Unfortunately ASUS hasn’t released driver updates for the Rampage 3 Black edition for Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 and although the on-board Realtek chipset drivers are available through Windows Update – one of the selling points of this motherboard combo was the Thunderboard audio interface!

Note: Tested in Windows 8.1 64 bit.

1. First you need to download the Windows 7 thunderbolt drivers – “here“
2. Download and extract the drivers to a folder
3. Press the Windows Key + Pause/Break at the same time to open up your computers System properties
4. Click Device Manager on the left hand menu (you need full Administrator rights)
5. Navigate down to the Thunderbolt device – it should have an exclamation on it to indicate driver problems – Right click and select Update Driver Software
6. Select Browse my computer for driver software
7. Select Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer and click Next
8. Navigate down to Sound Devices and click next
9. Click Have Disk and navigate to the extracted driver path and select “USBUAA.inf” and click Next
10. Select USB device in the Model window and select Next to force Windows 8 to install the Windows 7 Thunderbolt audio driver
11. Once installed – restart your computer and you should now have Thunderbolt audio.

Windows 8 (and Windows 8.1) – allows for RSAT (Remote Server Administration Tools) just like the previous versions of Windows for remote management of Server 2012 – however you need to reveal or show it.

By default however – this is hidden from the Metro Title menu and you have to enable it – follow the quick guide below to show the Administrative Tools in Windows 8.

1. Open the Start screen.
2. Hit Windows Key + C to bring up the charms bar.
3. Click Settings on the right charms bar.
4. Click Tiles.
5. Click the Show Administrative Tools

Want to create a VHD in Windows 7? Why? You may ask… would you use a VHD?

Using a VHD as a “virtual disk” you can easily use it as a self-contained “folder” or storage mechanism, you can also use it to install operating systems onto allowing to run dual booted operating systems with only one hard drive and not having to worry about partition ids. Creating VHD files in Windows 7 is remarkably easy – follow the guide below:

1. Click the Start button in Windows 7, type in diskmgmt.msc, and hit Enter.

2. Click the Action menu and select Create VHD.

3. Enter a location, such as C:VHDWindows.vhd. Set the size. Dynamic VHD files start out small and only grow with data written to the virtual disk.

4. Click OK and the file is created.

If you are like me – you rely heavily on the Num Lock key and having it disabled on boot is extremely annoying – using a quick registry change you can enable Numlock by default in Windows 8.

HOW TO enable NUMLOCK ON STARTUP​

1. Press the Windows Key to open the Tile (Metro) screen
2. Type: regedit to search for the Windows Registry Editor and press Enter.
3. When the Registry Editor loads – navigate through:
4. HKEY_USERS,.DEFAULT, Control Panel, and Keyboard.
5. Locate the InitialKeyboardIndicators entry and right-click it, select Modify.
6. Enter 2 into the box.
7. Click OK to save the changes.

How to disable Numlock on Startup​

Follow the same steps till: Step 6 than instead of 2 type: 2147483648.

Changing your user photo in Windows 8 is remarkably easy and helps make a standard Windows 8 installation… More… You!

1. Open the Start screen and click your user picture
2. Click Change Account Picture.
3. Click the Browse button.
4. Navigate the browser until you find an image you want to use and click it.
5. Select Choose Image.
6. Done – you have now changed your Account Picture.