Tag: Windows 10

How to Clear Clipboard in Windows 10

How to Clear Clipboard in Windows 10

What is the clipboard?

Let’s suppose you’ve just copied a folder from a shared network drive and pasted it to wherever you needed to paste it. Now would be a good time to clear the clipboard.

The clipboard is where Windows stores what you’ve just copied.

Why is it a good idea to clear the clipboard?

Clearing the clipboard saves system resources and keeps your data secure, but for me, it’s more personal.

I have this bad case of OCD when working on a Windows machine. I would find myself constantly right-clicking and hitting Refresh. Only sometimes I’d hit Paste in accident and Windows would start moving whatever file or folder I had copied. It’s not pretty and canceling the copying and pasting on Windows always seems to take longer than necessary.

Back in the good old days of Windows 7, I used to be able to just press the Windows key, then type “clipbrd” and hit Enter to pull up the clipboard and empty it. For whatever reason, Microsoft decided to discontinue this in Windows 10, but luckily, the latest operating system from Microsoft still allows for the clipboard to be emptied. Here’s how.

How to clear the clipboard in Windows 10

Press Windows + R on the keyboard and type in the text below.

 cmd /c echo.|clip

Hit Enter and you’ll see the Command application quickly flashes on your screen. You’ve now successfully emptied the clipboard. Right-click on your desktop and you’ll see the “Paste” and “Paste shortcut” options are now grayed out.

Windows + R Command to Clear Clipboard

If you prefer the Command application, launch it and type in the command line below.

echo off | clip

Command Line to Clear Clipboard

Better still, you can save this command as a bat file and simply double click to run it when needed. It’ll do the same trick. Just type out the command in a new Text document and then save it with a “.bat” extension name and you are good to go.

How to Close the Lid on Windows 10 Laptop Connected to External Monitor without Putting It to Sleep

Ever wanted to plug an external monitor into your Windows laptop, and use it as a desktop computer with its lid closed?

You are not alone.

This transforms your laptop into a desktop. You get a larger screen and more real estate for whatever you are doing. With the lid closed, the laptop can be easily tucked away so it stays out of sight and your desk is less clustered.

However, you’ll find that as soon as you close the lid, your computer goes to sleep.

Here’s how you can prevent the laptop from going to sleep when you close the lid.

    1. Go to the Start menu and click on Settings
    2. In the Settings window, choose System and then in the next screen, choose Power & Sleep
    3. Scroll down to the bottom and click on Additional power settings
    4. In the Power Options window, click on Choose what closing the lid does
    5. Select Do nothing for When I close the lid
    6. Finally, click on Save changes

Windows Power Settings - Do nothing when I close the lid

Now try closing the lid on your laptop. You’ll find the external monitor will stay on and now you have a desktop to work with.

Were those steps easy to follow? No? Here’s how you can do the same thing even quicker.

Click on Start and type “lid”. Guess what, the very first option is to choose what closing the lid does. I trust you’ll be able to take it from here.

Typing lid into Start menu

How to Share Files Wirelessly between Mac and PC

Ever had the need to share files wirelessly between two computers? In today’s tutorial, we look at how to access files stored on a PC running Windows 10 from a Mac running macOS Catalina. 

To begin, both computers need to be on the same Wi-Fi network.

    • On the PC, click on the Wi-Fi icon on the taskbar at the bottom of the screen to see which network it is connected to
    • On the Mac, the Wi-Fi icon is located on the menu bar on the top of the screen

Wi-Fi Connections on PC

Wi-Fi Connections on Mac

  • Once we confirm both computers are on the same network, follow these three steps to enable file sharing on the PC.
    1. Right click on the folder we want to share and then select Properties
    2. In the Properties window, go to the Sharing tab and click on Share
    3. In the Network access window, click on Share to confirm the action

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We will be accessing the folder on the PC from the Mac using Microsoft’s SMB (Server Message Block) protocol. To do that, we need the PC’s IPv4 address which we can find following these two steps.

    1. Click on Properties on the Wi-Fi network the PC is connected to
    2. In the Settings window that appears, scroll down to the bottom to find the IPv4 address

Alternatively, we could do an ipconfig in the Command Prompt to find the IPv4 address.

In addition to the IPv4 address, we also need our account name and password for the PC.

Now let’s head over to the Mac and follow these steps to access the folder we just shared on the PC.

    1. Open Finder and press Command (⌘) + K
    2. In the Connect to Server window, type in the PC’s IPv4 address and click on Connect
    3. Type in the account name and password for the PC (not the Mac ID and password)
    4. Select the shared folder and click on OK and Voilà!

 

In today’s tutorial, we looked at how to share files wirelessly between a PC and a Mac on the same Wi-Fi network. Do you find this quick tutorial useful? Got a question you want to ask? Let us know in the comments!