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Health & Fitness

Is Windows 8 Really All That Difficult to Use?

A brief article on how to get started with Windows 8.

I’ve been using Windows 8 as my main operating system since Christmastime. Before that, I had been using the “Consumer Preview” version on my laptop. I can tell you, it takes a little time to get used to some of the changes in Windows 8. But if you put a little bit of effort into learning to take advantage of the new features, you will quickly find that Windows 8 is very easy to use on a desktop or laptop computer.  And, if you are thinking about buy a tablet, you now have the option of getting a tablet with Windows 8, which work exactly the same as your desktop or laptop computer.  In the long run, this makes life easier than having to learn a different operating system for your tablet and having to use completely different applications on your tablet. 

The first thing to understand about Windows 8 is that the new Start Screen is just a replacement for the Start Menu.  A lot of people are frightened by the idea that the Start Menu is gone; but if you think about it, the Start Screen is just a new, improved version of the Start Menu suitable for use with both a traditional keyboard/mouse interface as well as a touch screen interface.  If you move your mouse all the way to the lower left corner of the Desktop screen (near where the Start button used to be), a little image of a Start Screen will appear.  Clicking on that will take you to the Start Screen.  Pressing the Windows key on your keyboard will also toggle you between the Start Screen and the Desktop.

In the tradtitional Windows 95 style Start Menu, everything was based on the idea of the start menu having folders on it. The folders might contain additional sub-folders, or they might contain shortcuts to programs.  To open Microsoft Word, for example, you’d click Start, then click All Programs, then go to Microsoft Office, and finally click on Word.  If you wanted to open the Event Viewer, you’d click Start, then Settings, then Control Panel, then Administrative Tools and finally Event Viewer.  Starting with XP, they added the idea of “pinning” frequently used programs to the Start Menu, so that your frequently used programs would be right there and you wouldn’t have to navigate through layers of sub-menus to get to your programs.  In addition, most people also like to add shortcuts to favorite programs or documents to their Desktop, so they could access these items without going through the Start Menu.

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With Vista, they added the Search Box to the Start Menu.  With the Search Box, if you knew you wanted to open Word, for example, you could just type “word” in the search box and it would find Word for you.  If you wanted to open Event Viewer, you could just type “event v” in the Search Box, and it would find Event Viewer for you.  This saves a lot of time and effort spent working your way through layers of menus to find a program you want.  

For those of us who picked up on pinning programs to the Start Menu and using the search box on the Start Menu, the move to the new Windows 8 Start Screen is very easy to adjust to.  For those who stuck with the old fashioned method of working your way through the layers of folders and subfolders on the Start Menu, the change to the Windows 8 Start Screen is more dramatic.

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With the Windows 8 Start Screen, the idea of manually working your way through layers of menus is gone.  With the Start Screen, the idea is to “pin” frequently used programs, documents, web sites, etc., to the Start Screen.  Then, when you open the Start Screen, all the programs you use regularly will be right there in front of you.  You can arrange the programs and organize them any way you want on the Start Screen.  So you can group Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook together.  You can put the items you use daily up front, where you’ll see them right away, and put less frequently used items further down, where you might have to scroll to see them.  If you want to use a program that you haven’t pinned to your Start Screen, you can either simply start typing the name of the program, which will automatically open the search box, or you can go to the All Apps menu, which gives you a list of every program installed on your computer.  In addition, the Start Screen can also have “Live Tiles” which are like little mini-programs that actually run on the Start Screen and can provide information, such as weather reports, stock market updates, etc.  Like the program shortcuts, the live tiles can be arranged to suit your preferences.

There are some 3rd party programs that bring back the old style Start Menu in Windows 8.  I tried one called Start8.  While it worked just fine, I quickly found that the new style Start Screen is actually preferable to the old Start Menu, once I got used to using it.  By the time my trial period for Start8 ran out, I realized that I hadn’t even used it in a few weeks, so I decided to uninstall it, rather than buy it.  However, for anyone dead set on wanting to use the old Start Menu, Start8 is a great solution!  It only costs $5. 

When you start playing around with a Windows 8 computer, you’ll find that, by default, the Start Screen is set up with tiles for several new Windows 8 Modern style applications.  This seems to bother a lot of people because they jump to the conclusion that Windows 8 can only run the new style applications, and that the traditional Desktop is gone.  However, if you look closely, you’ll notice there is a tile there that says “Desktop.”  Clicking (or tapping) that tile brings you to the Windows Desktop, where everything is the same as in Windows 7, with the exception of the missing Start Menu.  Once you install some Desktop style applications on your computer (Word, Excel, Outlook, Quicken/QuickBooks, etc.), and pin shortcuts to these applications on the Start Screen, you will find that when you open one of these applications from the Start Screen, it goes into Desktop mode and everything runs the same way it always has.  Windows Explorer, Control Panel, Event Viewer, Device Manager, etc., are all still there and all still run the same as ever.  However, there are also new touch-oriented versions of many traditional Windows components.  These run in the new Windows 8 Modern Style interface and are meant to be easier to use on a touch screen device.  Again, this is where some people get the idea that having the new interface means the old interface is gone; but this is simply not the case.  Windows 8 is designed to make it easy to do things the same way you have always done them, while also making it easy to use on a tablet or touch screen computer.  You get the best of both worlds in one system. 

Another thing that is different in Windows 8 is what they call the “Charms Bar.”  This bar is hidden off of the right side of the screen.  On a touch screen, you open the Charms Bar by swiping your finder in from the right side.  With a mouse, you put your mouse pointer in the lower right corner of the screen to make the Charms Bar appear.  The Settings button on the Charms Bar opens a list of system settings, including the Power button, which is what you need when you want to shut down or restart your computer.  This is also how you get to settings for connecting to a Wi-Fi network. 

Once you spend some time with Windows 8, you will find that it’s not complicated or confusing.  Most things are still similar to the way they’ve always been.  The new features take a little getting used to, but once you get used to them, you’ll find that they’re quite nice. 

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post them here, or email me (Rick@Hogans-Systems.com) or call me (847-989-8768).  We are here to help you with your computer needs.

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