Love it or hate it, Windows 8 is a major departure from Microsoft's
past interfaces. While previous versions of Windows kept mostly the same
mouse-driven metaphor as their predecessors, even veteran Windows users
may find the start of their Windows 8 experience a little disorienting.
For the average PC user, some of the changes may turn once routine
tasks into frustrating excursions involving Windows 8's manifold
gestures, especially if that average PC user is trying to use Windows 8
with a mouse. On the other hand, experiencing Windows 8 on a
touch-capable device is somewhat more intuitive—but some basic aspects
of the OS will still mystify many.
Don't panic. Here are the essential things you need to know to climb
Windows 8's learning curve quickly—and, if you are so inclined, to make
Windows 8 look a little more like that old Windows you knew so well.
Once you've gotten past the distractions of the shiny animated Start
page, you'll be productive in no time. And you can even make that Start
screen go away if you want.
But before you start tearing Windows 8's new features out, let's walk through how to make them work.
First start
When you start up Windows 8 for the first time, you will be asked if
you want to use a Microsoft account for log-in. The advantages of using
such an account are that you gain access to Microsoft's SkyDrive cloud
storage, can link other cloud services to your account, and can
synchronize your preferences and browser bookmarks across multiple
Windows 8 devices. If you have used SkyDrive or other Windows Live
services in the past, you already have a Microsoft account.
This account doesn't have to use a Microsoft Hotmail or Outlook.com
e-mail address—it can be configured with any e-mail address you have.
(I've set up my wife's account with her Gmail account.) You also don't
need to act on this immediately; you can add a Microsoft account later
from Windows 8's PC Settings menu.
For the quickest start, you'll probably want to choose Windows 8's
"express settings" during first start-up as well. All of these settings,
like the Microsoft account, can be changed later, but the express
settings provide the best mix of functionality and security for most
people.
After you've set up your account, you arrive at the Start screen, the
tile-based replacement for Windows' older Start menu. This is where
things generally get…interesting. Once you've spent a few moments
admiring (or cursing) the Start screen's animated "live" tiles for
Windows 8's built-in apps, it's time to start finding your way around.
Charms
A great deal of what you'll need to do in Windows 8 happens through
the "Charms" sidebar interface, a set of five icons that can be summoned
on the right side of the screen from the Start screen or from within
any application. You can bring up the Charms by hovering your mouse over
the upper or lower right-hand corner of the screen, by pressing the
Windows + C keys on your keyboard at the same time, or—on tablets and
touchscreens—by swiping your finger from the right edge of the screen
toward the center.
The five Charms: Search, Share, Start, Devices, and Settings.
Search provides a context-sensitive search interface that varies
based on what screen you're in. In the Start screen, you can use Search
to find applications, specific PC settings (including things in Windows
8's Control Panel), and files.Share allows you to send content from a Windows 8 app to others through an e-mail account or social media. Devices gives you access to peripherals you can use with an application, such as printers and a second screen. Settings gives you access to application-specific settings , plus
overall PC settings such as network connections, speaker volume, and
turning the computer on and off.
And, of course, Start takes you back to the Start screen from any place in the operating system.
Start screen and Desktop
The Start screen is the main (but not the only) place to launch
applications in Windows 8. Most Start screen tasks can be performed from
the keyboard, with a mouse, or by touch; you can be pretty effective
getting around the screen without ever letting your hands leave the
keyboard.
The tiles on the Start screen are Windows 8's equivalent of Start
menu shortcuts; click or touch one of them, and you launch your
application. You can scroll the start screen right and left using the
mouse scroll wheel, or by dragging your finger back and forth across the
center of the screen. You can also use the arrow keys on the keyboard
to move from tile to tile, then launch the highlighted application by
hitting enter. Panning across the Start screen. There's also a scrollbar at the bottom of the start menu if your mouse lacks a scroll wheel.
You can also cut through all the clutter by typing the name of an
application. As you start to type, the Start screen's search tool will
automatically launch and present you with applications that match what
you've typed.
Windows 8's built-in applications and those that you download from
the Windows Store run full-screen using Windows 8's "Metro" interface.
But applications written for earlier versions of Windows—which would be
just about everything you currently use—run in Desktop, the slimmed-down
version of the "classic" Windows environment, where most things look
and act sort of like Windows 7. The Windows 8 Desktop interface looks (mostly) like the old Windows,
minus the Start button menu. But there are ways of getting that back
with add-on products.
There's no Start button in Desktop anymore (though you can install a
number of applications that will create a Windows 7-like Start button
and menu for you, such as Start8 or the free ClassicShell);
if you move your mouse to where the button used to sit, a thumbnail
image of the Start screen appears (click it to return to the Start
screen).
The Windows Control Panel is now accessed through the Settings Charm
from Desktop, or you can search for a specific setting within Control
Panel from the Start screen.
Starting, switching and snapping apps
Navigating between applications running in two different user
interfaces can be challenging, but it can also be
entertaining—especially if you're using only a mouse to do it. Windows 8
gives you a whole host of ways to get from one place to another,
depending on what input you use, but they mostly rely on three common
interfaces: the Charms sidebar, the apps sidebar, and app "snapping" for
a split-screen view of two apps. From a navigation standpoint, it's
important to remember that Windows 8 treats Desktop like an "app" unto
itself—which is both a blessing and a curse.
After you've launched an application, you can launch another by using
the Start Charm to bounce back to the Start screen. To get back to the
last app you were using from any app, you can do this:
Hover your mouse in the upper left-hand corner and click on the thumbnail of the other application when it appears.
With a touch device, you can switch back to the most recently used
app by swiping your finger from the left edge of the screen toward the
center; repeat the motion, and you can page back through all the active
applications on your tablet or PC. You can do the same from the keyboard
by pressing the Windows + Tab keys at the same time.
If you've got multiple applications running, you can navigate to a
specific application by bringing up the application sidebar on the left
side of the screen. With a mouse, hover over the left upper corner of
the screen, and when the thumbnail of the last application viewed
appears, bring the mouse pointer down the left side of the screen. You
can do the same thing with touch by starting to pull in from the left
edge and then, as the screen starts to appear, pushing it back to the
left edge. The app sidebar displays all the active Windows 8 applications,
allowing you to switch to them or "snap" them to a side of the screen.
From the apps sidebar on the Start screen, you can also right-click on an app and get a pop-up menu to close it. You can also use the application sidebar to "snap" one of the apps
into split-screen with the active screen. You can do this by putting the
mouse pointer over an app, and right-clicking on it to choose to "snap
left" or "snap right." You can also click with the left mouse button and
hold down, dragging the application from the bar and placing it on the
left or right side of the active screen—or by doing the same with your
finger on a touch device. Once you've split the screen, you can change the relationship between
the two screens by clicking and dragging on the black bar that
separates them over the three dots in its center and moving the bar from
left to right to change which app has more screen real estate. You can
then get rid of a "snapped" view by dragging the split off to the edge
of the screen until one app disappears.
You have options
The Start screen and all of the Windows 8 full-screen applications
have other interface options aside from those found in the Charms. The
options vary by app, but are generally the sorts of things you used to
access by selecting a menu option; for instance, in Mail the options
include commands to sync, move a message, mark a message as unread, and
pin a mailbox to the Start screen. You can pull up a menu bar with
various options from the bottom of the screen by:
Right clicking with the mouse on the bottom of the screen
With touch devices, swiping upward from the bottom of the screen with your finger
Hitting the Windows + Z keys at the same time
In the Start screen, this brings up the option "All apps," which will
display everything that can be launched from the Start screen. The
options change based on what you've selected within the application.
Closing apps
When you're done with an application, you have a few options for how
to shut it down. In addition to closing it from the app sidebar, you can
close any full-screen application by: Hovering the mouse over the top of the screen until a hand appears... Clicking and dragging downward to make the app shrink to a smaller view...And dragging the app off the screen to the bottom, plunging it into the depths to its doom.
The same works with touch—touch at the top of the screen, drag
downward, and watch the app disappear. You can also drag apps down and
to the side to close them. Of course, you could always just hit Alt + F4
to kill the app from the keyboard, but where would the fun be in that?
Printing from "Metro" apps
Printing from Desktop works just as it always has. But printing from
full-screen Metro apps is different; it's both easy and a bit
non-intuitive.
Windows 8 does a good job of recognizing available printers
automatically and loading their drivers (at least for many recent
printers). The printers show up in full-screen apps that can print through the
Devices Charm; summon the Charms sidebar as outlined earlier, then
select the Devices Charm.
Then, click or tap on the printer you want to use.
A print preview will appear, and you can select your output options. Hit Print, and the document gets sent off to the queue.
Adding users, changing settings
Along with Windows 8's split user interface personality, the
operating system also has two places to make changes to the
configuration of your Windows environment and to settings for your PC or
tablet. One is the classic Control Panel, and the other is the "PC
Settings" full-screen interface, accessible from the Settings Charm. Select
"Change PC Settings" from the Settings Charm to get most of the basic
personalization and other user settings in Windows 8.
The PC Settings screen handles most of the settings average users
will need to tweak or change, including adding new users to a device,
adding or changing a Microsoft account for existing users, setting up
file and media sharing, and personalizing parts of the Windows interface
(except for the Desktop, which has to be configured within Desktop). The PC Settings screen gives you access to user-specific
personalization settings, as well as settings for wireless networks and
devices. To add a user from PC Settings, click the "Add a user" plus sign under "Other Users."
You can choose to create new users with their own Microsoft
accounts—which will allow them to download or buy Windows 8 applications
from the store and to access their own SkyDrive—or you can set them up
as a local user only. Local accounts can be designated as a child account and protected
with Microsoft's Family Safety feature. The service will e-mail you
reports on your child's online activity, block them from adult sites and
prevent inappropriate downloads.
Once you've created additional users, to switch from one user login
to another, go to the Start screen and either click or touch your user
icon. You can lock your screen or sign off here, or switch directly to another account while leaving the one you're in active.
Turning the machine off
Windows 7 and its predecessors used to get a lot of grief for putting
the "shut down" and "sleep" commands under the "Start" button menu. Who
clicks "start" to stop, right? In Windows 8, if you're trying to turn
off the computer or put it into sleep mode without hitting the power
button, the navigation path to system shutdown is not a whole lot more
intuitive—but at least it isn't directly on the Start page.
To turn off your PC, open the Charms sidebar and click or tap the
"Settings" Charm (yes, I suppose on and off are actually PC settings, so
I won't argue the interface decision). Then, click or touch the "Power"
icon.
Click on Power in the Setup menu to power down or restart your PC, or to put it into sleep mode.
Going straight to Desktop
Of course, if you do most of your Windows work in Desktop, the system
can be configured to use the Start page and the Charms less. One way is
to pin applications you frequently use to the Desktop task bar for
easier launching. You can also rearrange and hide things in the Start
menu to make it less full of shiny things and more like the Start menu
of old.
Clicking down and dragging Start screen tiles allows you to rearrange
them into something resembling the order you like. Right-clicking on
any tile in the Start screen opens up a set of other options—you can
"unpin" applications you don't want from the Start screen, pin them to
the task bar in Desktop so they can be launched from there, turn off the
"live" animated features of the Windows 8 built-in apps, or uninstall
them entirely. You can select an app from the Start window or its search results
with a right-click, and select to pin it to the task bar from the option
menu that is displayed. You can also uninstall applications from here,
pin or unpin them from the main Start screen (depending on whether
they're already there), and turn off the "live" features of app tiles
like Bing News and Mail.
Once you have everything you want on the Desktop, you can skip right
past the Start screen at login. All you need to do is use Control
Panel's Task Scheduler: From Desktop, open the Setup Charm and select Control Panel. Use Control Panel's search window to find the "Schedule Tasks" administrative tool. Launch it.Click on Task Scheduler Library in the left panel, then on "Create Basic Task" under "Actions" in the right-side panel.Create a task, as shown. You can call it whatever you want; if you
really hate the Start screen, you can call it something saltier than
"StartInDesktop." Then hit the "next" button.Select "When I log in" as the task trigger. Click next.For your action, select "Start a program" and click next.The program the task needs to run is "explorer.exe"—it should be in
C:\Windows, but you can search for it with the "Browse" button. You can
also generalize this task for any system by entering
%systemroot%\explorer.exe here instead of the explicit path.Click "Finish" and you're all set. Close Task Scheduler, go back to Start, and log out.
When you log back in, the Start screen will appear for a moment
before the Desktop loads. You can still get back to the Start screen if
you need to, but you can eliminate most of that need by restoring the
Start Button to the Desktop.
Bringing back the Start Button
Microsoft gutted the Start button from the final release of Windows 8
(though in the consumer preview, it was possible to resurrect it with a
registry change). There are several software utilities available,
however, that can provide a fully functional substitute. One of them is
ClassicShell, a free utility on SourceForge. ClassicShell is freeware
(though not open source) and is free to redistribute. ClassicShell allows you to choose from your favorite Start button
skin: Windows "Classic" (circa Windows 2000), Windows XP, or Windows 7.
ClassicShell's configuration also allows you to skip right past the
Metro Start screen. You can configure hot-key and mouseclick
combinations to get back to it if you really need to. You can even set
the functionality of the Windows key to be context-sensitive, bringing
up the classic Start menu in Desktop and the Start screen from
full-screen Metro applications. Once
you've configured it the way you want, you can drag your favorite
programs into the main menu and go back to using Windows 8 like the
Start screen never happened.
Turning off the Metro "hot corners"
Another step you can take to make Windows 8 more like the old Windows
you loved (or tolerated) is turning off the Charms and app-switching
menus activated when you, as Windows' installation tutorial suggests,
"move the mouse to any corner." This feature can be somewhat annoying
when you're working with an application in full-screen—even when you're
running a Metro application.
Shutting down the hot corners requires a minor change to Windows 8's
registry to shut down Windows 8's "edge interface." First, launch the
Registry Editor. To do this, you can go to the Start screen and type
"Run," then select it, or right-click in the bottom left-hand of the
Desktop screen and select "Run" from the pop-up menu. If you've
installed ClassicShell, you can find Run where it belongs, in the Start
menu. Type "regedit" into the Run box, and click "OK."
When Registry Editor opens, expand out the registry tree under
HKEY_CURRENT_USER by clicking on the arrow next to it. Do the same on
"Software," then "Microsoft," "Windows," "CurrentVersion, "and finally
"ImmersiveShell." Right-click on ImmersiveShell, and from the pop up
menu select "New," and then "Key."
Change the name of the Key that appears under ImmersiveShell ("New
Key #1") to EdgeUI. Then right-click on EdgeUI and choose from the
pop-up menus "New" and then "DWORD (32-bit) Value." Name the new value
that appears in the right pane of Registry Editor "DisableCharmsHint,"
as shown below, then right-click it and choose "Modify" from the pop up
menu. Change the "value data" for the new DWORD to 1. Click OK, then exit from Registry Editor.
Restart, and the hot corners that activate the Charms and app-switching sidebars should now be deactivated.
Pushing users to get touchy
Of course, Microsoft would rather that you embrace the Start screen
and Charms bar, so you can become properly trained for Windows' touch
future. It's not an accident that mouse users are second-class citizens
in Windows 8.
I walked a few average users through Windows 8—both on a mouse-driven
PC and on a Samsung Slate tablet. The results were unanimous: users who
cursed and struggled with the mouse-based gestures were a whole lot
happier with the touch interface. My wife, whose frustration with the Windows 8 interface
I have already documented, dove right into things with the touchscreen
interface; as an iPad user, she was almost immediately comfortable with
Windows 8 on the tablet (though she found all the "bright shiny things"
on the Start screen to be distracting).
Most early users of Windows 8 won't have the luxury of a touchscreen
on their PC of choice—and will likely live in Desktop by choice.
Hopefully, the modifications above will help those who want to take
advantage of some of the internal improvements in Windows 8 without
having to change their whole Windows lifestyle. A whole cottage industry
of utilities is bound to arise to help users make Windows 8 look even
more like Windows 7 without forcing them to troll through RegEdit
settings at their own risk.
It almost makes you wonder why Microsoft didn't offer a Control Panel
switch to allow users (or administrators) an easy way to switch user
interfaces on and off during the breaking-in period for the Metro
interface. Perhaps they felt that would only prolong the pain. Given
that half the world seems to still be using Windows XP, prolonging the
pain seems to be something many Windows users are well-accustomed to.
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