Change the start screen in windows 8

Of course, this operating system is, in a certain sense, a sensation. A new, revolutionary interface that has not yet been used on a PC and a bunch of new features, in addition to the old ones... By the way, about the old ones... Where did they go and how to work now?

Windows 8: Basic Navigation

As soon as you start the system, you are faced with a screen that looks very unusual for Windows. All applications and programs on it are laid out in the form of tiles, and not icons, as usual. This interface is called Metro, and it is more familiar to those who use touch screens. So, if you have a tablet device, then you certainly know what exactly you need to do with such a screen. If not, just roll the mouse wheel back and forth.

But that is not all. If you want to return to a desktop that is more familiar to you, simply find the corresponding square in the proposed menu or press the Win key.

A familiar and familiar desktop will appear in front of you.

The “Start” button in the new OS has completely and irrevocably disappeared, and at first this leads to some confusion. However, if you configure the Start screen properly, then things won't be as bad as you might think.

At first, on an unconfigured screen, the tiles are arranged quite chaotically and contain a lot of unnecessary and useless information. It is unlikely that you will need Delhi weather or stock ratings. However, if you need it, then you can leave it. We are talking about how to get rid of everything unnecessary, and everything that is necessary, on the contrary, to make it as noticeable as possible so that you don’t have to look for it for a long time.

First of all, we carefully look at the tile, and if we decide that we don’t need a certain square, we simply right-click on it and select “Unpin from Start Screen”.

After we remove everything unnecessary, we do the reverse operation. Namely: right-click on a free area of the screen or type “Win + Z” and select “All applications” in the menu that appears. After that, select what we need, right-click on it and attach it to the start screen.

After that, all that remains is to press Win and see what we got. Is there something still not quite what we would like? Then let's continue.

You can shuffle all the tiles on the screen like a deck of cards. All you have to do is click on the square with your cursor and drag it to where it is convenient for you. As soon as you hook a square, a special separator appears on the screen, which allows you to arrange all the tiles into groups. Thus, you can select several work groups for yourself on the screen, which will be quite easy and convenient for you to use. In order to launch any application, you only need one light click on its square.

If you right-click on the square, you can run the application as administrator, pin it to the taskbar, and generally do whatever you want with it, including deleting it.

The Start screen in Windows 8 has undergone some changes compared to earlier versions of Windows. Immediately after booting your computer or laptop, you will not see the usual desktop. But, you will see a new tiled Metro interface. In general, this is the same Start button, just in a slightly different form.

But when you go to the desktop, the taskbar will not have the Start button that is familiar to many users. This problem is solvable. Read the article: How to get Start back in Windows 8. Moreover, you can configure it so that it looks like in Windows 7 or XP.

You can also install gadgets in Windows 8 and use different hotkey combinations to have quick access to things like PC settings or search.

Well, now let's return to the main question and configure the Start screen so that it is convenient to work with Windows 8.

Here we have a wide field of actions: you can add or remove tiles from the Metro screen, change their size, move them, and create groups.

Press the Win+I key combination and select "Change computer settings". Or swipe from the right edge to the center if you have a touch screen.

On the tab "Lock Screen" You can select a screensaver and configure applications whose information will be displayed on the lock screen.

On the tab "Home Screen" select a suitable color and background for the screen.

On the "Avatar" tab, you can put an image for your local or Microsoft account.

We return to the Metro home screen by pressing the Win key on the keyboard. If you want to remove any tiles from the screen, select them with the right mouse button or press and hold a tile with your finger, then click "Unpin from Start".

If you select one tile, you can change its size in the menu below or remove the application from your computer.

You can scroll the screen either with your finger if it is a touch screen, or using the mouse wheel. To move the desired tile to another part of the screen or group, click and hold it with your mouse or finger and move it.

If there are tiles on the screen on which the image changes: weather, photos, travel, highlight the desired tile and select from the menu below "Disable dynamic tiles", the tile will take on a static appearance.

Now let's figure out how to work with groups of tiles. To do this, you need to change the scale of the main screen: move two fingers from the top and bottom edges of the screen to the center, scroll the mouse wheel while holding down the Ctrl key, or click on the “–” sign in the lower right corner.

The groups are separated from each other by a wide strip. Point at one of the groups and you will see the boundaries of its area. Groups can be swapped by clicking and holding one of them with your finger or mouse and dragging it to the desired location. For example, a group containing rarely used applications can be moved to the end.

To give a group a name, select it with the right mouse button or hold it with your finger. Then from the menu select "Name the group".

To create a new group, from the Start screen, touch and hold a tile with your mouse or finger, then drag it outside the gray bar.

If you have a lot of groups created, you can zoom out on the Metro screen and quickly move to the desired tile. This is to avoid turning the wheel or scrolling the screen with your finger.

To add the shortcuts you need to the Start screen, right-click on an empty space and go "All applications".

Then select the one you need with the right mouse button and select an action from the menu list below. For example, you can pin an app to the Start screen or taskbar.

To pin an application to the Start screen, you can also right-click on it and select from the context menu "Pin to Start".

If you wish, you can also create buttons to quickly shut down or restart your computer, and add them to the desired group on the Metro screen. For example, I have a button called Time to Rest. Clicking on it terminates the operating system. I have already written about how to create shortcuts to quickly turn off your computer. Read the article by following the link. Let me just clarify: to shut down, use the command shutdown /s /t 0 , to reboot shutdown /r /t 0 .

After I finished writing this article: Customizing the Windows 8 Start Screen, my Metro screen looked like this. Now I have quick access to all the programs I need.

In every Windows OS, the Start menu has undergone changes, and in Windows 8 it has become the Start screen. Today I will talk about how to configure it for comfortable work and speed up everyday tasks.

For Windows, there have always been third-party app launchers, like ObjectDock, because the standard Start menu and taskbar capabilities weren't enough for everyone. The Windows 8 Start screen is a full-screen panel for launching categorized apps and displaying relevant information with Metro apps that act as gadgets.

Today on the program

What I liked about the start screen

When faced with changes in the OS interface, I always look for and adopt features that simplify and speed up my daily actions. After trying the Start screen, I decided not to avoid it, but to customize it for myself.

Easy keyboard access

If we continue the parallel with third-party panels for launching programs, the one that lasted the longest for me was the one I created in PowerPro (Roman, whose comments you can see on the blog, once turned me on to this utility). I always called it with the mouse, but with a delay, otherwise it would appear when the cursor accidentally hit a specified area of the screen.

You can access the Windows 8 Start screen without delay one Win key, just like before the Start menu.

Big size

The idea of a full-screen panel for launching applications is unusual. However, when you're about to launch an application, that's the task you're focusing on, isn't it?

With full-screen mode, the Start screen can display many more applications at once than the Start menu. This is best felt on widescreen monitors with an aspect ratio of 16:9, which Windows 8 is designed for. Pinning shortcuts to the Start menu increased its vertical size.

Application opening speed

The Start screen is convenient because simultaneously with pressing the Win key, you can move the cursor to a tile whose position on the screen is well known to you. At the same time, it is much easier to hit a large tile with the mouse. These points were noticed not only by me, but also by reader Roman Ivanov in the commentary to the previous entry.

If the application is displayed outside the visible area, just slightly rotate the wheel. And yes, this can be done virtually simultaneously with calling the start screen.

Grouping tiles

The ability to organize tiles into named groups of any size is new to Windows.

Previously, you could also create groups in the Start menu, but navigating through them was relatively slow. In Windows 8, semantic zooming makes moving through groups very fast, and you'll see how this works below.

Customizing the Start screen is no more difficult than the Start menu. However, some points may not be obvious to those just getting started with the new Metro interface. That's why I decided to talk in detail about setting up the home screen. Let's get started?

Customize your design

Press the Win + W key combination and type elementary. If you have a tablet, swipe your finger from the right edge to the center and press Options – Change computer settings(at the bottom) - Home screen.

You cannot set your own picture as the background of the home screen, but I assume that in the future craftsmen will fix this issue :) If you know a working method, share it in the comments.

Clear the place

If you don't want any of the Metro apps that were originally pinned to your Start screen, select them and unpin them. To do this, right-click on the tile, or drag it up or down with your finger. You can select multiple tiles sequentially and then unpin them all at once.

If you want to delete applications, they need to be selected one at a time. Then the corresponding button will appear in the bottom panel.

Pin your apps and shortcuts

Because the Start screen is a successor to the Start menu, program shortcuts are automatically placed on it unless you opt out of this option when installing them.

On this screen you can easily pin:

Metro apps
programs
libraries, drives, folders and saved searches
system locations (such as control panel and computer)

There are two ways to do this, since Windows now has two context menu options!

Use the new context menu item

A new item has appeared in the context menu of the objects listed above.

Use search results

The easiest way to pin a Metro program or app is from search results. Type the name of the app on the Start screen, then right-click or drag up or down on the result.

The bar at the bottom of the screen is essentially a Metro-style context menu.

Pin arbitrary files

The ability to pin arbitrary files in Windows 8 RP is not provided. This shortcoming is partially compensated by jump lists, but the application does not always have them. However, there is a simple workaround.

Right click on desktop, select from menu Create – Label and enter in the field:

Explorer "here is the file path"

You can also select a file using the “Browse” button and add in front of it explorer.

In the context menu of the created shortcut there will be a treasured item with which you can create a tile on the start screen.

This way you can pin any file - from an Office document to a script. This is how you can speed up access to shutting down and restarting your computer. Commands for creating shortcuts:

Pin your favorite web pages

Since most of my blog readers do not use Internet Explorer, they need to create a shortcut using the method described above:

Explorer http://www.site

The site will open in your default browser.

The Metro version of Internet Explorer 10 has the ability to pin pages to the Start screen. At the same time, in the settings of classic IE you can control which browser the pages will open in.

Change the size and behavior of tiles

The tile is the face of the Metro app and can be compared to a gadget that displays dynamically updated information. This could be the latest news, a slideshow of your photos, or calendar events.

You can do dynamic tiles large or small, and also turn them into static ones.

A large tile is reduced in size by half (for example, Calendar, Mail, Desktop).

Group the tiles to your liking

The Metro interface in Windows 8 is built on the concept of semantic zooming with two levels of information display.

The initial screen appears at the bottom level, but you can look at it from a bird's eye view by changing the scale:

roll the mouse wheel towards you while holding down the Ctrl key
swipe two fingers from the top and bottom edges of the screen to the center

Use this opportunity to:

Create your groups

To create a new group, drag any tile outside the current group and drop it behind the splitter that appears.

Place the tiles in the desired order

As a child, I really loved playing the puzzle game "Tag". It must have been an inspiration for the Windows Start screen, because placing tiles within a group works very similarly.

Just like in Fifteen, you'll have to be a little patient to get your way.

Give groups names

It's very simple - change the scale of the start screen and select the group! To do this, right-click on it, or drag your finger up or down.

Arrange the groups in the order you want

By changing the scale of the Start screen, you can not only assign names to groups, but also arrange them in the order of your choice. Just drag the group to the desired location!

By the way, if you have a mouse, you can use semantic zooming to quickly move tiles to the desired group when you have a lot of them. Of course, you can always just drag the tile to the edge of the screen to get to the group you want.

But if you drag a tile to the top or bottom edge of the screen, it will automatically zoom out, allowing you to drop the tile into the right group! /Thanks to reader Nikolai for the hint in the comments/

Quickly navigate to the desired group

To get to the tile you want, you can roll the mouse wheel on the Start screen or scroll the screen with your fingers. But if you have a lot of groups, you might be interested in another method.

Have you already guessed how to do this? Change the home screen scale and press group!

Control the appearance of the login screen

Several people I know are not happy with the start screen that appears when they log in. It's easy to solve! What application do you start with on Windows? Add it to autoload!

If you prefer to see the familiar desktop, you can add this file to startup (shell:startup), or run it from the task scheduler when you log in. However, this solution is not ideal, since switching to the desktop occurs with a delay.

The Skip Metro Suite utility will help to radically solve this problem, but keep in mind that it creates a separate service for this.

How is your home screen configured?

As you can see, the Home screen is very easy to customize and can speed up your work by organizing tiles into groups and giving you easy access to frequently used apps.

I want to emphasize that the discussion is designed to share experiences on customizing the Windows 8 Start screen. If you have no experience, but have a strong desire to express negative emotions about the Start screen or Metro in general, you will not be alone in the comments to

The Windows 8 Start Screen is an innovation from Microsoft that pleasantly (and some unpleasantly) surprised users. This is precisely what distinguishes this operating system to a greater extent from its predecessors. The start screen appeared instead of the familiar Start menu.

Some found the Windows 8 start screen to be a very convenient tool - all the necessary programs are at hand in a pleasant form, and there are interactive information tiles (weather, news, etc.). Others perceived it as something unusual, inconvenient and are trying to get rid of it.

In this article, I will tell you about all the features that are available in the Windows 8 Start screen and show you clearly how to use this tool correctly. And then you will understand that this is a very useful innovation.

Contents

1 How to enable or disable the Windows 8 Start screen at startup
2 What's on the Start screen
3 How to add an application to the Home screen
4 How to remove an application from the Home screen
5 Organize the Home screen
- 5.1 Moving tiles
- 5.2 Changing the size of tiles
- 5.3 Grouping tiles
6 Home screen background
7 One more thing

How to enable or disable the Windows 8 Start screen at startup

The developers conceived that the initial screen would appear at system startup instead of the desktop. This is perhaps unnecessary; it is enough that it can be called up by clicking on the “Start” button.

There is a simple way to prevent the Windows start screen from appearing immediately when you turn on boot.

Right-click on the taskbar and select “Properties”.

A window will appear in which you need to go to the “Navigation” tab. And here the option “When logging in and closing all applications, open the desktop instead of the start screen” is responsible for whether the start screen will be displayed at startup or not.

I offer my short video review of the Windows 8 start screen.

What's on the Start screen

The Windows 8 Start screen consists of two parts. The first is “Start”, which appears immediately when you click on the “Start” button.

This is the Start menu

Tiles (icons) are collected here and you can manage them: delete, add, change size, group, etc.

The second part is “Applications”. All programs that are installed on your computer are collected here. There is also the opportunity to choose a method for sorting applications and a convenient search form (there is a search in the Start menu too).

This is the Applications menu

Using this arrow you can switch between two parts.

Switching between “Start” and “Applications”

How to add an app to your Home screen

Any application can be added as a tile to the Start menu on the Start screen. To do this, you need to go to the list of applications, right-click on the desired program and select “Pin to Start Screen”.

Add an app to your Home screen

How to remove an app from the Start screen

Any tile can be removed from the Start menu of the Windows 8 Start screen. To do this, right-click on the tile and select “Remove from Start Screen”.

Removing an application from the Home screen

Organize the Home screen

The Windows 8 Start screen is a very flexible tool. It allows you to customize yourself in almost endless possibilities.

Moving tiles

Nothing could be simpler. Grab the tile with your mouse and drag it to the desired location

Drag the tiles

Changing the size of tiles

To make a tile larger or smaller, right-click on it and select “Resize”.

Change tile sizes

Grouping tiles

The Window 8 Start screen allows you to group tiles. To do this, select the desired tile (or several tiles while holding the Ctrl key) and drag it to a free area until a gray vertical stripe appears.

Create groups of tiles

Each group of tiles can be given a name. To do this, right-click on the free space and select “Name groups”.

Give the groups names

Groups of tiles can be swapped. To do this, you need to click on the button with the minus icon at the bottom right and you can drag the groups with the mouse.

Move groups

Start screen background

You can change the background color of the Windows 8 Start screen and set a picture on it. Move your mouse cursor to the upper right corner of the Start menu and select Settings.

In the menu that appears, click on “Personalization”.

And select the required picture and color theme.

Choose a background for your home screen

One more thing

For each Microsoft account, you can set an individual Windows start screen. Therefore, each user can customize everything for themselves.
The mouse wheel allows you to scroll through tiles if they do not fit on one screen. On the touch screen you can simply scroll through the screens.
There is a search form on the home screen. As soon as you start entering a query, search results for it immediately appear.
The home screen is well suited for both mouse and touch screen use.
You can install interactive tiles on the home screen: weather forecast, event calendar, news, etc. All these items can be found in the Microsoft Store.

This article describes the main elements of the new Windows 8 Metro user interface. Managing programs and settings in Windows 8 has changed significantly compared to previous versions of Windows. The new Metro interface is adapted for use on devices with finger input (touchscreens).

This article describes the Windows 8.1 Metro interface. There are some differences on Windows 8 (first release). One difference is how to access the All Programs menu.

In Windows 8, the developers abandoned the familiar Start button, which opened the Windows menu in all previous versions starting with Windows 95. Now, in Windows 8, after the system starts, the Windows 8 start screen opens:

If the computer is connected to the Internet, then the Windows 8 start screen downloads information from Microsoft online services:

In order to open the traditional “Desktop” in Windows 8, you need to click on the “Desktop” icon in the start screen. This icon is labeled and located at the bottom left. The Windows 8 desktop looks exactly the same as in previous versions of Windows:

In Windows 8.1, the Start icon has returned to the taskbar. But this icon does not open the Start menu, as it did before, but the Windows 8 Start screen.

This change was dictated by the fact that Microsoft decided to use a single user interface for devices with different types of input - both traditional ones that use a mouse, and new ones that use a touchscreen and finger controls.

Desktop in Windows 8

For those who are used to older Windows or who use Windows 8 on a regular computer, the Start screen seems like an unnecessary element. Is it possible to get rid of it? Make Windows 8 open the desktop immediately after booting?

Yes it is possible. You need to right-click on the taskbar, then select “Properties” from the context menu. The following window with settings will open:

There are two options you need to change in the Home Screen group:

When you log in and close all applications, open the Desktop instead of the Start screen.
When you go to the Home screen, automatically open the Applications view.

Some of the functions that were previously available through the Start menu have been moved to the sidebar. Access to the control panel, settings, network connections, shutting down the computer.

The Windows 8 Sidebar opens by hovering your mouse (or sliding your finger) to the top right corner of the screen or the bottom right corner:

Another way to open the sidebar is by pressing the keys Win+I on keyboard.

Windows 8 start menu

In previous versions of Windows, the Start menu was the central point where access not only to programs, but also to system folders and system settings was collected. In Windows 8, programs and system settings are divided into two parts. Programs are accessed through the Start screen, and settings are accessed through the Windows 8 sidebar (see previous section).

Access to the program menu in Windows 8 is possible through the start screen, at the bottom of the screen there is an arrow button, you need to press it:

After this, the second part of the Start screen will open, what can be called the Windows 8 Start menu:

You can set Windows 8 to open the Apps screen instead of the Start screen. How to do this is described in the previous section "".

Win + X menu (Power User Menu)

If you press the Win + X keys on your keyboard, the "Power User Menu" will open:

This menu contains a set of Windows 8 system commands. Alternative ways to open this menu:

Click the right mouse button in the "Start" picture.
For the touchscreen, make a long tap (long touch) on the “Start” picture.

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