Set up OneDrive With Windows 11, Windows 10, or Windows 8, OneDrive is already installed and ready for you to get started. GET STARTED WITH ONEDRIVE. Bring your files and favorites with you There's no need to leave your photos, files, or browser favorites behind when you transfer files from PC to PC or from a Mac to PC. TRANSFER FILES AND PHOTOS TRANSFER BROWSER FAVORITES. Install what you love When you start up your new PC, you may want to install additional apps. LEARN MORE. Compare file transfer options Check the table below to see what makes the most sense for your move. Benefits Turn on PC folder backup to automatically back up and sync your Desktop, Documents, and Pictures folders to OneDrive. You can view and edit your files from the OneDrive app on other devices, including Androids and iPhones. You can also use any computer to go to the OneDrive website and sign in to access your files.

Once your files are saved to OneDrive, if your device is lost or damaged, your files will still be backed up and protected in the cloud. You are in control of who, if anyone besides you, has access to the things you store in OneDrive. No internet access or additional software or services are required. External drives are portable, convenient, and can be encrypted for security. For a large collection of files that take up a lot of storage space, moving them via USB can be your quickest and most cost-effective option. Cost A Microsoft account comes with 5 GB of OneDrive storage. Shop your local retailer for hard drives and USB drives.

File transfer FAQ. Expand all Collapse all How can I transfer my current PC files to a new Windows 11 PC? Do I need a Microsoft Account for Windows 11? What is OneDrive? How do I create an account for OneDrive? How much storage is available on OneDrive? Can I transfer my files without using OneDrive? Can I use Microsoft Office on a new computer? Can I transfer older programs and applications to a new Windows computer? Can I drag whole folders into OneDrive, or do I have to drag each file? A PC that adapts to you With the broadest choice of devices—across style, features, and form factors—we and our ecosystem of partners can help ensure that you will find the right fit with Windows. HELP ME FIND A DEVICE SHOP PCS. PCs preloaded with Windows 11 Out of the box, get up and running with a new Windows experience that brings you closer to the people and things you love. SHOP WINDOWS 11 PRE-INSTALLED DEVICES.

SHOP LAPTOPS. Versatile 2-in-1s 2-in-1s provide power and flexibility. SHOP 2-IN-1S. SHOP DESKTOPS AND ALL-IN-ONES. Links WINDOWS INSIDER PROGRAM. Features and app availability may vary by region. Fees may apply. Follow Microsoft Windows Follow Windows on Facebook Follow Windows on Twitter. Share this page Share on Facebook Share this page on Twitter. Turn on PC folder backup to automatically back up and sync your Desktop, Documents, and Pictures folders to OneDrive. The broadcaster's content management system allows the proxy access to its media files. The proxy in turn passes that content on to you.

You need a proxy located in the same country as the broadcaster that you're trying to access content from, and there's a big list that covers most territories at www. One of the best for accessing US content is www. When you come across a page that is blocked, type its URL into ProxyPass' URL box and hit [Enter]. All being well, you should gain immediate access to the media stream. Are you stuck with a movie or music file in a format that Windows Media Player refuses to acknowledge, let alone play? You need an alternative in the form of VLC Media Player from VideoLAN. The list of video formats VLC Player can handle is extensive, but few users seem to know that it can also transcode files into other formats.

Click 'Add' and select the videos you want to transcode. Enter this, and select a profile the format for the file you want to create. If you want to watch the video as it is transcoded to check the progress, select the 'Display the output' tickbox. Finally, click 'Start'. VLC is an extremely versatile piece of software. As well as playing all the popular and less popular video and audio formats, it can sometimes help out when drivers aren't available in Windows Vista for video input devices such as obsolete but perfectly serviceable webcams. To see if this works for you, connect your device and select 'Open Capture Device' from the Media menu. Select the video device from the dropdown list in the resultant pop-up window. If it doesn't appear, try clicking the 'Refresh' button. Click 'Play' and you should start receiving output from the device. If you've ever wanted to watch videos as ASCII art, VLC player can help you here.

Select 'Preferences' from the Tools menu and click on the Video section. Select the Output dropdown list and select 'Colour ASCII art video output'. Click 'Save' and open a file to watch the result. The Land Registry is a government agency that records who owns what property. It also has a searchable database of average property prices. It's useful to find out how prices are doing in your neighbourhood, and if you've decided to move house then you can tell how much your new home should really be costing you. To have a look, click 'House Prices' and then 'Search the Index'.

Select 'Choose a single location' and then enter a postcode or area. Confirm your choice and select 'House Type Breakdown Report'. To see current prices, select the last month as the date range and click 'Next'. To see how prices in your area have increased or declined over time, select the time period that you're interested in instead. Thinking of moving and want to know how safe, healthy and educated your chosen area is? There's an easy way of discovering the levels of crime and a lot more besides on the National Audit Office's website. Click on the Regional Statistics tab and select the area of the UK that you're after.

Click the 'Neighbourhood' link at the top of the page and then enter the postcode you're interested in into the Neighbourhood Summary box. Across the top of the resultant page are tabs that break down the initial summary page by topics such as health including life expectancy , education and local crime figures broken down by type. For even more information, click on the More tab and select 'Complete Topic List' from the resulting options. This allows you to access incredibly detailed data about the makeup, living conditions and even lifestyles of the area you're interested in. Here's a way to find out if a company you're dealing with has had financial problems such as bankruptcy. All limited companies must notify Companies House of significant events and file annual accounts.

Creditgate allows you to see this history. Enter the company name in the search box, hit [Enter] and select it from the results. The subsequent page displays a list of all the records held by Companies House. You can buy each piece of information for a more detailed view, but the titles themselves are often a giveaway. When you're worried that an email isn't what it claims to be, you should inspect the headers, which give chapter and verse on where it came from. But reading headers is a fiddly business. Luckily, there are websites that will do it for you. One such service is IP-address. Enter this into the input box on the site and click 'Trace Email Sender'. You'll know for sure exactly who sent it within seconds. Don't worry if you've had a memory lapse — your Windows machine can be persuaded to divulge its secrets Have you ever forgotten the password to an old Windows machine account but needed to get at the contents? It happens occasionally. It's an extremely powerful password cracker that also happens to be free.

Cain is the user interface to the application, while Abel is a system service that does the background work. Download the program from here. After installing the executable, which includes the Pcap library to allow your network card to sniff your LAN for passwords, open the Cain directory under Program Files and copy the 'Abel. dll' and 'Abel. Next, double-click Abel. exe to install the service. Now, from the Start menu, select 'Run' and enter services. This will display a list of services. Find Abel and right-click on it to start it this saves having to reboot. To test the software, set up a dummy Windows account and give it a password, then run Cain from the Start menu. Next, click on the Cracker tab. The list of current password crackers is displayed in the left-hand pane. Click 'Next' on the pop-up window to continue. The spreadsheet in the main pane will now fill with the details of your Windows log-in accounts.

Whether you've just purchased a new PC or reinstalled Windows, the first task you'll likely do is installing apps. While there are dozens of amazing Windows programs, knowing which ones are the must-have software for Windows 10 or Windows 11 makes setting up a new installation easier. In no particular order, let's step through 15 essential apps for Windows that everyone should install right away, along with some alternatives for them. Unsurprisingly, Google Chrome is still our top browser pick. It's super-speedy, includes little conveniences like letting you instantly search Google Lens for an image, and has a vast library of Chrome extensions. Throw in cross-platform syncing that lets you open your desktop tabs on your phone and vice-versa, and you've got a fantastic browser for all purposes.

Chrome isn't without its faults, however. Plenty of people want to avoid Google's pervasive tracking in Chrome, and it gobbles a lot of RAM. But the good news is that you have plenty of other fantastic browsers to choose from, like Firefox and Opera. Even the built-in Microsoft Edge is based on Chromium , so give it a try if you prefer Microsoft's approach over Google's. Download: Google Chrome Free. Download: Firefox Free. Download: Opera Free. If you only pick one cloud app service, Google Drive is the one you should install due to the amount of free space it includes. It offers 15GB of free storage, which is shared across your Google account with Google Photos and Gmail too.

Google Drive offers an app for every major platform, so you can take your files anywhere. In addition to syncing files you place in the dedicated Google Drive folder, the desktop app makes it easy to back up folders on your computer and external devices, too. It's also super easy to share files with others, plus the service plays well with Google's productivity suite. Whether you use it as part of your backup plan, as a cloud flash drive, or for setting up shared folders with others, Google Drive is an essential app pick for Windows 10 and Paired with OneDrive which comes built into Windows or another free cloud storage provider , you can get plenty of storage space and separate your files logically by service. Download: Google Drive Free, subscription available. Years ago, listening to music on your desktop meant painstakingly importing and organizing a collection of MP3s.

That's no longer the case; music streaming services eliminate the need for buying individual albums physically or digitally. There are a lot of music streaming services available, but we think the essential pick for Windows 10 or 11 is Spotify. Its ad-supported free plan lets you listen to as much music as you like, and there are several Spotify Premium plans that are worth it for avid listeners. Spotify is also home to millions of podcasts, making everything available in one convenient place. Spotify also has a dedicated Windows app, unlike some of its competitors. If you're already invested in another ecosystem, though, Apple Music or YouTube Music might be a better choice for you. Download: Spotify Free, subscription available. Visit: Apple Music Subscription required, free trial available. Visit: YouTube Music Free, subscription available. Chances are you'll need a productivity suite that lets you work with documents, spreadsheets, and presentations at some point.

You might think that paying for Microsoft Office is the only way to get such access, but that's far from the truth. No Windows user should go without LibreOffice. It's a completely free and powerful office suite that includes alternatives to Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and more. Once you get used to a few small aesthetic differences from MS Office, you'll be flying through your work with LibreOffice. Note that OpenOffice, a once-popular alternative, is basically dead now. If you don't want to use LibreOffice, try FreeOffice. You can use web apps like Word Online or Google Docs too, but we're focused on full desktop downloads here. Download: LibreOffice Free. Download: FreeOffice Free. Whether you want to try your hand at basic image manipulation, need a way to blur sensitive info in screenshots, or want to retouch old photos, everyone should have an image editing program installed.

Photoshop is the gold standard for this, but there are plenty of free tools that are more accessible. NET is a must-have Windows app for your image editing needs. It's far more powerful than Microsoft Paint, but doesn't overwhelm you with loads of confusing tools. You can easily blur out parts of an image, auto-level photos to make them look better, and add text and shapes to your pictures in just a few clicks. Plenty of plugins allow you to expand its functionality, too. If you find Paint. NET too basic, GIMP is a more advanced solution, and it's also available at no charge. Download: Paint. NET Free. Download: GIMP Free. Windows 10 and 11 include Windows Defender, which is a good enough antivirus for most users.

However, it's wise to keep a secondary security program installed to supplement it. For this, you can't beat Malwarebytes. The free version lets you scan your system for malware that your antivirus might not catch. And for a powerful blended security solution, upgrading to Malwarebytes Premium is worth the cost. Download: Malwarebytes Free, subscription available. Thanks to YouTube's ubiquity, you probably don't watch local videos too often. However, everyone should still keep a solid video player around on their desktop for when they need to play media files locally. Even if it's not one of the tools you think to download on a new computer right away, it will come in handy someday. For this task, nothing beats VLC Media Player, which packs a ton of features and is capable of playing nearly every video and audio format imaginable. You might not break it out often, but give VLC a download while you're setting up your PC.

You'll save yourself the hassle of messing with video codecs or using QuickTime, which hasn't been supported on Windows for years. Download: VLC Free. Taking a screenshot on Windows is useful for everything from capturing funny moments to having a record of important information. You won't find a more powerful free screenshot tool than ShareX. With tons of capture methods, a solid built-in editor, the ability to run automated steps after you take a screenshot, and extra tools like a color grabber and ruler, ShareX has an impressive feature set for no cost. If ShareX overwhelms you, give PicPick a try instead. It's a bit simpler, but doesn't compromise on features. Download: ShareX Free. Download: PicPick Free. Windows includes native support for simple zipped files, but anything beyond the basics requires a more powerful tool. While this isn't the most exciting software category, a file extractor is still a must-have PC app so you can work with any kind of archived files you might encounter.

It's small and installs in seconds, is easy to use, and stays out of your way when you're not using it. Those who need advanced features will still find them in 7-Zip, though. The only drawback of 7-Zip is its aged, spartan appearance. If you can't get over that, take a look at PeaZip, which is a similar tool with a much more attractive UI. Either way, you certainly don't need to pay for tools like WinRAR. Download: 7-Zip Free. Download: PeaZip Free. Chances are that you use at least one messaging service to stay in touch with your friends during the day. With so many options to choose from, there's no way we could pick the best messaging service, because it all depends on what your friends use. So why not have all of them in one place?

Rambox is our pick for the best messaging app on Windows. It lets you add accounts from dozens of popular messaging services, including WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Skype, Telegram, GroupMe, Discord, and many more. You can even add other web apps, like Apple Music, to it. The app simply adds a new tab for every service you use, letting you keep up with every group in one window. It includes some extra features that make it more useful than opening these apps in your browser, and you can easily close or minimize one window instead of a half-dozen when it's time to focus. While Rambox's free plan has some limitations, it offers more for free than competitors like Franz. Download: Rambox Free, subscription available. A clipboard manager is an important Windows app because it saves you a lot of time. Instead of only being able to keep one item on your PC's clipboard at once, clipboard managers let you keep track of the last several dozen entries you've copied. ClipClip is a great Windows clipboard manager to use.

In addition to logging what you copy, the app also lets you pin frequent snippets for easy access. It's easy to create folders for quickly pasting canned text like addresses, email responses, and similar. The app doesn't overwhelm you with options, but does let you tweak its hotkeys, disable clipboard monitoring when needed, and choose what the app ignores. Add it to your list of basic Windows software and you'll never have to worry about managing your PC's clipboard again. Download: ClipClip Free.

Either way, you certainly don't need to pay for tools like WinRAR. Spotify also has a dedicated Windows app, unlike some of its competitors. This allows you to generate near-unbreakable passwords, but not have to be a memory champion to remember them. Download: Google Drive Free, subscription available. OneDrive is a Microsoft cloud storage service that lets you store your personal files in one place, share them with others, and get to them from any device connected to the Internet. If you want to bring more automation to your computer, then AutoHotkey is something you need to download.

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