How to Disable Inactive Window Scrolling In Windows 10

How to Disable Inactive Window Scrolling In Windows 10

Windows 10 comes bundled with a host of new features, most of which appear to have been enabled by default. One such feature is the ability to scroll inactive windows vis-a-vis active ones – a feature that seems to have been borrowed from OS X. If you find it annoying or distracting to use, here are step-by-step instructions on how to disable inactive window scrolling in Windows 10.

Personally, I find the ability to scroll inactive windows by simply hovering the mouse over it without clicking it very useful, but in some cases, especially when you’re not used to it, it can get annoying too. Here we show you two methods for quickly disabling this feature.

Using Windows Settings

Step 1: To begin, launch the Settings app (Windows key + I), and click on the Devices icon.

Step 2: Next up, when the Devices window appears, click on Mouse & touchpad visible in the left panel.

Step 3: You should now see an array of options listed for your mouse and touchpad. Simply turn off the switch under Scroll inactive windows when I hover over them.

This should effectively disable scrolling in inactive windows from now on. If you wish to re-enable the feature, simply flip the same switch to turn it on.

Using Registry (advanced users only)

If for some reason the above mentioned method is not visible for you or if it does not work, you can do it the old fashion way by editing the Windows Registry. This method is for advanced users only.

Step 1: To begin, simply type in “regedit” in the Windows 10 search box and hit the Enter key. Alternatively, simply select ‘regedit’ from the results that appear by clicking on it.

Step 2: Windows UAC will prompt you with a dialogue box asking “Do you want to allow this app to make changes to your PC?” Select Yes.

Step 3: In the Registry Editor, navigate to the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

Step 4: Once there, you may need to scroll down in the panel on the right and look for MouseWheelRouting. In case it doesn’t exist, simply create a new DWORD (32-bit) Value and name it MouseWheelRouting in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop location.

Step 5: Now we need to modify the value for this key. Double-click MouseWheelRouting and change the value in Value data to “0”, and hit OK.

You can now exit the Registry Editor and test out if the feature has been truly disabled. To turn it back on, simply follow the same steps as defined above, but enter “2” in Value data.

How to disable Windows 10’s Bing web search results

How to disable Windows 10’s Bing web search results

Whenever you search for something that doesn’t directly match a system setting or installed app, Cortana taps into Bing and brings up a list of web results by default, rather than scouring your local hard drive for relevant files. Conducting a local search requires an extra click of the My Stuff button in the search results. (See the picture at top.)

That sucks. And worse, there’s no way to force the search results to show your My Stuff files first. Or perhaps you just don't like the idea of every search result you run being beamed to Microsoft's servers.
Fortunately, there's a way to disable Bing and force the search bar to display local results before gnarly web searches—but it requires a scorched Earth approach to Windows 10’s connected capabilities.

First, you’ll have to disable Cortana completely. There’s no way around it.

To do so, open the Cortana/search interface, click the Notebook icon, and select settings. Here, simply move the “Cortana can give you suggestions, ideas, reminders, alarms, and more” slider to off to disable here. Note that in doing so, Microsoft still stores the personal information you’ve given Cortana on its servers; to see how to completely wipe the personal info Microsoft has stored.

But we’re not done yet! Once Cortana’s silenced, open the search interface again and select the Settings cog. In the menu that opens, move the “Search online and include web results” slider to off to disable Bing’s search integration.

Boom! That’s it. Any searches you conduct will now search only your local files—though not your OneDrive-stored files, unfortunately. (Using the default, Bing-enhanced settings includes both local and OneDrive files when you click on My Stuff.)

If you don’t want to kill Cortana, but do want a way to search your local files quickly, consider installing the superb Everything search engine program and pinning it to your taskbar for easy access. It’s donationware. Then you can use Everything to conduct lightning-fast local file searches, and Cortana for everything else.

How to Disable / Turn Off Automatic Updates In Windows 10

How to Disable / Turn Off Automatic Updates In Windows 10

Unlike the majority of other versions that have come before it, automatic updates in Windows 10 cannot be simply tinkered with. Microsoft will push updates to your Windows 10 powered computer which will be automatically downloaded. The idea is to keep users up to date and safe with latest security patches installed. Luckily, there are some ways around this.
We’ll be taking you through three different ways in which automatic updates in Windows 10 can be tackled to your preference.

Method 1: Using Metered Connection

Windows 10 automatically sets certain connection types as metered. This essentially means that certain connections, such as cellular services, often have data limitations and restrictions in place. Windows sets these as metered to prevent downloading tons of data that could prove costly. However, it is possible to set any connection type as being metered.

• Step 1: Launch the Windows 10 Settings application (Windows key + I).
• Step 2: Now click Network & Internet.
• Step 3: Click Advanced options which appears below the list of Wi-Fi networks so you may have to scroll down a bit.
• Step 4: Toggle the Set as metered connection switch to On. It is important to understand that this option will only affect the network you’re currently connected to, and that Windows will remember the setting.

Method 2: Using Microsoft’s Tool

Sometimes a very specific Windows update or driver update can be shown to be causing problems. Troubleshooting these issues or rolling back to a working driver or version of whatever has been updated can be problematic. It’s an extremely handy feature to be able to prevent Windows 10 from installing specific updates where required.

Step 1: Download the “Show or hide updates” tool from Microsoft.

Step 2: When downloaded, run the Show or hide updates tool. The tool will automatically search for available updates and allow them to be hidden. This essentially prevents Windows Update from downloading updates for that package in the future.

Step 3: If required, run the tool again and unhide the previously hidden updates to ensure that they come through.

Method 3: Using Group Policy Editor

An initial note; this method only applies to Windows 10 Pro edition. Given the nature of this edition of Windows 10, it’s probably advisable to leave updates turned on for security reasons.

Step 1: Press Windows key + R to gain access to the Run dialog.

Step 2: To gain access to the Group Policy Editor, type the following command into the Run dialog box: gpedit.msc and press Enter.

Step 3: Navigate to the following directory: Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Update.

Step 4: Locate and highlight the Configure Automatic Updates setting in the right hand panel. Double-click to enter.

Step 5: Set the configuration to Enabled on the left-hand side and then choose your own options from the drop-down list under the Options header. For example you can instruct Windows 10 to “Notify for download and notify for install” when dealing with updates.

Step 6: To disable this policy, and revert back to the default state, simply go back into the Configure Automatic Updates selection (as shown from Step 1 till 5), and make sure Not Configured is selected.

Enjoy it !!! . Source : Redmond Pie