Other Tech

One of the benefits of being in the Windows Insider Program is getting to see and test new Windows features before they are generally available. For example, one rather prominent feature includes getting the latest Windows 11 operating system.

When you enroll in the Windows Insider Program, you can join one of three update channels. The channel you choose dictates what updates you receive and the amount of risk you are willing to take when it comes to bugs, incompatible software, unsupported hardware, or incomplete features. The three update channels are described in the table below.

Note: At the time of writing, Windows 11 is only available if enrolled in the Dev Channel. As an example of bugs and incomplete features in the Dev Channel, the taskbar currently does not stretch to multiple monitors. Windows 11 will eventually be available to all insider channels.

How to enroll in the Windows Insider Program

To enroll a device in the Windows Insider Program, select the Start Menu and pick Settings (gear icon). From the Windows Settings dialog, choose Update & Security and pick the Windows Insider Program tab.

Before you enroll in the Windows Insider Program, you need to make sure your device has optional diagnostic data enabled. Enabling this feature sends additional diagnostic data back to Microsoft for review. If it is currently disabled, you will receive the following warning.

To manage the Windows Insider Program settings for your device and allow it to stay in the Windows Insider program, you'll need to turn on optional diagnostic data.

To fix, click the link titled Go to Diagnostics & Feedback settings to turn on optional diagnostic data. Then, from the Diagnostics & feedback dialog, select the radio button Optional diagnostic data.

If you are like me and like to work on a computer at night, or, just work with the lights off, then dark mode is for you. I find dark mode helps with eye strain. In addition, many sources also report that a dark color scheme helps conserve battery power on mobile devices.

With build 1809, you can now set Windows 10 to a dark color scheme. Previous builds offered this option as well, but 1809 was the first version that also adopted this color scheme in File Explorer.

The process to enable dark mode is super easy. It only takes 5 clicks and one scroll of the mouse wheel.

Let’s get started!

Enabling Dark Mode in Windows 10

To enable dark mode in Windows 10, click the Start button and then Settings.

This will launch the Windows Settings page. Click Personalization.

From the Personalization page, select the Colors tab on the left side.

From the Colors page scroll to the bottom of the page. Under Choose your default app mode select Dark.

If you travel a lot with a laptop you may find yourself working in many different time zones. The challenge is that your laptop will display the incorrect time. This can make it particularly challenging when scheduling or attending meetings.

Rather than manually updating your time as you step foot into each new geography, one solution is to configure your time settings to update based on your location. This process is quite simple.

Let’s get started!

Note: This solution requires Windows 10

Configure Automatic Time Zone

From your Windows 10 desktop, right click on the time in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen.

From the context menu select Adjust Date/Time.

From the Date & Time settings window flip the toggle under Set Time Zone Automatically to the On position.

Your time zone (and time) will update automatically based on your location in the world.

You will also notice that once you configured your PC to use an automatic time zone, all other manual zone settings, such as the drop-down box to set the time zone are now grayed out.

After installing the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (Build 1709) on my PC, all my network connections–whether wired or wireless–were broken. When I checked the device manager I had an exclamation mark against all but one network device. The only device excluded from error was the “Check Point Virtual Network Adapter”.

Going into the properties of one of these devices gave equally cryptic errors. All devices reported the same thing.

Windows is still setting up the class configuration for this device. (Code 56)

A couple of extra reboots did not resolve the odd error either.

A quick search on the internet revealed forum postings that identified the CheckPoint VPN as the culprit (credit SOHIC for the answer). This made sense as the version of the CheckPoint software I had made no mention that it was supported on Windows 10. My bad!

But this was the key. When I uninstalled the software and rebooted, all my network connections came back to life.