Microsoft's release of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview generated over 1 million downloads after just one day. Some people are already using this new version of Windows 8 and discovering some interesting tricks and some hidden features. ZDNet.com has posted up some of the more interesting features that have been uncovered.
One of these new features is one that many people will welcome. Windows 8 Consumer Preview allows people to take a screenshot with just one step, for the first time in any edition of Windows. In older versions of Windows, users could take a screenshot by hitting the PrtScr, which then saves it to the Clipboard. However, in order to view and save that screenshot you had to have some kind of image view program.
Windows 8 Consumer Preview does away with that extra step. To take a screenshot of your desktop in Windows 8, all you have to do is hit the PrtScr key and the Windows key at the same time. By doing this, Windows saves the screenshot as a PNG file to the Pictures folder where it is labled simply as Screenshot, with a sequential number.
Another trick is accessing Windows 8's new backup file tool, which is now called File History (known in older versions of Windows as Previous Versions). If you have an external hard drive or even a USB flash drive you can back up your files by pressing the Windows key and the W key at the same time and then type File History to access the feature.
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