Syncing Settings with Your Other Devices

Traditionally, Windows users had to copy files from one computer or device to another using a portable storage device like a USB flashdrive. Others would prefer wireless file transfer like using bluetooth or a network connection however, most of these methods seemed lengthy and unsecure. In Windows 8, you don’t have to worry about these things. Microsoft has made sure that all of the files saved in your PC would be safe and can still be accessed even in other devices like tablets and smartphones that are running the Windows operating system. Just imagine having your files automatically synced to all your devices and being able to access them in just a few clicks. You won’t be bothered of storing your files on a portable storage device because in Windows 8, it’s all about syncing!

The Steps

Getting your Windows 8 machine to work the way you want it to is an integral part in ensuring that you have good grips with Microsoft’s latest operating system. From selecting the “Lock Screen” pattern to choosing the method of how your password is entered and down to personalizing the “Start Screen”, you’ll need to make sure that you know all of these so you will always feel at home when you’re working on your machine. And the best thing about Windows 8 is that all of your devices that runs the new operating system can be synchronized so that all of them can have the same personalization options, Internet Explorer 10 settings, history and even your favorite websites and passwords. This means that you’ll have the same experience no matter which device you’ll be using. So let’s see what steps are involved here and start using the sync feature like a boss!

1. Open the Settings Section

To start with, you’ll need to access the settings section by clicking the “Settings” charm. To access the charms, you can swipe your finger from the right-hand portion of the screen towards the center and the Charms bar will appear or if you are using a mouse and a keyboard, you can simply point to the top or the bottom-right corner of the screen to summon the charms. Once the Charms appears, simply click “Settings” then on the settings screen, click “Change PC settings”.

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2. Use Your Microsoft Account

All the settings and preferences that are set on your PC are synchronized to all your other Windows 8 devices through your Microsoft account so you would need to make sure that you are logged in with a Microsoft account instead of a standard local account (as in older Windows versions). To do this, simply click or tap on the “Users” option from the left hand side of the screen then click again on “Switch to Microsoft account” located at the right.

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3. Don’t Have a Microsoft Account Yet? Create One

If you already have a Microsoft account, you can simply log in to it by entering the password to your local account then on the next screen, simply enter your Microsoft email address. If you don’t have one yet, you can create a new one by clicking or tapping on the link that says “Sign up for a new email address” then follow the steps that comes after.

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4. Input Additional Security Info

Next, the screen will ask you to input some additional security information like an alternate email address, a secret question and other stuff. Simply  input the information being asked to give more security to all the settings that you want to be synced to all your other devices. This also helps to somewhat encrypt some aspects of your security features if in case your forget your password

5. Trust Your Computer

Once you’re logged in to your newly created Microsoft account, the next step would require you to “trust” your PC so that all your passwords and other settings will be synced to other devices. Each PC or device that you trust are allowed to share your passwords and settings but you need to be careful about “trusting”! Only trust your own PC and not those that are owned by other people especially those public PCs. To “trust” your computer, simply click on the “Settings” Charm then “Change PC settings” > “Users” and finally, click on “Trust this PC”.

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6. Confirm the Settings You Just Selected

Now, you’ll be asked to log in to your Microsoft account on a webpage that you will be taken to. You will also be asked to confirm that the PC you are using is the one that you want to trust . The name of your PC will be displayed together with all the other Windows 8 devices that are linked to your Microsoft account. From here, all you need to do is click on the “OK” button, review your devices and see if there is one that is not yours and once everything is confirmed and checked, click again on the “OK” button.

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7. Next, Log on to Your Other Devices

After setting everything and making sure that the PCs and devices which are linked to your account are only those that you personally own, you can now take all your Windows 8 devices and you’ll need to log on to each one of them using your Microsoft account then afterwards, you need to “trust” each one of them by following the steps that you did previously in trusting your PC. You will then see that all your personalization settings as well as your favorite websites, passwords and browsing history in Internet  Explorer 10 will be synced to each of your device.

8. Get Windows 8 Looking the Same on All Your Devices!

Now that you’re logged in with your Microsoft account on all your Windows 8 devices and you trusted each one of them, you’ll be able to get the same feel no matter which device you are using. There will be slight differences of course especially between a PC and a tablet or smartphone but most of the personalization settings and all your browser settings will look the same. If in case you get a new Windows 8 device, all you need to do is follow all the steps in this tutorial so you can get all settings and data synced to it.

That’s all there is to it! You now were able to successfully sync all your personalization settings, passwords, history and other Internet Explorer 10 data to your PCs, tablets and other Windows 8 devices. As you can see, syncing all of these stuff to all your devices isn’t that hard. It just takes you to follow the above steps and you’ll be far in no time. If you had problems with one of the steps shown here or there’s a topic that you want to suggest for our next tutorial, please feel free to let us know by posting your concern on the comments section below. Want to get a daily dose of our tips and tricks? You can get all our latest stuff by joining our email list simply by inputting your email address on the space provided at our home page.