href="#u2b09d595-51f9-5d58-8a2c-2944e71e93b2">Chapter 4 to change your password but leave the New Password field blank.
Microsoft accounts can’t have blank passwords. But local accounts can.
If you have a blank password, when you click your username on the login screen, Windows 10 ushers you to the desktop.
If only one user is on the PC and that user has a blank password, just getting past the lock screen takes you to the desktop.
If you have a Microsoft account, you have to use your password (picture, PIN, Hello, whatever) once each time you reboot. If you don’t want to be bothered after that, see the Require Sign-In drop-down choice at the top of the Sign-In options screen. Click to change the answer to “If you’ve been away, when should Windows require you to sign in again?” to Never.
Chapter 3
Working with the Action/Notification Center
IN THIS CHAPTER
If you’ve ever used a moderately sentient smartphone or tablet, you already know about the notification center. Different devices do it differently, but the general idea is that the device watches and gathers notifications — little warning messages or status reports — that are sent to you. The smartphone or tablet gathers all the notifications and puts them in one place, where you can look at them and decide what to do from there.
In Windows 7, notifications just kind of flew by, and there weren’t many of them. In Windows 8 and 8.1, you typically see many more notifications (I’m looking at you, Gmail running in Chrome), but they still fly by. There’s no way in Windows 8 or 8.1 to look at old notifications. After they’re off the screen — frequently for just a few seconds — that’s it. And when they pile up, they can pile up and up and up and up, taking over the right edge of your screen.
What Is the Action Center?
Unfortunately, this new locus for machine notifications isn’t called a notification center, as it’s called in almost every operating system, in almost every language, on earth. That name’s taken. So we get a strange name for a common sight: It’s officially called the action center, although everyone I know slips from time to time and calls it the notification center.
This isn’t the Windows solution center (born in Windows 7, primarily for security stuff), nor is it the Windows 7 or Windows 8 action center (see Figure 3-1), which includes lots of system-related stuff, but no program notifications.
FIGURE 3-1: The Windows 7/8/8.1 action center is not to be confused with the Windows 10 action center.
At the top, Windows 10 gathers some (but by no means all) of the various programs’ notifications. At the bottom, you have a bunch of links to various settings. These links are called quick actions and can be personalized from a list or predefined items.
FIGURE 3-2: The Windows 10 notific… err, action center.
What, Exactly, Is a Notification?
Except for Scottrade, Figure 3-3, which locks out the screen, but that’s another modal dialog story.
These new, politically correct notifications — the things that can happen when Windows 10 or one of its programs wants your attention — fall into three broad categories:
They can put rectangular notices, usually gray, in the upper-right edge of your screen, with a few lines of text. Typically, the notifications say things such as Tap or Choose what happens when you insert a USB drive, or Turn sharing on or off.FIGURE 3-3: Scottrade’s notifications, generated by its web app, lock up the system entirely. Those are not nice notifications.These notifications are called toaster notifications (or sometimes just toast), and they’re a core part of the new Universal face of Windows 10. It’s a fabulous name because they pop up, just like toast, but on their sides, and then they disappear.
They can show toaster notifications on the lock screen. This is considered more dire than simply showing the notifications on tiled apps or the desktop. Why? Because the apps that create lock screen notifications may need to run, even when Windows 10 is sleeping. And that leads to battery drainage.
They can play sounds. Don’t get me started.
Everyone has picked up on Windows 10’s notification system. Even websites can now send you notifications when new content is posted. When an app sends you a notification, it appears briefly in the bottom-right corner of the screen. In Figure 3-4, you can see a notification about an email I’ve received.
