radical approach. This favors ditching the Taskbar in favor of a macOS-style dock. The dock can be placed anywhere on your desktop, arranged horizontally or vertically, and packed with additional functionality in the form of system shortcuts and other widgets. Whether you want a better Taskbar or a new dock, this tutorial is for you.
–NICK PEERS