Many PCs are now shipping without built-in optical drives. This allows for thinner computers and better battery life, but makes it a pain if you ever have to reinstall Windows. Instead of buying a bulky external optical drive, here’s how to create your own convenient Windows USB Installer.

Office 2013 applications feature start screens upon launch that let users easily choose a document template and access recently saved files. But some users prefer to start each app directly with a new blank document. Here are two ways to bypass or disable the Office 2013 start screens.

The upcoming Windows 8.1 is all about fine tuning the Windows 8 experience based on customer feedback. One of the best changes is the ability to boot directly to the desktop while bypassing the Start Screen. Here’s how to enable the boot to desktop feature.

Each computer network interface has a unique ID called a MAC or Physical Address which can be used for various network management functions. Here’s how to find your computer’s MAC address in Windows and OS X.

Office 2013 features great integration with cloud services for easy access to stored and synced documents, but only with Microsoft services by default. Here’s how to integrate Dropbox and other third party cloud services, such as Google Drive, into Office 2013.

The Windows 8 Start Screen features beautiful tile icons for Modern UI (a.k.a. “Metro”) apps, but desktop apps are represented by unattractive low-resolution icons in empty tiles. Here’s how to create great-looking tile icons for any app.

Microsoft’s CHKDSK command may be over 30 years old, but it still has a useful place today in scanning, diagnosing, and repairing hard drives. Here’s how to use it in Windows 8.