Customize Windows 8 Start screen to allow easy access to the “old” desktop

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Ed Bott shows you how.

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I have heavily customized the Start Menu on the Metro UI. I have reorganized the tiles to what I consider some semblance of a logical order. I have gotten rid of many of the tiles that don’t work well or I don’t use, and still it’s just a jumble of ugly tiles:

30424-Metro-Screen

On the other hand, my Desktop scrolls through many different Landscapes that I enjoy looking at when I’m not working on something. The icons that are on the Desktop are small and unobtrusive, and most of the access to my apps are done from the Taskbar that hides between uses:

30328-DesktopView

This UI just looks nicer and works better. I still have access to the System Power User Menu (Win Key + X) My Favorites, Links, and app Shortcuts (see Toolbars pinned to Taskbar). I can switch to the Start Menu easily (Win key) to do whatever functions I wish there. How much easier can this get?

I am sorry the screen shots are difficult to see detail on.

Screenshot of just the Taskbar with large icon to show more detail:

30425-Taskbar

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Looks quite nice, Ted.
It’s amazing how people complain so much when they can have exactly what they have now, in an OS that by all accounts is faster and snappier, and they also get the new interface, if they choose to. I guess we are all resistant to change, in some degree or other.

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How about the ergonomics?
Having to lean forward to swipe one’s finger across the screen gives one neckache, and laying the screen flat on the desk and standing over it gives one backache.
All in all Microsoft gets better at giving one a headache!

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Poltor,
Please don’t think I’m being critical, but just curious…..
Who has a touch screen? I don’t,,,,,,do you?
Does anyone on this forum have a Touch Screen, on a desktop or even a laptop PC?

The thinking behind the Metro UI is to put it on the eventual “Windows Tablet”, or for
MS Windows to run on a touch-screen in an Automobile, airplane, etc.,
not on the desktop PC.

We’re all testing Win-8/CP on our home PC’s, because that’s all we have and probably not one of us is a bonafide MS Tester.
I’m only testing it and wasting many hours in the process, because one day in less than a year, I’ll get a phone call from one of my Computer Customers saying that they just bought this new PC with Windows 8 on it and will I come out and set it up (because they have no clue where to start).

At that point, I’ll need to be able to give them something that they can relate to, having run XP, Vista or Win-7 in the past. I can’t just hand them a “Windows 8 for Dummies” book and leave. Eh?

Ted has the right idea, similar to my own, of setting up the available “Desktop” to look and act as much like something we’re already familiar with, as possible. Putting that “Shutdown” icon in the lower left corner of the screen is a move in the right direction.
And tweaking the OS so it boots up directly to the Desktop on Startup, is another great plus.
I put everything to do that in one little batch file and uploaded it to an ON-Line server, for quick and easy download.

What gets my shorts in a twist, is some nube, trying to run Win-8/CP, the most complex OS ever, on an old single core box with only 512 megs of ram and then having the gall to come on a forum and complain that it don’t run right. Cheeeech!

Sorry, I didn’t mean to RANT!

Cheers Mates!
The Doctor
Ted, nice looking Desktop. Here’s mine:

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