Paul Thurrott - Windows 8 Secrets

From a compatibility perspective, Windows 8 works just like Windows 7, though you can now use the built-in Application Compatibility tools to emulate Windows 7 if needed. But from our regular usage of Windows 8, it’s pretty obvious that little in the way of compatibility work will be required, and if you have an application that works with Windows 7, it should work fine with Windows 8 as well.

Of course, with the move to a Metro-like user experience, Windows 8 users will need to deal with a few Metro-related nuances when it comes to working with classic desktop applications. And the big two, in our experience, involve file associations and the pinning of applications to the Metro-style Start screen.

Most Windows users are probably familiar with the notion of file associations, where various applications are known to be compatible with different file types and Windows provides an interface by which you can select which of those applications is used by default. Likewise, Windows has long supported an Open With functionality that lets you override the default file association on the fly and use a different application. This latter capability is usually accessed by a right-click context menu such as the one shown in Figure 4-36. Here, we’re overriding the default file association for .jpg picture files and opening them with Windows Photo Viewer instead.

This functionality works as it did in Windows 7. But there is one major difference in this version of the OS: Windows 8 supports both new, Metro-style apps as well as classic Windows applications. So it’s possible that the list of applications you could use to open a file will contain a mix of both Metro and desktop applications. And aside from Open With, which works as an Explorer extension as before, the interfaces you use to configure file associations are now Metro-based.

Figure 4-36:Overriding a file association with Open With

There are two key times you’ll run into these new interfaces. When you install a new application that tries to associate itself with various file types, Windows 8 will display a notification toast, like the one in Figure 4-37, alerting you that there are new file association choices to make.

Figure 4-37:The new file association notification toast

Figure 4-38:The new Metro-style file association interface

If you click the toast, you’ll be presented with a window similar to the one shown in Figure 4-38. (It will, of course, vary according to the file type.) Here, you see a list of Metro-style apps and desktop applications that can open a certain file type. And if you always want to open that file type with a certain application, this is a great time to make sure that happens.

And be sure to click the See All link to expand the window, when available, to see more options.

But what if you’re not quick enough and the toast disappears? Or perhaps you simply want to change the file association at a later time. In these situations, you can redisplay the new, Metro-style file association interface in a surprisingly old-fashioned way. Simply find a document or file type for which you want to change the associated application, right-click it, and choose Open With and then Choose Default Program. Voila!

We discussed how you can pin any application to the Metro-style Start screen earlier in the chapter. What you might not realize, however, is that Windows 8 automatically pins application shortcuts to the Start search for you. This happens when you install any classic desktop application, and depending on the application, it can get ugly.

Some applications are simple, standalone affairs, and thus won’t pollute your Start screen with dozens of new icons. Install the desktop version of Google Chrome for example, and you’ll find that a single new tile is added to the end of the Start screen as shown in Figure 4-39.

Figure 4-39:When you install a desktop application, one or more tiles are added to the Start screen.

When you install more complex applications like Microsoft Office or Visual Studio, you could be in for a surprise: Some will populate the Start screen with multiple tiles, many for applications you’ll never (or perhaps rarely) need.

First, the bad news. You can’t stop this from happening. And the reason is simple: Because the Start screen replaces the Start menu, it emulates the Start menu, and this is the same behavior from Windows 7 and previous Windows versions, just a bit more in your face.

We discuss the many ways in which you can personalize the Start screen (and other aspects of Windows 8) in Chapter 5, but it’s wise to check this screen after each Windows application install to see which tiles were added. And then you can delete the ones you don’t want and, if desired, reorganize those you do.

Remember that deleting tiles from the Start screen won’t remove those applications. You can see this by opening the All Apps view by tapping Winkey (or Start) and then choosing All Apps from the Start screen app bar, which appears at the bottom of the screen. In this All Apps view, all of the installed applications are available and are even segregated in groups.

To display the toolbar-like control called the app bar at the bottom of the screen, right-click with the mouse, swipe up from the bottom of the screen with touch, or press Winkey + Z.

Even when Windows was just a simple graphical front end to MS-DOS, it supported means by which users could switch between various running applications, bringing one to the visual forefront and making it the current application. These task management capabilities have long worked with both keyboard and mouse, and even with touch, and include such well-understood tools as Windows Flip, the familiar Alt + Tab keyboard shortcut.

These capabilities largely come forward in Windows 8, which for the most part provides a superset of the multitasking and task-switching capabilities in Windows 7. But because Windows 8 includes the new Metro-style environment and full-screen Metro-style apps, there are a few differences.

What’s missing from Windows Flip? The Start screen. If you wish to go there, use the new Start experience, the Windows key on your keyboard, or the Windows key button on your device.

First, it’s now possible to task switch between Metro-style experiences (like the Start screen) and apps and the desktop. To do so, you can use Windows Flip as before, tapping Alt + Tab repeatedly until you find the application or app you want. In Windows 8, Windows Flip provides access to individual desktop applications, individual Metro-style apps, and the desktop, as shown in Figure 4-40.

Switcher treats the desktop environment as a single app, and doesn’t differentiate between individual desktop applications.

You can also use the new Switcher user experience, which was discussed earlier in this chapter. Switcher is mouse- and touch-friendly, and provides a new way to switch between running tasks.