Tag: open source

TidyOS: little Windows System Tweaker for debloating

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Tweaking apps offer a user-friendly option to customize the Windows operating system. Most focus on the removal of apps, disabling certain features, or improving privacy.

While it is possible to apply any tweak manually, it is probably safe to say that the majority of Windows users prefers apps for the job.

TidyOS is an open source tweaker for Windows by Belim, the creator of too-many-apps to count (including ThisIsNot11). It is a well-designed application that is compatible with Windows 11.

Just run the 300 kilobytes app to get started. Windows may throw in a SmartScreen warning, but this is not something to be worried about.

The interface is streamlined. You find the three main groups customizing, debloating, and scripting there. Here is what they do:

  • Customizing is the bread and butter group. It includes dozens of tweaks to disable ads, improve privacy, or disable features that you may not need.
  • Debloating may be used to remove apps from the system, including many built-in apps that you may not require.
  • Scripting gives you advanced options, which are powered by scripts. You can use it to remove AI, create a System Restore point, or remove old Windows versions to free up space.

While the provided tweaks are not as extensive as that of WinAero Tweaker, they do cover major tweaks to deal with annoyance and remove apps or features that are unwanted by part of the userbase.

On the plus side, it is a tad easier to work with thanks to its streamlined interface. Most tweaks are self-explanatory, but you can toggle “feature insights” in the interface to switch to longer descriptions for each tweak that provide additional details.

The changes under customizing take effect immediately, e.g., when you select to remove Copilot or Search from the taskbar, that is done right away.

This is different under debloating and scripting. Here you need to become active, e.g., hit the “remove selected” button under debloating to remove the selected apps from the system.

TidyOS does not require elevation on start, but it may request elevation when you select an action that requires it.

Verdict

TidyOS is a well-designed tweaker for Windows 11 that is not as powerful as some of the others, but you may find easier to use because of that. All in all, it is a good app for users who do not require the massive level of tweaks that other tweakers offer.

Now You: do you use a tweaker for Windows? If so, which is your favorite and why? Feel free to leave a comment down below to join the discussion.

Display the weather on the Windows taskbar (without Widgets)

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Microsoft’s Windows 11 operating system displays the Widgets icon on the taskbar by default. It was updated recently to show weather information. If you do not use Widgets, but like the weather information, you can use a third-party alternative.

Tray Weather is an open source application for Windows to display weather information in the System Tray area.

Weather Tray shows two icons in this configuration (weather and temperature)

Good news is that it supports multiple weather providers, and one of them does not require an account or API access.

The details:

  • Weather Tray is compatible with Windows 7 and newer versions of Windows, including Windows 11.
  • Setup is a bit fiddly, but not too complicated.

You can download the latest version of the program from the project’s GitHub repository.

Windows will display a security dialog when you execute setup, because the application is not signed. Setup itself is straightforward, but it is necessary to make a few changes in the configuration and in Windows.

Lets talk about the program’s configuration first. Here you make a number of important decisions regarding the program:

  • Select OpenMeteo API under Weather Data Provider to get weather data without API requirement.
  • Make sure the set location is correct or change it.
  • Switch the measurement units, modify graph temperatures, and opacity.
  • Pick an icon for display on the taskbar. The default displays a representative icon of the weather, e.g., a sun or clouds. You can switch that to temperature or combinations.
  • Add or remove information from the icon’s tooltip. The default displays the location, current weather, and temperature only. You may add information such as air quality, wind speed, humidity, ground pressure, and more to it.
  • Change the time between updates from the 15 minute default.

Windows may not display the icon of the app by default in the system tray area. On Windows 11 for example, you need to enable it first so that it displays all the time.

Right-click on a blank space on the taskbar and select Taskbar Settings. Expand “Other system tray icons” on the page that opens and toggle Weather Tray to display it permanently.

That is as far as configurations are concerned.

Closing Words

Weather Tray may not have the prettiest icons, but it works well, is open source, and does not get in your way with other content that you may not want. It is an excellent option for Windows users who would like to display weather information on their systems.

What is your take on this? Do you use little helper apps like Weather Tray on your devices? Let us know in the comments down below.

AMD Frame Latency Meter

AMD released a new open source tool that works on Windows PCs, even those with NVIDIA cards

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

AMD has released the first version of Frame Latency Meter, an open source tool for Microsoft Windows devices that is measuring the latency of the mouse.

Technically, Frame Latency Meter helps getting insights into a system’s performance by measuring the mouse’s response time from the moment it is moved to the moment the frame is displayed on the screen.

Who is the target for the tool? This is an advanced tool that aims at game developers, but also power gamers who like to squeeze as many FPS as possible out of their rigs.

Here are the details:

  • Frame Latency Meter is compatible with devices running Windows 10 or 11.
  • It works on AMD, Intel, or Nvidia devices.
  • Data can be exported to CSV files.
  • Hotkeys are available and configurable.
  • Screen capture region can be customized.

The main advantage of AMD’s tool is that it does not require any special equipment.

AMD has a quick start guide on the project’s GitHub repository. While you can simply run the program after download, it does not need to be installed, you end up with the default configuration.

AMD suggests the following steps:

  1. Configure the primary monitor to run the game on — Set to free sync or a manual refresh rate. AMD suggests to start with 60Hz first.
  2. Run the application.
  3. Press the right Alt-key to set the capture region bounding box. (only shows if the game is running in windowed mode).
  4. Run the game.
  5. Use the shortcut Alt-T to enable and disable the capturing.

In theory, you could use the tool to optimize gaming performance on any Windows system that meets the requirements.

Most gamers won’t, but it is nevertheless an interesting tool, especially for game developers who want to make sure their games run fine. Game developers who used high speed camera setups in the past may want to give this a go to see how it stacks up. It is a much cheaper option, after all.

Gamers who want to optimize their systems may run game-specific benchmarks to do so. This is a good way of adjusting game settings to improve performance.

What about you? Do you play computer games on your Windows systems? Feel free to leave a comment down below to let us know.

Computers

Switch between Windows 10 and 11 File Explorer and context menus

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

SwitchExplorer is a tiny open source program for Windows 11 that gives users more control over File Explorer.

Here is what it does: it gives you the option to change to the Windows 10 File Explorer and use the classic context menu as well.

When Microsoft launched Windows 11, it introduced a new File Explorer context menu that limited programs to one root entry. The new menu did not support classic context menus, and this meant that users had to switch to the classic menu for some actions.

While Microsoft implemented an option to do so using the new menu or a keyboard shortcut, it was anything but user friendly.

Soon thereafter, a Registry tweak made the rounds that would make the classic context menu the default again in File Explorer on Windows 11.

SwitchExplorer makes it easier

SwitchExplorer interface

If you do not feel like editing the Windows Registry, you may use the open source tool to make the change for you.

Here is how it works:

  1. Download the latest version of SwitchExplorer from the GitHub repository.
  2. Extract the archive to the local system.
  3. Run the SwitchExplorer executable.
  4. Skip the SmartScreen warning, if Windows displays it.

Now you have two options:

  • Switch the Explorer type from Windows 11 to Windows 10, or vice versa.
  • Set the context menu to the Windows 10 or the Windows 11 context menu.

Activate the ok-button once you are done. SwitchExplorer restarts the explorer.exe process and the changes should be visible right away. A restart is not required.

You can undo any change by selecting the default Windows 11 options. This does not require a restart either.

Closing Words

SwitchExplorer is a small tool that may be of use to some Windows 11 users. If your favorite programs have not been updated yet to show an entry in the new context menu, you may consider using the classic context menu all the time.

Similarly, if you prefer the Windows 10 Explorer, you can enable it using the tool.

What about you? Do you like the Windows 11 File Explorer and context menu? Feel free to leave a comment down below!

Inplace Upgrade Helper

Inplace Upgrade Helper: Windows tool to switch between Windows editions

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Inplace Upgrade Helper is an open source tool designed to help Windows users move between different Windows 10 and 11 editions.

The Windows edition, e.g., Home or Pro, determines whether certain features are available or not. A common example is that Home editions lack access to the Group Policy Editor.

Windows includes options to switch editions. In best case, all you need to do is open Settings > System > Activation, click on the “change” button next to Change product key, and type or paste the new key.

This process works well when you upgrade from a less expensive version. Upgrades from Home to Pro should work this way. You may still run into issues sometimes. While this happens often when you downgrade Windows to another edition, e.g., from Pro to Home, it is not uncommon that you run into issues when you try to upgrade the edition.

Inplace Upgrade Helper

Inplace Upgrade Helper supports all major versions of Windows and many special editions. Besides Home and Pro, it also supports Enterprise, Education, IoT Enterprise, Windows 11 SE CloudEdition, or Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021.

The open source tool includes four different methods to change editions in Windows 10 and 11. These are:

  • Using slmgr.
  • Running an in-place upgrade using setup.exe.
  • Running an in-place upgrade of any edition of Windows. This method blocks any “firmware-embedded keys” of the current edition.
  • Running a forced in-place upgrade to keep all apps and settings.

While that may sound complicated, it is not really. All you need to do download Windows installation media and extract it on the local system. You may use WinRAR for that or most file archivers.

Download the latest version of the Inplace Upgrade Helper tool and place it in the same directory as setup.exe.

Right-click on Inplace_Upgrade_Helper.bat and select “run as administrator” to start it.

From there it is just a matter of selecting the desired edition, e.g., 2 for Pro, and then the upgrade method, e.g., f for forcing the upgrade or k for trying to install the update using slmgr.

As always, it is recommended to create a backup of the system drive before you make any changes to the operating system.

Note that the tool does not activate Windows. It merely switches the edition.

Closing words

Trying Windows’ built-in option to change the key and edition is the best option if you upgrade from Home to Pro. The open source tool may be useful if you run into issues when you try to switch editions.

Now You: which edition of Windows do you run, if any? (via Deskmodder)

Share

ShareX 16 launches with screen capturing and recording improvements

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

ShareX 16.0.0 was released this week. The latest version of the open source screen capturing, recording, and sharing program for comes with a huge list of changes and improvements.

ShareX is a popular option when it comes to recording or capturing the screen on Windows. It supports a ton of capturing methods, from fullscreen and region to scrolling captures and even automated captures.

The application’s post-capturing options are equally impressive. These include options to edit images locally, use OCR for text detection, and upload the captures to the Internet. ShareX is a power-users tool.

Note: the release is already available on GitHub, but not on the official website.

ShareX 16.0.0

ShareX 16.0 interface

The latest version of ShareX comes with a long list of changes. Notable is that the developers have rewritten the application’s scrolling capture mode from scratch to improve it.

This allows users to capture an entire website or application, and not just the visible part.

The improved capturing mode has an entirely new algorithm that provides better detection and combining accuracy. It has a fallback option to the old algorithm if it fails. Some options were removed and the new algorithm tries to automate the process as much as possible to make things simpler and easier to use.

The entire process of combining images should perform better on user systems as well.

Scrolling capture has a few new options as well. It is now possible to delay the start, set the scroll delay and amount, and use automatic uploading or saving.

The new feature works well with Windows 11’s new super resolution feature.

Other changes in the release

Here is a list of other changes in the release:

  • Video editor improvements — added AV1, NVENC H.264 & HEVC, QuickSync H.264 & HEVC, and AMF H.264 & HEVC encoders. There is a new “use bitrate” option to set a custom bitrate and to skip using the audio encoder for the files GIF, WEBP, PNG, or APNG.
  • Image editor — supports “proper” undo and redo now. Also new is a “load image from URL” button and the keyboard shortcut CTRL-C is now used to copy the image to the Clipboard.
  • Image beautifier — New tool to apply image effects to captures. This includes shadows, padding and margin, or making changes to the background.
  • Image effects — added several image effects to various sections, e.g., auto resize option to Shadow effects.
  • OCR — improved upscaling of images before applying OCR.

Closing Words

ShareX is an excellent image capturing and recording tool. The new version improves the program in several key areas. While I still prefer PicPick, ShareX is clearly an excellent tool when it comes to recording or capturing screens on Windows devices.

Now You: which screen capturing software, if any, do you use?

Computers

How to back up Windows user profiles

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Each Windows user has a user profile that holds customizations and personal files. Users may install software, download files or change the look and feel of Windows.

Backing up user profiles may not be something that most users are familiar with. There are full system backups after all, which include user profile data.

User backups may come in handy in some cases, however. Here are the two main cases:

  1. To migrate a user profile from one Windows device or installation to another.
  2. To back up a user profile for safekeeping.

Windows users who use a Microsoft account may have some of their customizations and files synced between devices. Not all data is synced on the other hand, including Win32 software installations or customizations of installed programs.

A backup of the user profile and the restoration of it on another device takes care of that.

Note that there are also specialized programs for copying settings. Appcopier is a free tool that does that. Note that Windows Backup backs up user data as well, but not much more.

Super Grate: back up Windows user profiles

Back up Windows user profiles

Super Grate is a free open source tool for Windows to back up Windows user profiles and to restore the backups. Its main purpose is migrations from one device to another. It runs on Windows 7 to Windows 11 devices.

The program requires no installation. Just run the program after download to get started. Windows may throw a SmartScreen error, which you can skip. The application is safe to use. Note that Super Grate requires elevation.

The interface looks simple enough, but there is a roadblock for users who never worked with computer names and domains.

Backing up profiles

To back up a profile, it is necessary to enter the name, and optional domain, of the computer. Open Settings > System to get the name of the computer. It is listed at the top of the page.

Name of Computer

Type the name of the computer into the source computer field and activate the “list source” button. The program will return all user-created profiles but no standard profiles.

The name, creation date and last modification date of each profile is listed by the app.

Select one or multiple profiles and activate the start button to back up these profiles. It may take some time to back up profiles. Much of it depends on the size of the profile. There is a progress bar that reveals the progress of the entire process.

Restoring profiles

Restoring a Windows user profile works similar to the backup process. Type the computer name into the destination computer field and hit the “list store” button afterwards. To restore on the same computer, type the computer name again.

Super Grate should return all backed up profiles. Select the profile that you want to restore and then Start to restore the user profile on the device.

Tip: you may rename a Windows user profile by right-clicking on it and selecting the “set destination user name” option from the context menu.

Full migrations

To migrate a user profile from one computer to another, it is necessary to fill out both the source and destination computer fields. These need to be different and connected to the same network.

Consult the official documentation for additional guidance. It includes information about using Active Directory, deleting profiles and more.

Verdict

Creating a backup of a Windows user profile is a simple task with Super Grate. It is a useful when you want to migrate the profile from one device to another, or for back up purposes.

User profiles may become corrupt, for instance after a virus attack or accidental deletions of important files.