Windows 8: Stupid PC Tricks - Lock Screen Shortcut

Note: "Stupid PC Tricks" are a series of user tips that I think are interesting, but unfortunately they're not all that useful.
In any organization its important to lock your computer when you leave it, this will prevent someone from abusing your network security access.  By pressing the WinKey + L on the keyboard you can lock the computer screen.  With this tip you can create a shortcut icon

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Microsoft Announces the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2

Today Microsoft announced the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2, it's new Window 8.1.tablet.  The new Surface 2 is based on Windows 8 RT, and Surface Pro 2 based on Windows 8 Professional.






New features of the devices include:

A new fingerprint resistant magnesium-based case.
Faster processor:

Surface 2: 1.7 GHz quad-core Tegra 4 ARM chip. (w/ 2GB of RAM)

Internal storage: From 32GB or 64GB

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Windows 8: Map Folders To Drive Letters

If you regularly work with specific folders, and are tired of typing their path (e.g. C:\Windows\System32\Drivers or anything else) its possible to assign it a drive letter.  There's an old DOS command called SUBST (example: SUBST X: C:\{pathname}\foldername}) that can associate a drive letter with a specific folder path.

For example, to assign T: to C:\Windows\System32\Drivers, at the command

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Windows 8: Booting From a VHD

Since Windows 7, the OS has supported the ability boot the comptuer from a VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) or ISO file.   The VHD files were originally created for Microsoft's Virtual Machine (VM) technologies like Hyper-V.

Create or mount an existing VHD, and place it in an easy to find location such as C:\VHD.  For this example purposes the VHD file will be called C:\VHD\VHDTEST.VHD

For information

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Windows 8: Built-in Command Line Network Utilities

Below is a list of command line network utilities that come with Windows that are used for troubleshooting network problems. The problem with these utilities is that they're not very intuitive until you learn to understand what you're looking at.

For example, the PING command is for checking if a remote computer or device is network accessible (note: this can be block by the device's firewall).

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Windows 8: Prevent Windows Update's Automatic Rebooting

It's annoying if the computer is left on at night with unsaved work on it, then come back to it in the morning and find that it was rebooted.

When new patches are downloaded and installed on the computer by Windows Update (if its enabled) this feature will automatically reboot the system. So if there's any unsaved work, it will be lost.

To prevent Windows Update from performing this action,

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