i set up a new windows 8.1 laptop with office 2013 and found a couple tweaks that made life better (at least for me). i will be honest i do not have a lot of experience running windows 8.1,
i use a computer to get actual work done and find a keyboard and mouse to fit my needs, the touch screen style menus that bury basic windows functions seems counterproductive. The folks over at classic shell have provided way of getting back most of the features of the windows 7 start button
Click here to visit the Classic Shell download page
in addition to classic shell, i found a couple registry tweaks to further customize the windows 8.1 and office 2013.
office tweaks:
1. remove the nags to login to the ‘cloud’
2. remove the splash screen so office starts faster
windows 8 tweaks:
remove the annoying check box on the desktop icons. we can hold down ctrl+click to select multiple items.
these registry keys are all in the local user registry, so if a new user logs in or a new user is created the script will need to be run each time.
on my friends laptop i only set up a generic account, and if a new account is created we would like to see these changes applied. i put together a vbs script that sits in the all users windows startup folder that will only run once for each user. i posted the code below as well as a zipped download at the bottom of this post.
\/ code \/
'*** place this script in the all users startup folder so if new users are created they get the customization
'C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp\ChrisTurnbull.com_CustomizeWin8_and_Office2013.vbs
Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
on error resume next
HasRan = WshShell.RegRead("HKCU\Software\Turn8\DateRan")
on error goto 0
'*** Do not run if it has been run before ***
if HasRan <> "" Then
wscript.quit
end if
'*** remove office 2013 cloud options ***
WshShell.RegWrite "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\SignIn\SignInOptions", 00000003, "REG_DWORD"
'*** disable splash screen for office 2013 for faster loading ***
WshShell.RegWrite "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\General\DisableBootToOfficeStart", 00000001, "REG_DWORD"
'*** disable chech boxes on desktop icons, kill and re-launch explorer so changes are immediate ***
WshShell.RegWrite "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\AutoCheckSelect", 00000000, "REG_DWORD"
wshShell.Run "taskkill /f /im explorer.exe", , True
Wshshell.run "explorer.exe"
'*** Set date ran stamp in registry ***
WshShell.RegWrite "HKCU\Software\Turn8\DateRan", NOW,"REG_SZ"
Set WshShell = Nothing
/\ code /\
download the vbs file
ChrisTurnbull.com_CustomizeWin8_and_Office2013.zip