Paul Thurrott - Windows 8 Secrets

• Desktop personalization:As its name suggests, this settings group relates to some Windows desktop settings (but not all; see the related Other Windows settings group later in the list). Chief among these is the desktop theme (as configured in the Personalization control panel), which includes the desktop background, the Explorer window color, sounds, and screen saver. But it also includes taskbar customizations (including which edge of the screen to which the taskbar is connected) and desktop-based photo slideshow (triggered from the Explorer shell or Windows Photo Viewer) customizations.

• Passwords:This includes sign-in info for some apps, including Mail (for your e-mail accounts), Calendar, Messaging, and People, websites (through IE), networks, and HomeGroup.

• Ease of Access:As you may expect, this settings group includes all of the Windows accessibility features, including Narrator, Screen Magnifier, high contrast, and so on.

• Language preferences:Here, you’ll find settings such as the display language, additional installed languages and input methods (IMEs), and settings related to the onscreen keyboard. But there’s another important setting that’s synced via this group: The new Windows spelling dictionary, which can work from any Metro-style app.

• App settings:This settings group curiously notes that it will sync “certain settings in your apps.” That’s a bit of a stretch as installed Metro-style apps can actually participate in Microsoft account-based PC-to-PC sync on their own. Instead, this settings group is really related to Windows Store-purchased app information.

• Browser:This settings group encompasses a wide range of Internet Explorer settings, including browser history, Favorites, homepage, Tracking Protection, domain suggestions, and more.

• Other Windows settings:This settings group, strangely separated from Desktop personalization, incudes settings related to two specific desktop features: File Explorer and mouse.

• Sync settings over metered Internet connections:This determines whether your settings are synced over metered Internet connections.

• Sync settings over metered Internet connections when I’m roaming:Like the previous settings, but on a more expensive roaming connection. This is disabled by default.

As noted previously, each Metro-style app you install can optionally use your Microsoft account to sync its own settings from PC to PC, and some apps will provide their own granular control over this and other features. Check the app’s settings—through the Settings charm, or Winkey + I—from within the app itself to see whether this functionality is available.

If you’re familiar with Windows 7 or previous Windows versions, many of the same customization options that were available before are also available in Windows 8. As is the case throughout this book, however, we’ll be focusing only on those aspects of the system that are new or at least notably changed in this release. And believe it or not, there have been some interesting improvements to desktop customization in Windows 8 despite the obvious focus on the new Metro environment in this release.

With Windows 8, Microsoft has removed the translucent glass effects of Windows Aero and replaced it with a more opaque and flat new Explorer desktop theme. But that doesn’t mean you can’t customize the look of the desktop to your heart’s content.

For example, in Windows Vista and 7, you could configure the color of the transparent or “glass” parts of File Explorer windows (and, in Windows 7, the taskbar) to match the underlying desktop background. So if you set up your desktop to cycle through a favorite set of photos from a recent trip to Ireland, for example, you might change the window color to a pleasant green to match.

This capability was nice, and of course you could save background and window color combinations as desktop themes. But it was a bit tedious if you changed backgrounds regularly, or used a dynamic theme like those provided by Bing that changes background pictures on a schedule. So in Windows 8, there’s a new option that will automatically change the File Explorer window and taskbar color to match the desktop background. You will see this option in the Color and Appearance control panel shown in Figure 5-27.

Of course, you have to find it first. You can find Windows Color and Appearance much as you did in Windows 7: Right-click the desktop, choose Personalize, and then click Color in the resulting window. Or, you can get there directly—and more quickly—from Start Search: Simply search for window color and look under Settings.

Figure 5-27:A new automatic window color option will keep your windows and taskbar in sync with the desktop background.

While Windows 7 included a display scaling feature that made it a snap to enlarge the appearance of all desktop items using percentages like 125 percent and 150 percent, Windows 8 goes a step further by providing a new interface for just increasing the text size for specific items. It’s also found in the Display control panel, which can be accessed in a variety of ways, though the easiest is Start Search: Search for display and then select Display from the search results.

In the Change only the text size section of the Display control panel, you can select individual desktop UI elements—Title bars, Menus, Message boxes, Palette titles, Icons, and Tooltips—and provide them with custom sizes, as seen in Figure 5-28.

Figure 5-28:Just make certain items bigger, like window title bars

If you want to run Metro-style apps on your Netbook, there is a fix, as it turns out. But be warned that modifying a Windows 8 install to allow Metro-style apps to run will cause the desktop environment look a bit skewed, or squished. But if your goal is to enjoy Metro, this will do the trick.

Run the Registry Editor, Regedit (Start Search, regedit ), and search for the term display1_downscalingsupported (using Ctrl + F). Find each instance of this entry and change its value from 0 to 1. (Use F3 to repeat the previous search.) Do this until you’ve found them all, close Regedit, and reboot.

You will now have additional resolution options, such as 1024×768 and 1152×864. If you do have multiple resolution choices, try each (that’s above 1024 x 600) to see which looks best. But either way, Metro apps will now work.

While previous versions of Windows offered only basic multi-monitor capabilities, Windows 8 addresses past issues and adds some unique new features that let you customize how you can view the Metro and desktop environments side by side on multiple displays.

First, a general rule: While it’s possible to span your desktop across multiple displays, the Metro environment can only appear on a single screen. So if you have a four-monitor system for some reason—perhaps you’re James Bond or are a little too excited about flight simulator games—you can have this setup configured in one of two basic ways: one screen showing Metro and three showing the desktop, or all four screens showing the desktop.