How to: Windows 11 & 10. Tricks 101 - God Mode

There are two ways of accessing settings in Windows 11. The Settings Menu and the good ol Control Panel. It can be confusing trying to find specific settings. For example, Windows Update and Touch Screen Settings are only found in the Settings menu.

If you want an All-In-One bucket to access every setting you can imagine within Windows use what is called 'God Mode'. 

'God Mode' is a complete breakdown of the Control Panel settings.

Placing the God Mode folder on your desktop is a must for those power users who like to give Windows the ultimate tweaks and settings.

To place the God Mode folder on your desktop, ensure your user account is an administrator.
Right Click on your desktop, Click NEW, Click FOLDER.

Copy and paste this in the Folder Name:

GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

After following the step above, you will have a folder much like the Control Panel, but with a ton full more options!

How to: Four simple ways to speed up your Windows PC boot up time

So you turn on the power button to your computer....waiting for Windows to boot.....you see the Manufactures screen......then you see the Windows 11 screen.

Waiting....waiting........you go decide to make a cup of coffee.
You come back.....your desktop has appeared.....but the hourglass is showing....meaning programs are running in the background. 

OMG!! Two minutes later....."finally!!"

How often have we gone thru that?
Well....it doesn't really have to be that way. In fact, the following steps will trim your Windows boot time from a slow snail's pace to a quick rabbit on caffeine.

Disabling certain startup programs

It's a well-known fact. The longer you have a PC, the more you'll end up downloading programs and software. Some programs that automatically get stored into memory as Windows starts up, slowing the boot time. Printer programs and drivers, antivirus software...and other software.
By disabling some of these programs you can speed up Windows boot time.

1. Right-click (not left click) on the Start Menu, and click "Task Manager"
2. When the Task Manager appears, click on Startup - here is where the current programs assigned by Windows to startup automatically.
3.  Right-click on the program you don't want to start automatically and select Disable

Upgrading your hardware

A second way to speed up your Windows startup is to upgrade your system's hardware.
With desktops, your options in doing this are a little more than if you have a laptop. First, try upgrading your memory. If you have a desktop or laptop running 8gb of RAM, look into possibly upgrading to 16 or 32GB.

To see the status of your memory usage, right-click the taskbar, and select Task Manager. Click the Performance tab: In the lower-left corner, you’ll see how much RAM is in use. If under normal use, the Available option is less than 25 percent of the total, an upgrade may do you some good.

Crucial and Kingston are major PC memory providers and Crucial has a memory diagnostic tool to determine what kind of memory as well as Kingston Memory scanner.

Upgrade from a Hard Drive to a Solid State Drive

As SSDs work with flash memory (the kind that are in USB drives) they can be up to 8 times faster than standard hard drives. This speeds your Windows boot time tremendously.

See my Advantages of SSDs to Hard Drives article for more information on this.

Use Sleep instead of Shut Down

When you have finished with whatever you're doing on your PC, select Sleep instead of completely shutting the computer down.

If you choose Shut Down Windows closes all apps, programs, logs you off and closes the Windows session, and shuts down the computer.

Sleep keeps the Windows session open and uses a low power state (not shutting the PC completely) thereby starting Windows instantly.

How To: Optimize Windows Background Apps

Prevent Applications Running At Startup

We usually don't give much thought when it comes to background applications. That is until our Zoom meeting goes glitchy or we receive a error.

Startup programs are any programs that's been allowed by the user to startup when the user first logs in.

Preventing these programs from starting reduces processor load. Reducing processor load equates to a cooler running processor. A cooler running processor is..... well.... you get the hint.

You can select which apps/tasks can initially run startup. Simply click on the Start Menu.

Click Settings, then Click Apps.

Under Apps Click Startup (It's down near the bottom)

 Next, select which Applications you want to turn off OR start running when logging in.

Which apps should you keep running? 

Well..... it's recommended to keep Settings, any Printing Apps, and of course Windows Security turned on. 

Any other apps you could turn off to reduce processor time/load.

(updated 12/6/25)

What Are NVMe Drives, and Should You Buy One?

ONE of biggest upgrade you can make to your PC is faster storage.

Back in 2016, I wrote in an earlier blog about Advantages of SSD over HDD. Since that entry the storage technology has advanced in leaps and bounds. We went from Mechanical Hard Drive storage to Solid State Drives to NVMe (Non Volatile Memory Express)

"Non-Volatile" means the storage isn't erased when your computer reboots, while "Express" refers to the fact that the data travels over the PCI Express (PCIe) interface on your computer's motherboard.

By attaching the storage directly onto the motherboard you've increased the data access speed bypassing PCI and USB data limits.

NVMe drives are much much faster than the SATA drives that have been around for years.

Lets check out a comparison: 

Mechanical Hard Drives: Top speeds of these drives are 80-180mb/s. Nothing really special to write home about here. Also, whether they were in a laptop or a desktop they had a tendency to heat up due to the moving components (platters, read/write head, spindle...etc)

SATA SSD: One of the fastest SATA SSDs---the Samsung 870 EVO---tops out at read and write speeds of about 560MBps.Thets a sweet spot for those involved in video editing.

The "New Kids On The Technology Block" - NVMe Drives: The speed of these drives are dependent on the PCIe slot it uses. 

The maximum speed for an NVMe PCIe 3.0 (aka Gen 3) is up to 350MB per second, while a NVMe PCIe 4.0 (aka Gen 4) SSD can hit up to 750MB per second.

Because of the bandwidth used, these little sticks are perfect for gaming and video editing.
NVMe drives come in a couple of different form factors. The most common of these is the m.2 stick, shown above. You can compare them to the size of a stick of gum.

 

The're 22 mm wide and can be 30, 42, 60, 80 or 100mm long. These sticks are thin enough to lay flat on a motherboard, so they're perfect for small form factor computers and laptops.

 

Installing a NVMe drive is very simple, but it is important to keep in mind that some SATA SSDs use this same form factor, so you'll want to pay close attention and make sure you don't mistakenly buy the slower drive. The Samsung 970 EVO is an example of an m.2 NVMe drive.

If you have the extra cash and the motherboard has the m.2 slot available, I'd recommend getting a NVMe drive. This will upgrade the performance of your PC and blow past the 550Mbps of the old SATA SSD limits.

(Updated 12/22/25)

Tech News: Is Windows 12 around the corner?

Thats the big question running around the PC industry speculating if Microsoft has a big surprise that's soon to be released.

Corporations likes to keep secrets until the last moment, and Microsoft is no exception with rumors swirling around that the software giant is working on Windows 12.

According to some reports, the next major version of Windows is going to launch at some point in 2024, roughly three years after Windows 11's debut. 

That's all the info that's out for now, and it might be a while before there's any more information. If past releases are any indication, Windows 12 should arrive in the fall, or at least the second half of the year, but that's not set in stone.

(By the way, Windows 10 support officially ended this past October 2025......Time flies, right?)

So how did this all come about? It started with a leaked document from Intel, referencing their CPU Meteor Lake chipset compatibility on the Windows platform and it mentions Windows 12 in the compatibility list.

Microsoft has denied the reports that it's working on Windows 12 but considering we're still some time away from its launch, the company could simply be holding its cards close to its chest.

Microsoft will likely keep labeling them as Windows 11 features until we're much closer to the release date.

Not every feature in the Insider Program will be part of Windows 12, though, as many of them roll out via smaller updates, but some of them may be looking further ahead. After all, Windows 11 was a fairly well-kept secret until it was almost finished.

In the meantime, enjoy the newest features released in Windows 25H2 here.