Windows 8: The Missing Manual

Chapter 6. File Explorer, Folders & the Taskbar

Let’s be honest: TileWorld, the subject of this book’s first five chapters, is ideally suited for touchscreens. The mouse and keyboard are afterthoughts. But another environment is sitting there behind TileWorld’s attractive rectangles: the traditional Windows desktop. The taskbar, folders, menus, Explorer windows—it’s all there, patiently waiting.

Someday, Microsoft hopes, nobody will need the desktop. Someday, all computers will have touchscreens, and everybody will live in TileWorld all the time.

For now, though, a lot of administrative work still requires the desktop. Organizing files and folders. Working with disks. Connecting to networks. And above all, running programs; the 4 million Windows programs that existed before Windows 8 still run—but only at the desktop.

The rest of this book, therefore, describes the desktop world.

The Windows Desktop

It’s easy enough to get to the desktop. On the Start screen, tap or click the Desktop tile. (Unless you’ve moved it, it’s the lower-left tile.) Or press +D. Either way, TileWorld instantly vanishes—and the desktop appears.

Tip

Move the Desktop tile to the top left position on the Start screen. Now, no matter what you’re doing, you can jump to the Desktop with a quick press of the key (to open ...