How to enable the notifications center in Windows 10 Technical Preview

When Microsoft took the lid off Windows 10 in late-September, the software giant showcased some of the new features that its new tiled operating system offers in the Technical Preview build. Chief among them was the revival of the Start menu, but virtual desktops, a beefed-up Command Prompt, and Task View were also demoed during the presentation. However, even though it has been an oft-requested addition, there was no mention of a notifications center being baked-into Windows 10.

That was a major disappointment in my book, as a notifications center is a must-have feature for any modern operating system, let alone one that is supposed to run on desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones (perhaps, even wearables). But, rest assured, Windows 10 does come with a notifications center. Microsoft may not yet want us to see it, but it can be enabled. And here is how.

A Twitter user who goes by the name Adrian has created a hack for Windows 10 Technical Preview which exposes the notifications center in the early preview build, working on both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the tiled OS. Here is how you can leverage it.

First and foremost, you have to download the zip file linked above, in order to extract the necessary files. The extraction will create a folder called "notificationcenter". Depending on your Windows 10 Technical Preview version, you then have to copy the "notificationact.dll" file from either the "x64" or "x86" folder, found in "notificationcenter", to a folder called "stuff" on the root of the "C" drive.

Then, to trigger the notifications center, simply open "notification.exe", from the "x64" or "x86" folder which matches your Windows 10 Technical Preview version. Doing so, on my Oracle VirtualBox virtual machine, a window called "Notifications" pops up in the lower-left corner of the screen.

As you can see in the screenshot that is posted at the top of the article, the notifications center is virtually unusable right now. There is no settings menu and no button which reveals/hides it, even though notifications do show up, which means that you will have to trigger the aforementioned executable every time you wish to see it in action. Also, trying to clear notifications results in a crash of the notifications center.

There is much to be done to make the notifications center usable in Windows 10, judging by what its Technical Preview installment offers right now, but Microsoft should be commended for finally giving us a feature that has been missing for ages. This should certainly make notifications impossible to miss in Windows 10, which is something that I have been waiting for since Windows 8 came along.