We afford users the flexibility either way.Īs with most Windows configurations, we can leverage Group Policy and/or Group Policy Preferences to control OS configurations. Some prefer to boot to the Start Screen and begin with the Tiles, others want to go right into the desktop. In keeping with our theme of choice, if desired, you can choose to boot or sign-in directly to the desktop instead of the Start screen Here again, when you flip from the desktop to the Start screen and back again, there is a smooth transition between the two … Several Admin tools/Consoles (Hyper-V, RDP – there is a nice new Modern RDP app you can find in the Store).On the Start screen below, I've pinned my primary work apps and some secondary tools and apps that are commonly found on the Windows 7 Start menu and customized the Tiles to help me work efficiently: You can also right-click the Start screen background, click 'Customize' and define names for your App Groupings… You can customize the order, size, grouping and location of your Tiles. Now, you can pin what you want to the Start screen.

Now, the Desktop more smoothly transitions from this …įor an alternate layout, where we group a specific set (or sets) of Apps together, we choose the following settings … To do this, select: 'Show my desktop background on Start' With this enabled, when we flip to the Start screen, it is a much less drastic visual flash/change. We can make the Start screen Tiles sort of 'overlay' the desktop wallpaper instead being bounced out to a completely separate screen. In Windows 8.0, when I flip to the Start screen from the desktop, it is a dramatic visual 'switch' to another, completely different screen. Here we set it to show the most recently used first - this will make it 'feel' a bit more like Windows 7. We can also choose the order of the application sorting… Now, instead of the Start screen, we see this screen of all the installed Apps when we sign-in: Select 'Show the Apps view automatically when I go to Start'.Right-click the taskbar and choose 'Properties' then the 'Navigation' tab.This is accomplished in the 'Taskbar and Navigation properties' Step one is to change from the default Start Screen to the App View. The first View we'll cover is what we call the 'All Apps' View. The Start screen allows Tiles of varying colors, sizes and icons, and lets us arrange them in 'space.' Also, the most common icon for apps was a 'folder' which made it a bit visually static and customization was limited since they were all just lined up. The result of this was often a Start Menu that spanned multiple rows of 'folders.' Navigating it with the mouse grew more difficult for users as more and more applications are installed. Users typically install many, many applications over the lifecycle of a PC. Once you become accustomed to the changes, we predict you'll find yourself working more efficiently with the visually richer and more scalable 8.1 Start screen. With these tweaks, we'll show you how to set up an experience that is similar in function to the classic Windows 7 Start button/Menu. In this post, Mike Hildebrand and I present you a couple of solutions that should help the traditional mouse and keyboard users (like us) get more comfortable with the Windows 8.1 Operating System UI.įirst, we'll show you how to adjust the Start 'experience' in two different 'flavors' and then we'll discuss how you can deploy/customize Start screen settings across your environment. In Windows 8.1, the Start Button is back – but not the classic Start menu. Of course, in IT, like in everything, change is inevitable and as humans, we're readily adaptable J Over the last year, I have supported dozens of Windows 8 deployments and I've seen firsthand that changes to the Start button/Menu in Windows 8 initially made some users uncomfortable. So this is a very special day for me – it's my first post on AskPFEplat and it's Windows 8.1 GA ( ) I worked in Europe during the launch of Windows 7, and then moved to the US to work on Windows 8 and 8.1. Hi, I'm Joao Botto and I've been focusing on the Windows Client OS for the last four years. First published on TechNet on Oct 17, 2013

Microsoft windows 8 start menu