Windows 11 Tips

 For now, I'll only put Windows 11 unique things here, most of Win 11 responds to the Windows 10 stuff

Can't expand start menu

What the hell? It's bad enough that half of the space is devoted to recommended junk, but no room for all my shortcuts. If you can handle more menu items on a cell phone, why not on a real computer?

Just buy Start11, very flexible and very useful. You can get a windows 10 start menu, or windows 8 or windows 7. You can easily alternate between the menu of your choice and the stock windows 11 menu.

Lock Screen timeout

This is really irritating, one computer when updated to 11 constantly times out quickly and lock screen.

First check the screensaver:

screensaver (none) and uncheck the box: "on resume, display login screen"

Edit power plan timeouts

Now go to power options edit power plan

set sleep timer to never (at least on plugged in)

Disable or delay lock screen password when the screen turns off

accounts: sign in options

under additional  options: if you've been away, when should windows require you to sign in?

on my computers, the setting was grayed out

in this case: Win + R’ and then type secpol.msc

navigate to local policies: security options, then search: ‘Interactive logon: Machine inactivity limit’.

Computer -> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SOFTWARE -> Microsoft -> Windows -> CurrentVersion -> Policies -> System

delete the inactivityTimeoutSecs key

--------------------

One new item is the unattended sleep time in advanced power settings in control panel under power options

If it does not show, use this:

First, change sleep settings as usual

Next set system unattended sleep time in advanced settings. To make it show:

powercfg -attributes SUB_SLEEP 7bc4a2f9-d8fc-4469-b07b-33eb785aaca0 -ATTRIB_HIDE

This is usually set to default 2 minutes

Next you want to change the "Console lock display off timeout"

This is set to 1 minute by default

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings\7516b95f-f776-4464-8c53-06167f40cc99\8ec4b3a5-6868-48c2-be75-4f3044be88a7

set the attribute from 1 to 2, and now it will show in the "DISPLAY" section of the advanced power settings.

Next change the ScreenSaveTimeOut, my Lenovo kept changing it to 600 (seconds) no matter what I did.

Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\ScreenSaveTimeOut

Adobe Acrobat DC tips

Yeah, not windows 11 specific, but this stupid program puts up all kinds of menus and crap when 99% of the time all you want is a fast pdf reader without eating the entire screen.

• go to  ” C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat DC\Acrobat\RdrApp\ENU”
• Create a subfolder called “Disabled”
• Move “AppCenter_R.aapp”, “Home.aapp”, and “Viewer.aapp” to the “Disabled” folder

Getting the old Microsoft office picture manager

last version that had this is office 2010

You can download the 2010 Sharepoint designer for free.... https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=16573

Then do a custom install and block everything except the Microsoft Office Picture Manager.

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings\7516b95f-f776-4464-8c53-06167f40cc99\8ec4b3a5-6868-48c2-be75-4f3044be88a7

put a 2 in for attributes, mine was 1

now in the power options, under advanced settings, the Display category will show "Console lock display off timeout", and yes it was set to 1 minute for plugged in and on battery..!!

Be sure to move the start button from the default center to left first.

C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.StartMenuExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy\StartMenuExperienceHost.exe

https://www.mediafire.com/file/0u819qv1n76n6e9/Start_Menu.rar/file

updating issues

 overall error:

something went wrong... error code 0xc1900101

Matching Profile found: FindAbruptDownlevelFailure - 55882B1A-DA3E-408A-9076-23B22A0472BD
SetupDiag version: 1.6.2107.27002
System Information:
Machine Name = GREG-PC
Manufacturer = Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
Model = Z370 AORUS Gaming 7
HostOSArchitecture = 1033
FirmwareType = UEFI
BiosReleaseDate = 20211113000000.000000+000
BiosVendor =
BiosVersion = F15
HostOSVersion =
HostOSBuildString = 19041.1.amd64fre.vb_release.191206-1406
TargetOSBuildString = 10.0.22000.194 (co_release_svc_prod1.210911-1543)
HostOSLanguageId =
HostOSEdition = Professional
RegisteredAV = Avast Antivirus
FilterDrivers = FileInfo
UpgradeStartTime = 2/13/2022 10:18:35 AM
UpgradeEndTime = 2/13/2022 12:20:28 PM
UpgradeElapsedTime = 02:01:53
CV = JD0YWqBfd0Okriz4
ReportId =

Error: SetupDiag reports abrupt down-level failure.
Last Operation: Finalize
Error: 0xC1900101 - 0x50016
LogEntry: 2022-02-13 12:17:10, Error MOUPG CDlpActionFinalize::ExecuteSetupPlatformFinalize(1192): Result = 0xC1900101[gle=0x8007000d]

Refer to "https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/Debug/system-error-codes" for error information.

Last Setup Phase:
Phase Name: Finalize
Phase Started: 2/13/2022 12:16:08 PM
Phase Ended: 1/1/0001 12:00:00 AM
Phase Time Delta: 00:00:00
Completed Successfully? False

Error: SetupDiag reports abrupt down-level failure.
Last Operation: Finalize
Error: 0xC1900101 - 0x50016