Do you miss having one-click access to the Computer folder in Windows 8? Here’s how to put a tile to it on the Start screen. Here’s a hack for everyone who longs to get to the Computer folder in Windows 8 quickly. It’s simple to do.

 Open File Explorer and go to C:\Users\User Name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Win dows\Start Menu\ where User Name is your account in Windows. You should see the \Programs folder. Right-click the folder and select Create Shortcut. The shortcut created will be called Programs – Shortcut. Right-click it and select Properties. Click the Shortcut tab, and in the Target box, delete what’s there, and instead type this: C:\Windows\explorer.exe explorer.exe /root,,::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D808002B30309D} Go to the General Tab and rename the shortcut Computer. Then click OK (See Figure). 

A tile to launch Computer then appears on the Start screen ( See Figure ). 

If you’d like, you can change the tiles icon on the Start screen. Using File Explorer, right-click the shortcut you’ve created on the Desktop, select Properties, and go to the Shortcut tab. Click Change Icon, and select an icon ( See Figure ).

 That becomes the picture on the tile (See Figure)

Tired of being forced to click through Windows 8’s lock screen before you get to the Start screen? Here’s how to bypass it. 

                                        Boot your PC or wake it from sleep, and you go straight to Windows 8’s lock screen, which looks more like the screen you’d expect to see on your smartphone than on a PC. It tells you the time and date, and a variety of timely information—meetings taken from your calendar, updates from social networking sites, an indication of your power level, email notifications, and other similar information. 

                                      That’s all very nice, but if you’re on a PC, you probably want to get straight to work. And that means getting to the Start screen faster. If you like, you can bypass the Lock Screen.

Note: If you’re using a Windows 8 tablet, you may find the Lock screen more useful, since you may want to glance at your calendar or social networking sites while you’re on the go.

                  To do it, you use the Local Policy Editor. Launch it by pressing Windows key+R to open the Run bar, type gpedit.msc, and press Enter or click OK. The Local Policy Editor launches

                             Go to Computer Configuration→Administrative Templates→Control Panel→Personalization. Double-click the “Do not display the lock screen” entry, select Enabled, then press Enter or click OK. Exit the Local Policy Editor, then reboot. 

            The new setting should take effect immediately. The next turn you reboot or wake your PC, you won’t see the Lock screen. Instead, you’ll go straight into logging into Windows 8.

                   The Local Policy Editor comes only with Windows 8 Pro and Windows 8 Enterprise. But you can still turn off the Lock screen in any version of Windows 8 by using a Registry hack.  In the Registry Editor, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Personalization and create a DWORD called NoLockScreen. Change its value from 0 to 1, exit the Registry Editor, and exit and restart Windows 8. (Note: If you don’t find the Personalization key, you’ll have to create it before creating the NoLockScreen DWORD.)