Friday, January 11, 2013

Diving deep into Windows 8 power tools


In the weeks since the new OS launched, we've published a number of deep-dive tutorials that explore the system's more innovative, richer features. For example, BitLocker To Go is built directly into Windows 8, and helps you quickly encrypt external storage devices like USB flash drives and portable hard drives. If you're concerned about your data security, you should also read our how-to on activating Windows Defender, a basic anti-malware tool that's not immediately exposed in many default installations of the OS.

Another great built-in Windows 8 feature is Storage Spaces, a tool that lets you combine all your sundry storage hardware into a single, virtual data pool—which you can then allocate more efficiently, for data redundancy and general file management. Besides explaining Storage Spaces, we also posted a great article on using Client Hyper-V, a tool that lets you virtualize older versions of Windows from within Windows 8.
Finally, it's possible that you just installed Windows 8 on a machine from yesteryear, and your gear isn't up to the task of running the new system in all its glory. If you find yourself in this sorry lot, read our tutorial on optimizing Windows 8 for older hardware. It explains which features to turn off, or otherwise disable.

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