Microsoft may not have officially enabled the Notifications Center in the Windows 10 Technical Preview, but that doesn’t mean the rumored feature won’t eventually show up at some point.
For now, an intrepid soul who goes by the Twitter handle @adeyblue tweeted instructions showing the world how to turn the feature on yourself. It’s pretty simple to pull off, and works whether you installed the 32-bit or 64-bit version of the Windows 10 Technical Preview.
First, download this zip file. For what it’s worth, before we extracted its contents onto our PC, we scanned it for malware, and Malwarebytes didn’t find anything. To be extra sure that this was all safe, we re-scanned the extracted folder as well. Once again, Malwarebytes didn’t find anything.
With the zip file extracted, you should see two new folders in the location you extracted them to, dubbed “x64” and “x86.” If you installed the 32-bit of the Tech Preview, you’ll need to work with the x86 folder. If you installed the 64-bit version, you’ll be messing with the x64 folder.
When you open either folder, you’ll see two files. Right-click “notificationact.dll.”
Then, open your C: drive, right click on a blank part of it, highlight “New,” and left-click to create a folder, which you should name “Stuff.” Paste notificationact.dll into the Stuff folder on your C: drive.
From there, all you have to do is double-click on “notification.exe,” which is in the x64/x86 folder (depending on which you’re using) to launch the Notifications Center. Once you do, it should pop up in the lower right-hand corner of your desktop, like it does in the image at the top of this page.
So far, the Notifications Center has been pretty dormant in our experience. A single notification for a Java update popped up, but when we right-clicked on it to see if we’d be presented with a list of options, the Notifications Center crashed.
A “Clear all” button also shows up when the center is populated, but because of the crash, we didn’t get to use it.
When we re-opened the center, the Java notification was gone. Hopefully notifications get saved, even if you do shut the center down. Keep in mind that if you give this a shot, your mileage may vary. Considering that this hasn’t been officially enabled yet, you should expect to run into bugs.
Also of note is the fact that a command prompt window opens up when you open the Notifications Center. Closing it shuts down the center, so you need to keep it open in order to let the feature run. It can at least be minimized to the taskbar, though.
The command prompt window seemingly contains instructions on how to re-position the Notifications Center to take residence in any one of the four corners of your desktop. However, nothing happened when we tried to execute the commands.
We suspect that users will eventually be able to simply drag and drop the center around, but it didn’t let us do that when we tried.
This isn’t the first hidden Windows 10 feature that has been uncovered since the Technical Preview’s release last week. After we installed it, we did a search for files containing the phrase “Cortana,” which is the name of Windows Phone 8.1’s virtual assistant. Doing so generated a bunch of hits, which strongly suggests that Cortana will be coming to Windows 10 at some point.
We fully expect to find and hear of more uncovered Windows 10 bits between now and the operating system’s full release sometime in the middle of 2015.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.