Fixing Proxy/Loading Issues with the Windows 8 App Store

This is the Windows Store app. Or, at least it would be if it worked. For now, it's just a splash screen...

Well, if would still be a splash screen if it wasn't for the fact that after a long wait, an error message appears.

The one I got first was:

We weren't able to connect to the Store. This might have happened because of a server problem or the network connection might have timed out. Please wait a few minutes and try again. (0x80072ee2)

The next attempt in opening the store app resulted in another error:

We weren't able to connect to the Store. This might have happened because of a server problem or the network connection might have timed out. Please wait a few minutes and try again. (0x80190190)

Note how, in both cases, the error code was different...

So if you're currently encountering an error message with the same error codes, then you're in luck, since there is a fix! If the error code and problem is similar (but not exactly the same) then in any case just have a read through and see if your problem gets fixed.

Hiding Drives in Windows

If you're finding a way to hide hard drives on windows xp, 7, 8, 8.1 or any other windows devices, then there's a simple solution that doesn't involve installing or running third party programs.
In fact, if you've looked around, then the only feasible option is to use the windows registry to set flags on which hard drive to hide inside of explorer.

Disclaimer: Using the registry is dangerous, however its the lesser of evils between the choices of hacking about with the group policy (which you can't actually do without Windows 7 basic, starter and home premium, e.t.c., using command prompt to fiddle around with an even more volatile environment.
Make sure you backup your registry before continuing (for when something goes wrong now, or in the future).

So, with registry hacking, what about the big wall of text with all of those fancy numbers and what not?

A list of numbers without any immediate use. Source: ghacks.net

Well, lets skip the big wall of numbers and have a nice clickable online site that deals with this: http://extramaster.net/tools/windowsDriveCalculator/
The steps showing how the steps works is as follows.

#0 Start with an empty registry with everything remaining untouched.

Note: You don't have to navigate here, or perform this step AT ALL while using the tool - there may as well be already something here... It doesn't really matter...

#1 Find and identify the drives that you want to remove

Being a triple-quadruple boot install, no drives other then the C:\ drive is actually needed to be visible...

#2 Visit the page

You'll be greeted with something like this...

#3 Select the drives that you want to hide

#4.5 Click on the "Download" link/button to download

"Keep" the file, and then open it...

I wasn't able to screenshot the following dialogue box in Windows 7, but here's what you have to do in Windows 8.1...

#4.5.1 Run the file when the security warning pops up

#4.5.2 Accept the dialogue boxes that follow

#5 Restart Windows or log off and log back in

#6 Enjoy less hard drives cluttering explorer!

Advanced Query Syntax (AQS) is not powerful enough!

Windows 7 came with a nifty feature called AQS which allowed users to search files and folders based upon rules and expressions.

This functionality was extended to Windows 8 and Windows 8.1, where the syntax and concept have remained intact.

Compared to regular expressions, AQS have yet to realise its "Advanced" claim, and should really fashion itself as the "Basic Query Syntax (BQS)".

Consider this scenario. I have a list of archives that I want to search through on my computer. These archives have a specific naming structure, 01-01-01 Archive.rar, 02-01-01 Archive.rar, 03-01-01 Archive.rar... Basically following the pattern of "DD-MM-YY Name.rar"

With "AQS", you're allowed to use the AND and OR operators, where to achieve searching the said files, you could hypothetically do something like: (0 or 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 or 9) and (0 or 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 or 9) * type:.rar

Well.. This worked in Windows 7. But, since Windows 8.1 is the trend now, I updated my computer and found out that it no longer worked.

The question to be asked. Is why is it so complicated to search numbers in the first place?

• (0-9) and (0-9) * type:.rar
• [0-9] and [0-9] * type:.rar
• title:(0-9) and (0-9) * type:.rar
• title:[0-9] and [0-9] * type:.rar
• (0-9)(0-9) * type:.rar
• [0-9][0-9] * type:.rar
• (0-100) * type:.rar
• [0-100] * type:.rar
• title:(0-100) * type:.rar
• title:[0-100] * type:.rar

All do not work...

With regular expressions, the following works fine:

However, the same regular expression fails completely in Windows 8.1...

The best solution that I could come up to solve my problem was to use the following AQS query: ("00" OR "01" OR "02" OR "03" OR "04" OR "05" OR "06" OR "07" OR "08" OR "09" OR "10" OR "11" OR "12" OR "13" OR "14" OR "15" OR "16" OR "17" OR "18" OR "19" OR "20" OR "21" OR "22" OR "23" OR "24" OR "25" OR "26" OR "27" OR "28" OR "29" OR "30" OR "31")

Though, I guess when it comes down to it, this is just proof that the "Advanced Query Syntax" format is simply not powerful enough.