While Microsoft launched its latest Windows 8 equipped with a new controversial start screen feature bearing all the information under a single roof but it is rather optimal for a touch device and has proved to be a hard target for the users of the previous versions of Windows to get acquainted with the same on their non-touch devices. But there are way lot more options to customise the look and feel for the start screen to adopt it in your own desired way.
How to get access to Start:
For a touch device, it will just require you to swipe from the right hand side of your screen. The charms bar appears and then you get the start button. Now tap on it.
Whereas for a non-touch device with a mouse, you need to hover your cursor either upon the top right corner or lower right corner which will reveal the charms bar and of course the Start button.
Or else you can tap on the Windows logo key to access the start button.
Personalization of the start screen includes the following features:
a. Background Appearance:
To change the default background tattoo, hover the cursor to either of the top or bottom right corners of your screen or strike the “WinKey + C” combo to reveal the charms bar. Now, Click on Settings.
Click on Personalization > Start screen and select your background and color pattern. Custom background images or colour schemes though aren’t available, but Microsoft provides quite a few options from light shades to darker ones.
b. Tiles:
These tiles can be referred to as the building blocks of the start screen. Each tile refers to one application. It can be a live feed tiles or any desktop application icon tile. One glance on these tiles can update you with all kind of feeds and news.
You can drag and move the tiles anywhere you desire. These tiles can be even resized in a touch device by making a gesture with two fingers by pinching them inward or outward.
Tiles of no use, can just be unpinned from the start menu by right clicking on the tile and select “unpin from start”. Tiles again can be grouped in a single bunch by just selecting the tiles by holding CTRL and scrolling the mouse and clicking on “Name group” button.
c. Create a tile:
Previous users may not like the Metro UI and would rather go for desktop apps, so one can turn the Start screen into a desktop-only app launcher. To get a view of all the desktop apps, right-click on the Start screen and click on “All apps” to view them. Right-click on any app and select “Pin to Start” to paste it on the Start screen which will generate a new tile.
d. Pin stuffs on to the start screen:
Folders and applications, websites or friends, you can almost pin anything on to your start screen. For a folder, just right click on to it and click on “Pin to start”. To create a tile for a website, navigate to the website and right click on the browser to click on “Add site to Start Screen” option in the browser’s menu. All modern browsers will support this feature.
