Fix: Start Menu Cortana Search Not Finding Apps – Search Results Blank

When you use Cortana search to find an installed program, the program may not appear in Start menu search results although the shortcut exists in the Start menu folder. For example, with Word 2016 installed and its shortcut present in the Start menu folder, when you type in “word”, the search results will display WordPad … Read more

Windows 10 Generic Products Keys for Various Editions

Sometimes you may need to install Windows 10 in a virtual environment like Hyper-V or VirtualBox for evaluation purposes, and don’t want to activate Windows. In most cases, you should be able to skip the product key page during setup and complete the installation successfully. However, in some cases although the reason is not clearly known, Windows 10 Setup won’t allow you to skip the Product keys page.Read more

Fix: Cortana Search Box White Background in Windows 10

For some strange reason, the Cortana “Ask me anything” search box in the Taskbar may turn white suddenly without even the user clicking on it. This may have to do with Microsoft’s server settings and not a problem with your Windows 10 settings. Also, the search box registry tweak (WhiteSearchBox registry key) may prove ineffective as it works only for the current login session.Read more

Windows 10 Media Creation Tool Error 0x80072f76 – 0x20017

When you run the Media Creation Tool (MCT), you may see the error 0x80072f76 - 0x20017:

There was a problem running this tool.
We’re not sure what happened, but we’re unable to run this tool on your PC. If you continue experiencing problems, reference the error code when contacting customer support. Error code: 0x80072F76 – 0x20017

Read more

Stop Auto Reopen of Programs after Restart in Windows 10

One of the many small changes in Windows 10 Fall Creators Update is that the operating system can now automatically reopen programs that were running before shutdown or restart. If you shut down Windows 10 with some apps (e.g., Chrome browser, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word) open, some of them are relaunched at next startup, which is undesirable; to put it fairly, it can be annoying for many. How to disable this feature?Read more