Starting Windows 8

Starting Windows 8

by Troy Taft

Looking for the Windows 8 start button?

First of all, take a deep breath. There is no reason to panic. Your programs are still on your computer. In fact, you might find the new way of getting to them easier once you realize what has happened. For now, just breathe. Before you start 8-ing your new Windows, allow me to help.

How do you turn the thing off?!

Did you know there was a time when you always had to call an operator to place a phone call? Even to call your neighbor, you had to go through the switchboard and someone was waiting on the other end to physically connect the wires to get your call through. What does this have to do with your life you might ask? Well, there came a day when people were expected to dial a number instead. I imagine that this was quite a change, but eventually we realized it was better overall. Now we don’t even have to user a number. We can put the name directly into our phones. Well, Microsoft Windows had really changed. One of the ways that it has changed is really big... I mean really, really big. It has to do with how you turn off your computer.

How you turn off Windows is really different. Here’s what you do… wait for it… you turn of the switch on your computer! That’s it. No hunting for the lower-left-hand side of your screen with a mouse pointer is necessary. Just hit the button on your computer! What a major improvement!

The silly thing is that we all had to learn to use the start button to stop our computers... That was weird. Fortunately, we won’t have that problem anymore with Windows 8. That’s not all.

Where are my programs?!?

As you are probably aware, Microsoft Windows usually started out with big blank screen. HD resolution blankness filled our view, and if we were really smart, we filled up our screen with old icons that we never really use. The next thing we would all do is to find that lower left-hand “start” button again and find the program we really wanted to start. Well things have changed. Microsoft replaced that button with your entire (sometimes unused) starting screen! When you start Windows 8, you see your programs right in front of you! No hunting for the start button, no hunting for the “programs” menu option, it just appears right in front of your nose. To make it clear they even named this screen. You’ll never guess what they called it… No, not Vista… anyone… That’s right they called it “Start.” What an innovative idea!

What happened to my Desktop!

That’s where things are a bit different, but still pretty cool. Do you remember on Men In Black that the whole universe was contained in a single locker, well, your entire old life is now contained in a single app! It’s like Microsoft gives an app with your computer that has Windows 7 in it. That app is called “Desktop”. It’s right there on your start menu… I mean… start screen. Click on that and you get a blast from the past.

Where’s Start Again!?!

Yes, that’s actually a very good question. Just when you get used to your old life within the new “Desktop App” you look back down to that empty lower-left-hand corner and begin to panic… How do I get back to my programs?? Well, there’s another innovation that might shock you once again. You know that silly key on your keyboard that that has the Windows icon on it? You know the one near the spacebar that has the flexible looking four quadrants. Well, that button now has a use! If you feel like getting back to the start screen, just hit that one… go on you can do it… see if you can figure out how to get back to this screen… (small hint: just hit the button again).

Where are the rest of my programs?

That is also a very good and important question. This is where the whole switchboard operators come in… You see, our list of programs got pretty large, so large that we started having to “Google” things. Microsoft realized that it was difficult for us to find our programs when they were so buried in menus underneath that old start button. I think they realized that they need to allow us to just use the name directly. What they have done is to give us the ability to search through the list by name.

Try this: move your mouse to the upper-right corner (yes the opposite of where our dear start button used to be) and then quickly move your mouse pointer down the right edge of your screen. Not only do you get to see what time it is… a menu pops underneath your mouse, there on the right side. The first icon (which the modern people call “charms”) on the menu is you ticket to app heaven. Click on that "search charm" and you will be overwhelmed with app goodness. You screen fills with app icons and you get to search for the one you want by name by typing that name into the box on the right.

Oh, and before we go from this area, you will notice that in that “swipe menu” there is another icon (or charm) called “settings.” If you really want to “shutdown” your computer the old-fashioned way, that’s your ticket!

Enjoy!

Now that we have these important things resolved, I hope you really enjoy your new computer as much as I have enjoyed mine. After a while, you might even try touching your screen… (I hear it’s ok to do that now.) Getting new stuff is easy now too! You computer has an app store built in! Windows even knows how to find your Hot Mail. It’s actually pretty exciting.