The first time you press the power button on a new computer, laptop, ultrabook, or tablet running Windows 8.1, you are prompted to perform a few setup tasks. After those tasks are complete, each time you press the power button or wake the computer from sleep, the Windows 8.1 lock screen appears. You can configure the lock screen to show various notifications (such as the number of new emails you’ve received) and customize it with your own photos in the form of a slide show. The lock screen makes it possible for you to see what is happening with some apps without having to log on and access the Start screen and the related apps. If no one is logged on, the lock screen still shows the time and date, information about a laptop’s battery, and the network to which the computer is connected.

You bypass the lock screen to get to the logon options, where you select the desired user and enter a password, PIN, or picture password to gain access to the Windows 8.1 Start screen.

In this chapter, you’ll work through the primary setup tasks, and then you’ll learn the ways to bypass the lock screen and get to the Start screen. Once there, you’ll learn how to open apps, open desktop apps on the traditional desktop, use the new Start button, access Control Panel, use PC Settings, and safely end a computing session. Along the way, you’ll begin to personalize the computer so that it’s uniquely yours.

The first time you turn on a new computer running Windows 8.1, you are prompted to personalize the background color of the Start screen, name your device, and choose how you sign in to it, among other things. If a network is available, you can opt to connect to that, too.

The Windows 8.1 personalization process prompts you to configure or input the following information (you might have already done this):

After you’ve done these things, you’ll need to wait a few minutes for Windows 8.1 to get your apps ready. The computer is ready to use when the Start screen appears.

There are three main editions of Windows 8.1 for consumers and small businesses: Windows 8.1, Windows 8.1 Pro, and Windows RT. (A Windows 8.1 Enterprise edition is available but only to customers with Enterprise licensing.) Consumers can purchase the first two from stores selling Windows 8.1. Windows RT is available on computers and tablets powered by ARM processors such as those used in today’s smartphones and tablets; as a consumer, you can’t purchase Windows RT separately and install it on your own computer or device.

Windows 8.1, Windows 8.1 Pro, and Windows 8.1 Enterprise are available in both 32-bit and 64-bit editions.

The key features (and this is a partial list) of each edition of Windows 8 are included in the following table.

Windows 8.1 Enterprise provides all the features in Windows 8.1 Pro and additional features to assist with IT organization (Windows To Go, AppLocker, App Deployment, and so on). You might see this edition on a computer you use at work, but it’s likely not the edition you have installed on your personal desktop computer or laptop.

The Windows 8.1 lock screen is much more functional than any lock screen you might have encountered in previous Microsoft operating systems, even Windows 8. Without unlocking your device you can view the time and date, and the lock screen shows whether you’re connected to a network. If you are using a laptop, it also shows the status of the battery. You can also view small icons for your favorite apps here (if you are logged on) so that you can see the status of those apps without leaving the lock screen. You can even choose the photos you want to view there in a slide show. There are lots of ways to bypass the lock screen and unlock the computer. After you bypass this screen, you input your password.

How you unlock the lock screen depends on the type of computer you’re using.

After you’ve unlocked the computer, the Start screen appears, displaying tiles. If there are more tiles than there is space on the screen, you’ll see a scroll bar across the bottom of the screen. When you move your cursor, a down arrow appears in the lower-left corner of the screen that offers access to apps that are not shown on this screen.

Tiles can serve many purposes. Many of the tiles open apps such as Mail, People, and Maps. All of the tiles you see in the preceding graphic are apps. Some of these tiles also offer up-to-date information for the app they represent; these are called Live tiles. You do not need to open the app to view the basic data a Live tile offers. For example, after you configure the Weather app, it can show up-to-date weather information for a city, and the Calendar app can show upcoming appointments and birthdays. This data appears on the Start screen so that you have access to it without opening the app itself. The information is dynamic and changes as the information it represents does. If you need to see more than a preview of the information, you can click the tile, and the app opens in a new screen from which you can access all its features. People, Calendar, Weather, Photos, Mail, and similar apps all do this. (You can get more apps from the Windows Store.)

Beyond offering access to the default apps that come with Windows 8.1 (and any you acquire from the Windows Store), the Start screen can also offer tiles for the majority of the desktop applications (desktop apps) you install yourself. You might see tiles for Microsoft Word, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft PowerPoint, Adobe Photoshop, or other apps. Note that these are not apps like Mail and Weather. They’re called desktop apps, and they are the traditional applications with which you are likely familiar. Often you obtain these by downloading them from a website or by installing them from a CD or DVD. (In contrast, you can get apps only from the Windows Store.)

To open an app from the Start screen or Apps view, you click its tile. To open a desktop app you either click its tile on the Start screen or Apps view, or you click its shortcut on the desktop. What you see after you do this depends on what you’ve clicked; an app will open in its own screen, which will take up the entire screen, whereas a desktop app will open on the desktop. It’s important to note that you can also opt to open the traditional desktop from the Start screen. To do this, click the Desktop tile.

If you leave the Start screen and want to go back to it, tap the Windows key on your keyboard. Tablets often have a physical Windows button. Alternatively, you can position the cursor in the lower-left corner and click the Start button that appears there.

It’s likely that you will have more tiles on the Start screen than can be displayed on the viewable portion of it, so you need to know some techniques for getting to those tiles. To move around on the Start screen, you can use your mouse, keyboard, trackpad, or appropriate touch gesture. The method you choose depends on what kind of computer you have. Listed here are a few ways to move around on the Start screen (and there are others not listed here).

As noted in the previous bulleted list, clicking the down arrow that appears on the Start screen when you move the mouse cursor takes you to the Apps view (click the up arrow to return to the Start screen), as does flicking upward (click downward to return to the Start screen). This screen offers access to all of the available tiles.

As you might expect, if you click any tile on the Start screen or the Apps view, something opens. The desktop might open; a traditional window might open; an app might open in its own window without need of the desktop; or, a file, contact card, website, folder, or any other applicable window might open. Whatever happens, the Start screen disappears.

You might already know that you’ll use some apps regularly, such as Weather, Maps, SkyDrive, or Mail, simply by looking at the available tile names. You might also determine that there are some you won’t use very much, if at all (perhaps Sports or Finance). If that is the case you could reposition the tiles on the Start screen to make your most-used tiles easily accessible (or you could wait and do it later when you have more experience with the apps). As an example, if you know that you’ll use the Music app often, you might put that tile in the first position on the Start screen.

In this exercise, you’ll move a tile from its current position on the Start screen to the first position. Repeat with other tiles as desired to personalize your Start screen.

You know you can move tiles on the Start screen to another area of the screen to make those tiles more accessible. You can also personalize a few select tiles independently so that the information available on them suits your personal needs. For example, you can set your location for the Weather app (or give it permission to determine your location), and it will supply current weather information from the Start screen (provided it can get that information from the Internet). If you want to know more about the weather, you just click the app to open it. These interactive and customizable tiles are Live tiles, which mean that they are updated often with new information.

Customizing any interactive tile generally only requires you to open the app, access the customizable tools and features (called charms) with which you can change the settings, and input the desired information or make the desired choices. You might only need to click Allow, as well, to let the app learn your location.

In this exercise, you’ll personalize the interactive Weather app located on the Start screen by letting the app determine your current location and adding a secondary favorite location.

Charms appear when you position your mouse in a specific area of the screen. Charms can also appear when you right-click inside an app. Software and hardware manufacturers can customize charms, so you won’t always see the same charms for every app. In the previous section, you saw the charms available for the Weather app.

Windows 8.1 has some default charms that appear when you call on them, and their names do not change (although what you see when you click them can). To see these charms, position your mouse in the lower-right corner or upper-right corner of any screen. These are called hot corners. When you position your cursor here, the charms fly out from the right side. Charms include Settings, Devices, Start, Share, and Search.

After the charms appear, their titles appear under them as you move your cursor toward them. You can show these charms while on the Start screen, the desktop, in apps, and in other windows and views. What you see when you click any charm depends on what is currently open and, if applicable, selected, when you access the charms.

When the charms are available, just click one to use it. When you click a charm (except for Start), a new pane opens and configuration options (or search or share options) appear. What you see depends on the charm you click.

The following list describes the five default charms available in Windows 8.1, from any screen, from the bottom-right or top-right hot corner.

Although there are many ways to search for something on a computer running Windows 8.1, one way is to simply start typing while you are on the Start screen. When you do, the Search pane opens and whatever you’ve typed appears in the Search window, with results underneath. The results might change as you continue to type. You can also invoke Search by using the Windows key+Q keyboard shortcut or by clicking Search from the charms. If you have a touch-only tablet, flick in from the right side and tap Search (at which point the On-Screen Keyboard appears, with which you can type what you’re looking for). However you get there, when the Search pane is available and you type a few letters, results begin to appear.

You can click any option in the list of results if you see exactly what you want, perhaps an app or a file name. You can press Enter on the keyboard or click the magnifying glass to let Windows 8.1 and Bing decide what it thinks you’re looking for. What appears in the results after allowing the search depends on that which you’re searching. If it’s a person, you’ll probably get information from Wikipedia. If you’ve typed a place, you might get directions, reviews, and store hours. If you type the name of your favorite music album, you’ll likely get results that include videos and music. In our example, pressing Enter on the keyboard causes the Finance app to open. With the results on the screen—no matter what kind of results they are—you can now scroll through the search view to see the information offered. You can click any item to see more information.

As you work with the Search feature, you’ll learn that you can narrow your search by choosing from the available options in the Search pane. By default, Everywhere is the selected setting, which means that the results will come from all of the places Search can access. You can cull the results by clicking the down arrow adjacent to Everywhere and selecting Settings, Files, Web Images, or Web Videos.

In this exercise, you’ll search Settings for the option to change the picture that appears on your computer’s lock screen.

If you’ve ever used a Windows-based computer, you are familiar with the traditional desktop. This is the screen on which you see the Recycle Bin and the taskbar, and it is where you accessed your personal folders, opened and worked with files, and used Windows Explorer (which was renamed File Explorer with the release of Windows 8) when using computers running Windows 7 or anything before it. The traditional desktop is still available, it’s still called Desktop, and it’s still where you’ll do quite a bit of your work. You can access the desktop from the Start screen.

You can open the desktop from the Start screen by clicking the Desktop tile. You can also use the Windows key+D shortcut. In addition, if you click a desktop app’s tile or a related shortcut on the Start screen (one you might have saved there), perhaps for Word or File Explorer, the desktop will open on its own to house the app and make it available to you. After the desktop is open, you’ll see familiar elements. Look for the taskbar, the notification area, the Recycle Bin, and other recognizable essentials in this graphic.

Some applications, including Microsoft Paint, Microsoft WordPad, Microsoft Notepad, and others, open on the desktop. These aren’t apps; they are desktop apps and thus need the desktop to work. When you find yourself at the desktop, by choice or necessity, you’ll see features with which you are likely already familiar. The taskbar is one of them. The taskbar is the transparent bar that spans across the bottom of the screen when the desktop is active. You can also see the Start button. You’ll learn about both here.

Let’s look at the taskbar first. The taskbar is where you access running desktop apps, manage your open windows, and access the available touch keyboard, among other things. As with previous Windows editions, a notification area on the far right offers access to various system settings, including those that correspond with available networks, system sounds, the current state of the system, and the time and date. The lower-right corner is a hot corner that brings up the five default charms when you require them.

You can personalize the taskbar by pinning icons to it for desktop apps you use often. You’ll learn to do this in an exercise later in this chapter. You can also move the taskbar by dragging it to another area of the screen (if it’s unlocked), change the size of the icons that appear on it, and rearrange the icons by dragging them to different positions. You can right-click the taskbar to add or hide toolbars, too; you might like to enable the Address or Links toolbar. Toolbars appear next to the notification area when added.

The main purposes of the taskbar—beyond any its personalization options—are to offer immediate access to previously opened apps, files, folders, and windows; to make it easy to minimize, restore, and switch between open apps; and to navigate quickly to other areas of the computer through toolbars you add. You can click any icon on the taskbar to access the app, file, or folder it represents. For example, you can click the Internet Explorer icon to open the Internet Explorer on the desktop. You can click the Folder icon to open File Explorer.

Because you might not yet have much experience with files, folders, windows, and apps from which to draw, let’s review some taskbar basics. The following list details what the icons on the taskbar do.

As you know, you can personalize the taskbar. You’ll learn quite a bit about that later in Chapter 2, but you can sample a taste of what’s to come here.

In this exercise, you’ll pin the Calculator app to the taskbar to personalize it.

Now, let’s take a look at the Start button. The Start button offers a fast and easy way to return to the Start screen, no matter where you are. Simply click in the lower-left corner of the screen. Sometimes you’ll see a simple button, whereas other times the word “Start” will display on it.

You can also right-click the Start button to access other areas of the computer and to change computer settings. You should be familiar with some of the items after reading this chapter: Search, Shut Down or Sign Out, and Desktop.

When you open a file such as a text document, the desktop appears, and a desktop app opens to make the file available. (WordPad is shown in the illustration that follows.) It might be Word, WordPad, Notepad, or something else. That app and the file are contained in a single window, and the app’s features and data are available from it. You might have a document, a web browser, and File Explorer open, all of which are available from the desktop.

Likewise, you might also have opened several apps from the Start screen. You might have opened Maps, Mail, Weather, Music, and others. These apps aren’t all available from one area such as the desktop; instead, you must switch among them by using keyboard and touch techniques. By default, only one app appears on the screen at any given time, although with the right hardware you can show up to four.

Because you’ll often have multiple apps and desktop apps open at the same time, you need to know the traditional ways of managing multiple open windows on the desktop and then how to manage multiple open desktop apps and apps.

Let’s start with the desktop. One way to manage multiple open windows on the desktop is to size them so that you can see all of them at one time. When positioned this way, you need to click only once in the window you want to use. The window you choose appears in the foreground and becomes the active window. This view isn’t always effective, though, and you’ll often need to maximize a window so that it takes up the entire screen.

The problem with maximizing a window so that it takes up the entire screen is that you can no longer view or easily access the other open windows. They are now behind the active window. To get to those other windows requires knowing a few tricks.

Here are the most common ways to manage multiple open windows on the desktop:

These are all traditional ways to work with the desktop. Many are probably not new to you, such as resizing a window or minimizing a window to the taskbar. You might have even used Flip before. There are new, novel ways to move among apps and desktop apps, though. These involve positioning your mouse in a specific area of the screen and using touch gestures on compatible devices.

One way to move among the multiple open apps and the desktop is to use the Switch list. This list can be accessed by positioning the cursor in the upper-left corner of your computer screen and then slowly moving the cursor downward. You can also use the keyboard shortcut, Windows key+Tab. (Hold down the Windows key and press Tab as many times as needed to select the app to use.) After you have access to the list by using your mouse to access it, you can left-click, right-click, drag, and touch the thumbnail windows to perform other tasks.

If you simply click a thumbnail in the Switch list, it opens. You have other options, though. With a mouse, you can right-click to access options to close the app or to insert it to the left side or right side of the screen. When you opt to insert an app, you can show two of them on the screen at one time. You can choose the applicable Replace option to open the selected app and move away from the item currently open. You can also drag items from the list to a specific area of the screen if your display supports a high enough screen resolution.

In this exercise, you’ll open three apps from the Start screen and switch among them by using various techniques involving a keyboard and mouse. You will then close one app and position another to take up a half of the screen.

Remember, you can access the Switch list by using only the mouse. First, position the cursor in the upper-left corner. You’ll see the last app used. You can click that to access it, or you can move the cursor down the left side, slowly, to show the entire Switch list.

If you have the option to use touch gestures, there’s another option. You can just swipe your finger inward from the left side of the screen to move from app to app. You’ll learn more about using touch in Chapter 19.

Before we move on to the final two topics in this chapter, using Control Panel and PC Settings and ending a computing session, let’s take one last look at the desktop and File Explorer. You’ll need to know the information here to manipulate File Explorer on your computer as you work through this book.

The goal of the Windows 8.1 File Explorer environment, available on the desktop, is to make finding, sharing, organizing, and working with documents, music files, pictures, videos, and other data as intuitive as possible. In addition, from File Explorer, you can easily access data stored in your HomeGroup, data on other storage devices connected to or part of your computer, and any data available to you on your network.

You access data in File Explorer by selecting the desired folder or location in the Navigation pane, on the left side of the File Explorer window, and then selecting the desired folders or file(s) in the content area on the right. With a folder or file selected, you can then use the ribbon to manage that data. The ribbon contains tabs and groups to help you perform tasks on the data you select.

Commands are organized on task-specific tabs of the ribbon and in feature-specific groups on each tab. Commands generally take the form of buttons and lists. Some appear in galleries. Some groups have related dialog boxes or task panes that contain additional commands.

Throughout this book, we discuss the commands and ribbon elements associated with the app feature being discussed. In this topic, we discuss the general appearance of the ribbon, things that affect its appearance, and ways of locating commands that aren’t visible on compact views of the ribbon.

Dynamic ribbon elements

The ribbon you’ll see in File Explorer is dynamic, meaning that the appearance of commands on the ribbon changes as the width of the ribbon changes. A command might be displayed on the ribbon in the form of a large button, a small button, a small labeled button, or a list entry. As the width of the ribbon decreases, the size, shape, and presence of buttons on the ribbon adapt to the available space.

For example, when sufficient horizontal space is available, the buttons on the View tab of the File Explorer window are spread out, and you can see all the commands available in each group.

If you decrease the width of the ribbon, small button labels disappear and entire groups of buttons hide under one button that represents the group. Click the group button to display a list of the commands available in that group. Depending on the content of the ribbon you’re working with, you might also see small unlabeled buttons or a scroll arrow.

Troubleshooting

If you don’t see what is shown in any graphic in this book, maximize your File Explorer window and click the tab name if you can’t see anything on the ribbon under it.

If you used Control Panel in an earlier Microsoft operating system, note that it is still part of Windows 8.1. Control Panel (shown in the illustration that follows) is housed in a single window where you can make changes to your computer such as adding users, changing the desktop background, and managing your network, among other things. To navigate this, you click the links, make configuration changes, and use the Back button as desired.

When Windows 8 was released in 2012, another option became available, the PC Settings hub, referred to as PC Settings. In Windows 8.1, it has been redesigned, as demonstrated in the illustration that follows. To navigate this, you click an item in the left pane and then click another entry in the results. From there you can make configuration changes. PC Settings has a back button to help you navigate it.

For the most part, we suggest that you make changes from PC Settings whenever you can. It’s easy to navigate and even easier to make configuration changes. Control Panel is more robust and offers more features, and should be used when you can’t find what you want in PC Settings.

In this exercise, you’ll open PC Settings from the Start screen and change when your computer sleeps.

With a feel for how the PC Settings panes work, you can now explore the categories on the left side. It’s not important right now for you to understand every option; you’ll return to these settings many times as you work through this book. What’s important now is to explore PC Settings and get an idea of what’s available.

Here are a few category options to explore from the main PC Settings screen (the one that has PC Settings on the top). This is not a complete list, but you are encouraged to explore all of them. Click the Back arrow as applicable, when exploring.

If you need access to more configuration options than those available in PC Settings, you can use Control Panel, which is just a different presentation of PC Settings with more options. You can open Control Panel from the Start screen. Just type Control Panel and then select it from the top of the list of results. (You can also right-click the Start button to access Control Panel.)

To use Control Panel, you choose the desired entry, access the areas you want to change, and make changes by selecting from the choices offered. As with PC Settings, you’ll access these options often throughout this book when the required or desired options are necessary for instruction.

When you are ready to end a computing session, you should, at the very least, secure your computer so that others can’t access it. You can do this by locking it. You can access the Lock option from the Start screen by clicking your user name. When you lock your computer you must enter a password when you are ready to use it again. When you do, the computer will be just as you left it. Lock your computer anytime you leave it unattended.

From this same menu you can sign out of your computer. When you sign out, you’ll be prompted to save any open files if applicable and you might be prompted to close open desktop apps. With that done, Windows 8.1 will close your computing session as if you were turning off the computer (but won’t turn it off). When you log on again, you’ll start a new computing session.

Finally, you can completely shut down your computer. You should shut down your computer when you get on an airplane, reposition a desktop computer, or when you know you won’t need your computer for some time. You can access the option to shut down the computer by right-clicking the Start button. You can also access this option by using the Settings charm, from the Power options. And finally, the option to shut down is available from the logon screen; you can shut down your computer without logging on.

In this exercise, you’ll shut down your computer.