How to Mirror Your Windows or Android Device’s Screen on Your Roku

Roku devices recently gained a “screen mirroring” feature. With a few clicks or taps, you can mirror a Windows 8.1 or Android screen to your Roku. It works a bit like Apple’s AirPlay or Google’s Chromecast screen-mirroring.

This works along with the Miracast open standard that’s built into Windows 8.1 PCs, Android phones and tablets, and Windows phones. It won’t work with Macs, iPhones, iPads, Chromebooks, or Linux PCs.

Bear in mind that screen mirroring is a beta feature, so you may encounter issues with it. Worse yet, Miracast as a whole can be flakey, so the devices you’re casting from may have their own Miracast bugs. The Roku website has an official list of certified-compatible devices. Theoretically, any Miracast-compatible device should work — but don’t count on it. That’s one of MIracast’s problems. That said, Miracast has been improving and becoming more stable with recent devices.

To enable this feature, go into your Roku’s Settings screen, select System, and select Screen mirroring (beta). Ensure the “Enable screen mirroring” option is checked.

Next, it’s time to cast from your device. On a Windows 8.1 PC, swipe in from the right or press Windows Key + C to access the charms. Select the Devices charm and and select Project. Select “Add a wireless display” to begin adding the Roku.

This will only work if you’re using a modern Windows PC that includes Miracast-compatible hardware.

You should see your Roku in the list of devices. Select it to add it to your Windows PC’s list of available devices. Windows will ask you to follow any instructions on your Roku, but that won’t be necessary. After a few seconds, it should automatically connect and begin casting.

On Android, open the Setting screen, tap Display, tap Cast screen, and you should see the Roku in the available list of wireless displays. Consult our step-by-step guide to casting with Miracast for more details.

To begin casting again on Windows, select the Devices charm, tap Project, and you’ll see your Roku appear in the list if it’s nearby. Click or tap it to project. You’ll see the “Screen mirroring” splash screen appear on your Roku, and then your device’s display will appear on your TV.

On Android, you can begin casting in the same way you added the Roku. You should also see it in your Quick Settings list.

Either way, when you’re done casting, just touch the Home button — or practically any other button on your Roku’s remote control. It’ll instantly leaving the casting mode and display your Home screen so you can begin watching something else.

We’ve had issues getting this feature to work in the past, but that could just have been due to the beta nature of this feature. It worked for us on the latest model of Roku 3 with a Surface Pro 2.

In the past, we’ve noticed that Miracast won’t work if you have VirtualBox, VMware, or a similar virtual machine program installed on your Windows computer. Miracast needs a “clean Wi-Fi stack,” and these programs interfere with the networking. Try uninstalling virtual machine programs and anything else that tampers with your networking if you can’t Miracast. On Android, custom ROMs may not be able to Miracast properly — ensure you’re using the manufacturer’s official build of Android on a supported device.

In theory, devices don’t need even need to be on the same Wi-Fi network to use Miracast. That’s because they discover and connect to each other using Wi-Fi Direct, not over your existing Wi-Fi network. If you’re having problems, you may want to try connecting both devices to the same Wi-Fi network — it may or may not help. And, because this uses Wi-Fi, sources of Wi-Fi interference could cause problems.

Any problems you encounter could be due to the beta nature of the screen mirroring feature on the Roku. They could also just be general Miracast problems — many manufacturers have seemingly struggled to get Miracast working reliably.

But this is still an exciting feature — it means many people now have Miracast-compatible devices connected to their TVs. It could help Miracast become more widespread and used — if it works reliably for most people.

Chris Hoffman is a technology writer and all-around computer geek. He's as at home using the Linux terminal as he is digging into the Windows registry. Connect with him on Google+.

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How to Easily View Recently Modified Files in Windows

To find just about anything in Windows, type something describing the file in the search box. Windows will then quickly search all your files, and present a list of matches according to your search criteria. Today we’ll show you how to find files you’ve recently modified.

Sometimes you may want to check for recently created or modified files because someone might have installed a third party software without your permission and you want to locate them quickly, or perhaps you’re trying to find a document that you modified a week back but cannot remember the file name or its location. Windows already possess some handy search tools to let you view recently created or modified files easily.

Each file has one or more time stamps. They are used by the operating system to record when the file was created, last modified, or last accessed. Windows keeps a record of these three values for each file and directory.

A File Time is a 64-bit value representing the number of 100-nanosecond intervals since January 1, 1601 (UTC). Conversion from this internal format to a format more suitable for human interpretation is performed by the Windows system call, which extracts the year, month, day, hour, minutes, seconds and milliseconds from the timestamp data. NTFS file system stores time values in UTC format, so they are not affected by changes in timezone or daylight saving time.

The time stamps displayed by the operating system are by no means foolproof but they hold a great value in many situations, ranging from business transactions to computer forensics investigations.

Date Created — is the date and time when the current instance of the file was created. This value is set and does not normally change unless you change them through third party software.

Date Modified — is the date and time the file was last written, i.e, when its contents was last modified. Renaming the file doesn’t change the modification time stamp. Neither does opening the file without making any changes to it.

Date Accessed — is the date, and on NTFS volumes, the time, when the file was last accessed for either reading or writing.

If you want to view the information for all files, folders and subfolders in a directory at a glance, you can do so via File Explorer. By default, only the modification date and time are shown. If you also want to view the creation and last access dates, then you’ll need to make some changes to the Explorer display.

Open “File Explorer” and right-click the column title in the “Details view” (where the column labels Name, Size, Type, and Date Modified appear). Select “Date created” from the context menu.

Click “More” and from the list of options check the box for “Date accessed” and click “Ok.” Now sort them in descending order to see all the recently changed files.

We’ll use a datemodified filter to search for the recently modified files. Open “File Explorer” to the top-level folder from which you want to start searching. If you want to search entire computer, select “This PC” as your location. Click in the search box and type datemodified:. A new window named “Select a date or date range” will appear.

For general searches, the calendar has preset labels for today, yesterday, this week, last week, and so on. Since we’re looking for recently modified files type the preset label (such as today, yesterday, or this week) followed by datemodified: or click the preset button in the search pane. Windows will start finding any matching files and display them in the search results.

By default Windows will look for recently modified files only in the indexed locations. To include non-index locations click “Advanced options” from the “Search Tools” and check “System files.” It is not compulsory to check “System files” everytime but it can be of significance if you are facing this issue.

Let’s assume that you have accidentally clicked the wrong button on a download wrapper and you won’t even realize it until you find new shortcut icons on your desktop, or you get a random browser popup. You can easily find those files by simply investigating the files that were recently created or modified.

If you are comfortable with keyboard, then you can view last modified files by typing a date range using a shorthand syntax. Say you want to search for all the modified files on 6th and 7th June 2015 then its syntax will be date modified: Mm/Dd/Yy .. Mm/Dd/Yy (the basic syntax varies by locality and make sure to put two periods between the dates).

After taking all that time to get a search just right, it would be a real pain if you had to repeat the same procedure later on. Windows allows you to take searches you’ve made and save them as a file (with a special filename extension .search-ms.).

To create a saved search, open an Explorer window and perform a search. Now as you survey the search results, click “Save search.” You’ll be then asked to name and save your search. Unless you change the location manually, it shows up as an icon in the “Favorites section” of the Navigation pane in every Explorer window.

You can further sort, organize, and group the contents of this search however you want, perhaps by the date they were created or the tags associated with them. Once you have created a saved search, you can create a copy of it to back it up or perhaps you can share with a colleague.

Viewing the recently modified files is really easy in Windows. If you combine it with advanced search tools then you can quickly find the information you need, and you don’t have to remember file name neither their location.

Rahul Saigal is a writer and all-around computer geek. Born in Kolkata, India, he works from home with all the geeky stuff and gadgets. When not working he loves to read, listen podcasts, and try new software. You can follow him on Twitter if you'd like.

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You Won’t Be Able to Disable (or Delay) Windows Updates on Windows 10 Home

Microsoft says Windows 10 will be “always up-to-date,” and they mean it. There’s no way to turn Windows Update off. Microsoft says feature updates will be tested on consumer devices before they’re rolled out to business PCs.

With Windows 10, Windows becomes a lot more like Google Chrome or a web application — it will automatically update. But they’re forcing more than security updates, and Microsoft has a troubling track record with broken Windows updates recently.

Windows 10 will be updated more frequently, and with more types of updates, than current versions of Windows. Traditionally, Windows releases saw only security and bugfixes. Occasionally, a service pack would add a few more features — but even those didn’t usually change much. The interface was designed to stay stable for the life of a Windows release. Microsoft has already started updating Windows more often, with the Windows 8.1 Update changing Windows 8.1‘s interface for the better.

This time around, Microsoft is committed to rolling out both security updates and feature updates to Windows 10. Most of the included applications will also automatically update themselves via the Windows Store. Microsoft is thinking of Windows 10 as the last versions of Windows, so instead of a Windows 11 or Windows 10.1, we should see feature updates and interface changes appear on an ongoing basis.

To ensure everyone is secure and up-to-date on a stable platform, Microsoft won’t allow Windows 10 Home systems to delay Windows updates. Updates will automatically download, and they’ll be installed when you next reboot, or you can schedule a reboot. You’re not allowed to disable WIndows Update entirely, and you’re also not allowed to put updates off if you don’t want to install them.

The only options are “Automatic (recommended)” and “Notify to schedule restart.”

But businesses may not want to get feature updates — only security updates. For this reason, Microsoft detailed several different Windows 10 “branches” for businesses in a blog post titled Windows 10 for Enterprise: More secure and up to date. Windows 10 Enterprise customers can use a “long term servicing branch” of Windows that will receive only security updates, but not feature updates.

Business customers also have “Current branch for Business.” Here’s what MIcrosoft says about this branch — which could potentially be worrying for Windows 10 Home Users:

“By putting devices on the Current branch for Business, enterprises will be able to receive feature updates after their quality and application compatibility has been assessed in the consumer market, while continuing to receive security updates on a regular basis….

By the time Current branch for Business machines are updated, the changes will have been validated by millions of Insiders, consumers and customers’ internal test processes for several months, allowing updates to be deployed with this increased assurance of validation.”

Microsoft is promising businesses better stability and compatibility with these feature updates by assuring businesses they’ll be tested on consumer Windows PCs first. That’s a little worrying if you’re using a Home version of Windows.

While most computers will come with Windows 10 Home, you’ll also be able to use Windows 10 Professional. You can pay $99 to upgrade a computer from Home to Professional. If you were previously using Windows 7 Pro or Windows 8 Pro, you’ll get Windows 10 Professional when you upgrade.

Windows 10 Professional will have the ability to delay Windows updates. As Microsoft’s Windows 10 specifications page puts it:

“Windows 10 Home users will have updates from Windows Update automatically available. Windows 10 Pro and Windows 10 Enterprise users will have the ability to defer updates.”

It seems likely that Windows 10 Professional will have the ability to switch to the “Current branch for business,” although the “long term servicing branch” will likely be only for Windows 10 Enterprise. However, even the current branch for business will force you to regularly update to new features after a few months — you just get a few months to stay on a stable version of Windows while the changes are tested on all those Windows 10 Home PCs.

It’s unclear if this will actually be a huge stability problem. In the recent past, Microsoft has released quite a few broken Windows updates that caused problems on some computers — here are just a few of them. It may be a good idea to delay those “optional” updates on your Windows 7 or 8.1 PCs today, just to ensure they won’t cause problems when you install them. That’s what businesses do by delaying and testing updates.

Come Windows 10, you won’t be able to delay these updates on your home computers. However, “Windows Insiders” will still be testing these updates before they reach stable Windows 10 Home computers. That means there will be a public, unstable branch of Windows that big updates like this can be tested in before they’re released to the larger public. That’s a definite improvement, and hopefully it means those updates will be stable by the time they’re automatically downloaded to Windows 10 Home PCs.

Microsoft will also benefit from getting as many people possible on Windows 10 and keeping them on the same Windows codebase. Currently, even someone using Windows 8.1 may have different sets of updates installed and Microsoft has to ensure every possible configuration works.

Microsoft is trying to keep everyone up-to-date with the latest security fixes in Windows 10, and that’s a good goal. They’re also trying to keep all Windows users reasonably current with the latest interface changes, features, and low-level developer features. This makes Windows into a more consistent platform.

But, with updates automatically installed whether you want them or not, a buggy update could cause problems on many home computers and there’d be no avoiding it. Microsoft will have to improve the quality of Windows updates. Telling business users that changes will be tested on home PCs before they’re made available is a little worrying, with home users forced to pay more for a Windows 10 Professional upgrade if they want those stable, business-grade updates.

And, if Windows 10 truly is the last big version of Windows, this means you won’t be able to avoid any dramatic interface changes you don’t like. If Microsoft’s Windows team decides to go off the deep end again and brings in the kind of dramatic, unwelcome changes we saw with Windows 8, there will be no way to cling to the original interface offered in Windows 10 — not unless you’re using the enterprise version of Windows.

Chris Hoffman is a technology writer and all-around computer geek. He's as at home using the Linux terminal as he is digging into the Windows registry. Connect with him on Google+.

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