Discover the Hidden File Explorer In Windows 10 Creators Update
Windows 10 Creators Update

This tip is for those of you using Windows 10 Creators Update (version 1703) or possibly in newer versions of Windows. It won’t work in earlier versions of Windows 10. If you’re not sure which version of Windows 10 you have, just press Windows Key + R. Type WINVER in the Run box and press Enter. If you see “Version 1703”, then you’re using the Creators Update.

This is a tip you can file under – “just so you know”. You’re probably not going to want to use this version of File Explorer; it’s certainly not going to replace the File Explorer you’re using now in Windows 10, that’s for sure. But it is interesting and it’s easy to do. And here’s how you do it.

First of all, you’ll need to create a desktop shortcut.

Right-click on an empty area of your desktop and choose “New” --> “Shortcut”:

In the “What item would you like to create a shortcut for?” dialog, copy the following command

explorer shell:AppsFolder\c5e2524a-ea46-4f67-841f-6a9465d9d515_cw5n1h2txyewy!App

… and paste it under “Type the location of the item” . Now click “Next”.

It’s time to give your shortcut a name. I’m not fancy, so I just called it “Hidden File Explorer”. You can call it whatever your little heart desires.  When you’ve named it whatever you want, click “Finish”.

Now, if you did all that correctly, you’ll see the shortcut on your desktop:

Whew! After all that, are you ready to see what you have done? Click on your shortcut.  If you did everything correctly,  you’ll see the hidden File Explorer…

Above: The File Explorer that’s hidden in Windows 10 Creators Update. It is actually the File Explorer that Windows Mobile users see.

If you’re big on sharing, this version of File Explorer is made for sharing. More for smartphones than desktops & laptops, I think.

A screenshot of the Search box in the hidden File Explorer.

You can play around with this hidden version of File Explorer, click the buttons, play around with it. Maybe you’ll like it. But I think it’s more likely you’re going to see why it was hidden – at least for desktop and laptop users.

Hey! But now you know it's there!

If You Had a Yahoo Account in 2013, You Were Hacked
Everyone who has or had a Yahoo account

"Sitting down? An epic and historic data breach at Yahoo in August 2013 affected every single customer account that existed at the time, Yahoo parent company Verizon said on Tuesday... " CNN Money

A recent admission by Verizon (new owner of Yahoo — now known as Oath — raises the number of people hacked in 2013 from 1 billion to nearly 3 billion. That means that every one who had a Yahoo account in August 2013 was hacked. Verizon, Yahoo's new parent company says "likely hacked", but careful wording does not change the facts.

The latest revelation raises the number of accounts hacked from 1 billion to 3 billion. Yahoo admitted to 1 billion when it first announced the hacking. But now the company admits that virtually everyone who had a Yahoo account in August 2013 was hacked.

According to Verizon's announcement yesterday, October 3, 2017, hackers in the 2013 data breach stole names, email addresses, phone numbers, birth dates, passwords along with security questions and answers. But, says Verizon, no need to worry. In late 2016, it made all Yahoo users change account passwords and security questions and answers.

We wonder what happened during the intervening 3+ years? And what happened to Yahoo account holders who sent or received emails containing bank account numbers or credit card numbers? Yahoo/Oath says no credit card numbers were stolen, but we know for a fact that people send credit card number via email - as risky and inadvisable as that is. (We caution you again - never send credit card numbers, social security numbers, or financial account numbers via email.)

No one will ever be able to measure the depth and scope of this breach. Three billion is a lot of accounts and a lot of personal information. It's amazing that anyone would ever even consider trusting Yahoo again - or even have a Yahoo account.

We continue to learn more and more about the scope of this breach, and we don't believe the whole truth has come out yet. If you're using a Yahoo account, you should give serious consideration to cancelling it. Get a Google account. If you don't like Google, get an Outlook.com account. But if you take our advice, you'll get as far away from Yahoo as you can as quickly as you can.

In case you want to take us up on our advice, here's how to cancel your Yahoo account. 

Use a 4-digit PIN instead of a password to log in to Windows 10
Windows 10 (all versions)

We featured this tip last year, but we still get quite a few emails from folks who lose their Windows passwords and can't log in.  That's why we recommend everyone use a Microsoft account to log into Windows. if you forget your password you can reset it online. A Microsoft account is any email account ending in @outlook.com, @hotmail.com, @live.com, @live.ca, @msn.com .

We recommend that you use a password to log in to Windows. But we find it much easier to log in with a four-digit pin number. And you can use a PIN whether or no you log in with a Microsoft account. It may not be quite as logging in with a 14-character password, but it’s much better than no password at all. We both use PINs to log into our Windows 10 PCs.

If you’d like log into Windows 10 with a four-digit pin, follow the instructions below:

Click Start — Settings (you can also access setting by pressing the key combo Windows key + i )

Click on Accounts then click Sign-in Options (See below).





Under PIN click “Add” (I’ve already added a PIN so my option says “Change" instead of "Add". If you are not using a PIN yours will say "Add'). When you click Add under PIN, you’ll be prompted to verify your Windows password by typing it in again.



Enter a 4-digit PIN (see image below), verify it, then click Finish. The next time you restart Windows 8.x you’ll be prompted to enter your PIN. If you ever forget your PIN, you will be redirected to the normal Windows 10 password prompt where you'll have to log in using your Windows password.

And that's all there is to it.

Bonus tip: Do you know how to reveal passwords in many Windows 10 password boxes? We'll show you.

Some Windows 10 password / PIN dialogs have what we call the "Magic eye". It's not really called that, but it's a good name. If you see it in a password box in Windows 10, it will reveal the password that's hidden behind the dots. See?

Whenever you see the "Magic eye", you can click on it to see what you've typed in a password / PIN form. 

Donations help us continue our mission to keep you informed, separate the truth from the hyperbole, and help you stay safer online. We provide support to thousands of people. Every week we help dozens of people via email at no charge. Thanks to donations, we do a lot more than provide this free newsletter. We help you recognize online threats, fight for your online privacy, and provide you with the knowledge you need to navigate the Web safely, and help you get more out of your PC.

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Autumn

In my little corner of the world, autumn has settled in.

Walking outside it still feels like summer, but a quick glance at the clock when darkness falls tells me the days are getting shorter and the nights are getting longer: A reminder that the bitter, biting and unrelenting winds of winter will soon whip the snow in whitescapes swirling and drifting down my lonely street and painting the world white.

I’ll watch the flakes flurry in dizzy dances under the street lamp and wonder where summer… and autumn have gone.

In its own way, that beautiful and brilliant palette of autumn, the reds and yellows and shades of orange, displayed by the dazzling trees, mock deep sadness that is born from the reluctant realization that another summer has come to an end, another autumn has begun, winter is on its way… and another year of my life is almost gone.

Every year that passes, passes faster than the one before. The less time I have, the more quickly time passes. Weeks pass by like days and months pass by like weeks.

I am not quite sure why autumn has such a profound affect on me, but it does. It brings deep thoughts and doubts and makes me wonder. Why is life not fair? Life is certainly not fair...

Read the rest of our essay here.

You Talk; It Types

SpeechTexter: A Cloudeight Site Pick

A lot of people are amazed by dictation software. I know I am. I can remember being in my grandpa’s office and looking at a really strange machine and being Amazed. I was about 5 or 6. It was called a Dictaphone. If you don’t know what a Dictaphone is, then you’re too young to understand. They call them cassette recorders now. But Dictaphones were odd-looking things. I was impressed with them when I was a child.

So, it is no wonder I’m impressed with digital speech to text software. There’s a gazillion of them out there right now. But today I found one that recognizes 40 languages. Since I speak only 1.1 languages — I can say ‘where is the beach” and  “where is the bathroom” in Spanish — the 4o language thing doesn’t make much difference to me. But some of you are bilingual and some even multilingual. If you are, then this site should appeal to you. And if you only speak one language, that’s cool too, as long as the one you speak is one of the 40 today’s site pick / web application recognizes. And there’s a really good chance, since you’re reading this, that it does.

SpeechTexter is a web-app. It’s a speech-to-text application that will take whatever you say into your computer microphone and automatically convert it to text in an on-screen word processor.  From there you can copy and paste it into your text editor, word processor, email, Website, Facebook page, etc.

SpeechTexter works with more than 40 different languages. I tried it with my feeble attempts at Spanish and it worked great. Dónde está el baño? Oh, and it gives me a choice of which country’s version of Spanish I want to use. I speak Spanish Spanish (I think), but you can choose whatever dialect of Spanish you speak. Or any of the other 39 languages it recognizes.  Oh, and if you speak English, like I kind of do, you can choose from 13 different versions of English, including the U.S. version of English, the English version of English, Australian version and so on.

One caveat: You’ll need to use the Chrome browser in order to use this site. It may work in other Chrome variants like Chromium, Vivaldi. We didn’t test it in these browser, but you can if you want to. One reader says it works in Opera. So there you go Opera fans.

Give it a try right now. We’re pretty sure you’ll find it works great.  Visit https://www.speechtexter.com/. You talk; it types.

Above: SpeechTexter understands my horrible Spanish.

Version 8 Latest Release!

What's New in Reg Organizer 8.0?

• Ability to clean the cache of the installed applications.
• A new Private Data Cleanup tool was added. It is designed for cleaning the data of a personal nature emerging in everyday use of your PC like browsing history and the drop-down lists with the paths of files you recently opened in Windows or applications.
• The new System Cleanup tool combines the functionality for cleaning the disk and the registry allowing for effective freeing up of disk space and correcting the system problems like invalid shortcuts.
• Ability to clean the jump lists (recently accessed application files and actions).
• Ability to clean the Run dialog (opened using the Win + R keys combination) history.
• Switching between the Maximum cleanup mode and the Everyday cleanup mode in the System Cleanup tool. The Maximum cleanup mode can be used, if it is necessary to free up the maximum possible amount of space on the drives. This will be done at the cost of removing old restore points, emptying the Recycle bin, etc. Enable this mode to view more information to make a decision.
• Recently Used Files section: More files and folders you recently opened in Windows or applications are now displayed here.
• Check for update: You may disable notifications about beta and alpha versions.
• The Settings window can be resized.
• It is now possible to open Express Check directly from the Tool Selection Panel located at the left part of the main window.
• The Startup applications tool: Now you may permanently exclude the applications from the optimization. To do this click on the cross at the right of the application in the recommendations window.
• Note for Cloudeight subscribers : If you purchased or renewed Reg Organize through Cloudeight within the last 12 months, you're entitled to a free version upgrade to Reg Organizer 8.0.

Uninstall programs in Windows 10 from the Start Menu

We like Geek Uninstaller and Revo Uninstaller, but not all of you want to bother with an uninstaller. Did you know that Windows 10 lets you uninstall programs (and some Windows apps) right from the start menu? It does.

Well... Kind of.

Open your Windows 10 Start menu and right-click on a program you want to install. You'll see a menu appear (see above) with:

> Pin to Start
> More
> Uninstall

All you need to do is click Uninstall to uninstall the program (or some Windows apps). Sadly, it's not that easy but clicking "Uninstall" does take you to Control Panel > Programs & features > Uninstall a program. Once you get there you can uninstall any program you like, even the one you right-clicked on.

It's quirky, but it does provide you with a really quick way of getting to Control Panel to uninstall a program.

Keep in mind also, if the program you want to uninstall appears as a folder in your start menu, you'll need to open the folder and right-click the program shortcut, right-clicking the folder won't do any good, except to give your finger a good workout.

Keep in mind, Microsoft is stubborn. There are some Windows apps that you can't remove (at least not very easily). Microsoft decided it wants you to have certain stuff, and by golly, you're going to have them.

Donations help us continue our mission to keep you informed, separate the truth from the hyperbole, and help you stay safer online. We provide support to thousands of people. Every week we help dozens of people via email at no charge. Thanks to donations, we do a lot more than provide this free newsletter. We help you recognize online threats, fight for your online privacy, and provide you with the knowledge you need to navigate the Web safely, and help you get more out of your PC.

Help us keep up the good fight with a small donation.

After you donate, you will receive an invitation to become a Cloudeight Booster.

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