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Windows 8 is the most meaning operating system update Microsoft has launched since Windows 95, and the first one designed to run on such a wide range of devices. ExtremeTech has dissever its coverage of the operating system appropriately: I will be writing almost Windows 8 on a non-touch on desktop PC, while my colleague Sebastian volition be reviewing Windows 8 from a tablet perspective.

To begin with, just to address the elephant in the room, there are 2 very distinct parts to Windows 8: The Metro interface, and the Desktop interface. The overall experience of using Windows 8 on a non-touch device if y'all try to apply Metro and Desktop together is so different than Desktop alone that nosotros're going to intermission it into ii stories. This story here deals with Windows 8 on a standard, non-bear upon PC, applied to the same use cases every bit Windows XP, Vista, or seven. The Metro side of the equation will be addressed in an upcoming story.

Windows 8 -- setting the default programs to something less... Metro

To avoid Metro every bit much as possible, I followed these steps get-go (and I suggest you do the same, if you lot're a professional Windows user): Press the Start button on your keyboard, or left-click in the lower left-hand corner; Blazon "Control Panel"; Click the Control Panel icon; and navigate to and select "Default Programs".

From here, scroll to the lesser of the list, where the programs beginning with "Windows" are listed. Set up Windows Media Player and Windows Photograph Viewer to exist the default handlers for all the types of content they support. I recommend doing this earlier you install other software; it'll salvage y'all the headache of fighting with the Metro version of these applications. You'll also wwant a different PDF reader.

Once you've changed those defaults and grabbed the browser, e-mail program, and address book (if any) of your choice, congratulations. You lot're ready to explore what Windows viii has to offer. And as long equally we're talking about the Desktop, that's a good thing.

The Starting time screen

The Start Screen is the ane Metro function I'yard going to discuss in this section, as it's as well the only Metro (also known as Windows 8-style) app you can't become away from without installing a third-political party application. In that location are programs that duplicate the functionality of the old Beginning menu, if you lot're interested in them, and Microsoft included a correct-click option in the lesser-left hot corner that gives easy admission to some of the more common Start Menu tasks.

I expected to hate the new Start screen. I don't — but that'southward partly a role of having used PCs for a very long fourth dimension and knowing the names of the programs that I want to run. Finding the particular plan y'all're looking for if you don't know the name tin can be frustrating, peculiarly if information technology's an application that drops a number of links in what used to be a hierarchical Beginning Menu.

TightVNC icons

Quick — choice the right TightVNC icon!

Ane of the downsides to Windows viii'south flattened hierarchy is that it aggregates icons to the bespeak that they lose their distinctiveness. The old Get-go menu bureaucracy provided a short list of frequently used programs, followed by an alphabetical list of folders and icons inside of these. Every bit long as I remember that I own a Seagate production, I can find the associated program to admission it. Metro doesn't work that way.

Seagate search results

Rather, I take to search for BlackArmor to observe the relevant launch utility. This is problematic, even with the Start menu, but it doesn't become infuriating until we talk about the other Metro apps (more than on that in some other article). For those of you who want the First menu back, there's an app called Classic Shell that returns it, and gives you access to a huge range of configurable options.

Next page: Windows 8's improvements…

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