Navigating Windows 8

Ashton Mills
29 October 2012, 5:38 PM

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So you’ve got this new user interface formerly known as ''Metro'' in front of you. How do you use this thing? Here’s our quick guide to surviving 'Metro' and making it work for you

Panic button

First up, notice the ‘Desktop’ tile. If 'Metro' is getting to you and you want to feel that warm comfortable glow of the classic Windows desktop, slam this button and you’ll feel right at home.

If you need a break from 'Metro', don’t forget the classic desktop tile is your best friend!

Check those corners!

Perhaps this is what Sgt Apone meant in the movie Aliens when he led his team into a completely alien domain, not unlike 'Metro'... “Check those corners!” It’s good advice, too: the corners are your marionette strings for 'Metro'. Move the mouse to the top-right or bottom-right to bring up the Charm bar, which gives access to ‘Search’, ‘Sharing’ and app-context ‘Settings’. Move to the top-left to bring up the task switcher (then move the mouse down to see the full list of running apps) and move to the bottom-left to bring up the last-used app from the ‘Start’ screen or return to the ‘Start’ screen from any app.

Manage tiles

You can rearrange the 'Metro' ‘Start’ screen by simply left-click-dragging tiles around. To change their size, right-click a tile and in the settings that appear at the bottom, choose to make them smaller or larger. Note that this is where you can uninstall an app, unpin it from the ‘Start’ screen or disable its live tile updates.

Scrolling

If an app scrolls off your screen (this applies to the ‘Start’ screen as well), you can drag the scrollbar if it’s present, scroll the mouse wheel or use the Page Up and Page Down keys.

Optioning apps

While selecting ‘Settings’ from the Charm bar when an app is open will bring up an app’s settings, an app’s options are accessed by right-clicking anywhere in the app. For those apps that support it, this may bring up more than one bar (such as the navigation bar and tabs bar in 'Metro'’s IE).

Task Switching

The good things never change, and Alt+Tab is one of them. The difference now is that Alt+Tab will display both classic desktop programs and 'Metro' apps, regardless of which interface you’re in. Nice.

Task switching still works as it used to, only now it displays both desktop programs and 'Metro' apps.

Multitasking

You can have two 'Metro' apps side by side on the screen by pressing the Windows key+. (full stop) or Windows key+Shift+. for right and left, respectively. You can also drag the split bar that appears to reposition an app on the right or left side.

Snap apps to the left or right of the screen to view or interact with two at a time. Note that this feature only works on resolutions above 1,280.

Finding programs

Because of the lack of ‘Start’ menu, the only way to find classic desktop programs is through 'Metro'’s Search. Fortunately, this can be triggered just by typing anywhere on the ‘Start’ screen. It works well, too, although note that you need to click on ‘Apps’, ‘Settings’ or ‘Files’ after entering a search term to find what you’re looking for.

Just typing on the ‘Start’ screen will automatically bring up 'Metro'’s search engine.

Forcibly close an app

Given that 'Metro' doesn’t close apps (only suspend them), if you want to forcibly close an app, move the mouse to the top of the screen until a hand icon appears. Then drag down to the bottom of the screen until the minimised image of the app fades away.

Shutting down

Being designed for tablets, which never really power off, shutting down isn’t a one-click affair as it was in Windows 7. To shut down, you can either click on your username in the top-right, select to lock the screen, drag the lock screen up, click on the power icon and then select ‘Shutdown’, or from the Charm bar, select Settings > Power icon > Shutdown.

Windows 8 Hotkey Cheat Sheet