Figure 6-27: Installing apps from Your apps
Windows 8 faces similar scrutiny. So there are numerous Microsoft apps in this release that are not technically included with Windows 8. And though most PC makers are bundling them with Windows 8 as before, completing (or muddying, others would say) the experience, so to speak, many users will also acquire Windows on their own.
As discussed at the beginning of this book, we consider these apps to be a key part of the full, or complete, Windows 8 experience. The good news is that they’re readily available from Windows Store. And all of them are free. So if they’re not available in your copy of Windows 8 for some reason, you can find them here.
The app categories and the apps that fall within each are listed below:
• Communications apps: These include Calendar, Mail, Maps, Messaging, People, Reader, and SkyDrive, or what we call the productivity apps.
• Entertainment apps: Camera, Photos, Xbox Companion, Xbox Music, Xbox Video, and Xbox Games.
• Bing apps: Bing, Finance, News, Sports, Travel, and Weather.
Not surprisingly, this book assumes you have these apps installed, so if any aren’t present on your PC, get cracking.
Microsoft’s communications (productivity) apps are covered in Chapter 8. Microsoft’s entertainment apps are discussed in Chapter 9.
Rating and Reviewing Apps and Providing Other Feedback
As you download and install apps, you may find yourself relying on the in-store reviews and ratings that other users have provided. And as you spend more time reading these often useful bits of feedback, you’ll discover that you can optionally leave different types of feedback of your own, if you’d like and depending on what you’re comfortable with.
Windows Store supports different types of feedback, listed here from simple and fast to more involved.
As you read an individual review, you may feel that it was particularly helpful… or not. And in a nice bit of fair play—where the hunter becomes the hunted—you can review a review, so to speak. That is, you can indicate whether a review was helpful in getting you to decide whether to download or buy it.
To leave this kind of feedback, find the Was this review helpful? link that appears below each review, as shown in Figure 6-28. Simply click Yes or No to indicate your choice.
Figure 6-28: You can rate a review!
As more and more people rate reviews, these choices become very important as they indicate the relative trustworthiness of each review. If 19 out of 20 people found a review helpful, for example, chances are it’s pretty good.
Sometimes a review is so terrible it warrants special attention. Perhaps the author uses foul language or is complaining about something that has nothing to do with the actual app (a long-running pet peeve of ours). If so, you can report the review and a real, live human being at Microsoft will take a look. If they agree with you, the review could be removed from the store.
However, be careful when doing so: There’s no confirmation and no chance to change your mind.
To report an app, click the Report this review link.
If you’re interested in opining on the quality of an app—for better or worse—you can write a review of your own. Reviews have a few components: a rating, which can go from 1 to 5 stars, a title, and then the review itself.
You will need to have first installed the app for the Write a review link to appear. Obviously.
To write a review from within Windows Store, visit the app’s landing page and click the Write a review link you’ll see in the colored pane on the left side of the Overview view. In the next screen, shown in Figure 6-29, you’re provided with stars for the rating and fields for a title and the review body.
Figure 6-29: Windows Store app review form
Once you’ve written a review, the Write a review link on the app’s landing page will change to Update your review.
Note that you are accountable for the reviews you write: The name and picture associated with your Microsoft account will accompany the review, for all the world to see. But with awesome responsibility comes awesome power: Your rating will impact the overall rating of the app, and your review is now open to the plaudits—or criticisms—of your fellow Windows 8 users.
Uninstalling Apps
If you’re familiar with the horrific and unreliable method for uninstalling traditional Windows desktop-based applications, which in many cases does nothing to remove spurious files and registry entries, you’ll be delighted to discover that uninstalling a Metro-style app is simplicity itself. Most surprisingly, perhaps, you uninstall these apps from the Start screen.
To uninstall an app, navigate to the Start screen and locate the tile for that app. If it’s not present, you can use the Windows 8 All Apps list, or Start search to locate the app. Here’s how:
• All Apps: From the Start screen, open the app bar. This can be done by swiping in from the top or bottom edge of the screen, by pressing Winkey + Z, or by right-clicking an empty area of the Start screen with the mouse. Then, select All apps from the app bar and locate the app you want to remove from the list.
• Start Search: From the Start screen, open the app search experience. This can be done by swiping in from the right edge of the screen and choosing Search from the Charms bar. (Alternatively, press Winkey + Q, or activate the Charms bar and choose Search with the mouse.) From this interface, type the name of the app you wish to uninstall until it becomes obvious in the filtered app list.
Whichever method you’re using—the Start screen, All Apps, or Start Search—to uninstall an app you must select it first. This is done on a touch interface by tapping and holding and then dragging down until a selection border appears (Start screen tile) or the app tile is color-selected (All Apps, Start Search), and the app bar appears. With a mouse, simply right-click the tile. Keyboard selection is a bit trickier and less common, but you can use the arrows keys to highlight the correct tile or app, and then press Ctrl + Space to select it.
Figure 6-30 shows what a selected Start screen tile looks like.
Figure 6-30: A selected tile on the Start screen
Wherever you make this selection—from the Start screen, All apps view, or from Search, you will see an Uninstall choice in the app bar. To uninstall the app, simply select this button. As you can see in Figure 6-31, you will be prompted with a pop-up window and informed that Metro-style app uninstall is a complete wipe: not just the app but its data is removed from the PC.
Figure 6-31: Are you sure you want to uninstall that app?
