We discuss the many ways in which you can personalize the Start screen (and other aspects of Windows 8) in Chapter 5, but it’s wise to check this screen after each Windows application install to see which tiles were added. And then you can delete the ones you don’t want and, if desired, reorganize those you do.
Remember that deleting tiles from the Start screen won’t remove those applications. You can see this by opening the All Apps view by tapping Winkey (or Start) and then choosing All Apps from the Start screen app bar, which appears at the bottom of the screen. In this All Apps view, all of the installed applications are available and are even segregated in groups.
To display the toolbar-like control called the app bar at the bottom of the screen, right-click with the mouse, swipe up from the bottom of the screen with touch, or press Winkey + Z.
Switching Between Running Applications, Apps, and Open Windows
Even when Windows was just a simple graphical front end to MS-DOS, it supported means by which users could switch between various running applications, bringing one to the visual forefront and making it the current application. These task management capabilities have long worked with both keyboard and mouse, and even with touch, and include such well-understood tools as Windows Flip, the familiar Alt + Tab keyboard shortcut.
These capabilities largely come forward in Windows 8, which for the most part provides a superset of the multitasking and task-switching capabilities in Windows 7. But because Windows 8 includes the new Metro-style environment and full-screen Metro-style apps, there are a few differences.
What’s missing from Windows Flip? The Start screen. If you wish to go there, use the new Start experience, the Windows key on your keyboard, or the Windows key button on your device.
First, it’s now possible to task switch between Metro-style experiences (like the Start screen) and apps and the desktop. To do so, you can use Windows Flip as before, tapping Alt + Tab repeatedly until you find the application or app you want. In Windows 8, Windows Flip provides access to individual desktop applications, individual Metro-style apps, and the desktop, as shown in Figure 4-40.
Switcher treats the desktop environment as a single app, and doesn’t differentiate between individual desktop applications.
You can also use the new Switcher user experience, which was discussed earlier in this chapter. Switcher is mouse- and touch-friendly, and provides a new way to switch between running tasks.
Finally, it’s worth noting that the Windows Flip 3D task-switching interface that was available in both Windows Vista and 7 is no longer available in Windows 8. Now, the Windows Flip 3D keyboard shortcut—Winkey + Tab—activates Switcher instead. Sorry, Flip 3D fans.
Figure 4-40: Windows Flip now works with both Metro-style app and desktop applications.
Using Task Manager
As with the task-switching functionality described earlier, Windows has also offered an interface called Task Manager that, among other things, provides a way for users to manually kill processes and applications. It’s perhaps a sad statement that this interface is one of the most frequently used tools in Windows, but there you go. And in Windows 8, it’s gotten its most impressive upgrade in years, with a simple new user interface that offers a superset of the functionality from previous versions.
You can also access Task Manager from the power user tasks menu that appears when you activate the Start tip and right-click the Start tip thumbnail as described previously in this chapter.
Task Manager is accessible many ways, but the simplest is the tried-and-true method of right-clicking a blank area of the taskbar and choosing Task Manager from the context menu that appears. As you can see in Figure 4-41, the Windows 8 version of Task Manager offers a much simpler interface by default than its predecessors.
From this very simple interface, you can right-click an application and perform a number of actions, the most commonly used of which are End task (kill the application dead), Switch to (to bring that application to the forefront), and Open file location (which will display the application executable in File Explorer). But since End task is the single most common option, there’s a button just for that: To kill any application immediately, select it in Task Manager and click End task.
While it’s possible that the End task button and right-click menu will meet most users’ needs, the power users in the audience are probably looking at the interface and thinking that there are many missing features. But that’s only true because they’re hidden by default. Click More details and Task Manager will expand into a power user’s dream come true. Not only are all the capabilities from the Windows 7 Task Manager present, but there are new capabilities here as well. The advanced Task Manager interface is shown in Figure 4-42.
Figure 4-41: The simpler new Task Manager
Figure 4-42: Task Manager’s advanced UI
There’s a lot going on here, but the highlights include:
• Filtering for better application management: Using the various columns available in the Processes tab—CPU, Memory, Disk, Network, and so on—you can filter and pivot the view of running processes using a visual heat map view and get a better idea of how individual applications are impacting system performance. By filtering on Memory, for example, you can see which applications are sucking up the most RAM.
Try not to micro-manage Metro-style apps. Unless one is hanging, there’s little reason to kill it from Task Manager. Windows 8 will automatically close Metro-style apps when needed.
• Metro-style apps and desktop applications managed together: As you may have noticed, Task Manager lets you manage both traditional desktop applications and new Metro-style apps. And you do so with the same interface and commands.
Metro-style apps cannot auto-start at boot time.
• Manage startup applications: Task Manager now provides an excellent new capability on its Startup tab that helps you manage which desktop applications—not Metro-style apps—auto-start when Windows boots.
• Services: Users who wished to manage system services previously needed to use the Services control panel. While this control panel is still available in Windows 8, Microsoft replicates it in the Task Manager as well. In retrospect, this is a fairly obvious place for this functionality.
Finding and Launching Applications with Search
Windows 7 includes a fantastic feature called Start Menu Search. To use it, you simply tap the Start button, type the term you’re looking for, and the search results are returned right in the Start menu. It provides an amazingly handy way to quickly find an application you want without mousing around the labyrinthine Start menu submenus.
OK, fine. But with Windows 8 doing away with the Start menu, you may be wondering how you can accomplish the same feat in the new operating system version.
Surprise: It works exactly the same way.
You can also trigger app search by pressing Winkey + Q.