Introduction
Windows 8 shows two completely different personas: the traditional desktop and the tiled Start screen interface. The traditional Windows desktop resembles every Windows desktop you’ve seen over the past decade, give or take a bit. More than a billion people have used it. The tiled “immersive” persona, which Microsoft calls the Start screen (and in this book, I do, too), represents the future of Windows.
I think of the desktop as the staid, dependable, conservative Dr. Jekyll and the tiled Start screen as the dashing, new, outlandish, and occasionally inexplicable Mr. Hyde.
You may prefer Jekyll. You may prefer Hyde. You’ll certainly find yourself, from time to time, jumping between the two, sometimes at the moment you least expect. But, armed with this book, you can make both places work the way you want.
Prefer the desktop? I show you how to change the Start screen so it’ll help you get more out of the desktop. Prefer the showy tiles? I show you how to get a lot done — quite possibly almost everything you want a computer to do — without leaving the tiles behind.
This isn’t the manual Microsoft forgot. This is the manual Microsoft wouldn’t dare print. I won’t feed you the Microsoft Party Line, or make excuses for pieces of Windows 8 that just don’t work. My job is to take you through the most important parts of Windows, give you tips that may or may not involve Microsoft products, point out the rough spots, and guide you around the disasters. Frankly, there are ...
