How To Operate Windows 8 – Part 1

Windows 8 has been an interesting and exciting innovation for some time now. It has brought many newly introduced features like its new touch oriented metro screen (start screen), fresh apps and new interface rules which seem a little puzzling to even experienced pc operators.

[Recommended Reading : What’s New In Windows 8?]

[Recommended Reading : How To Operate Windows 8 – Part 2]

In this post, we will discuss the following topics:

• How To Use Lock Screen In Windows 8
• How To Use Start Screen In Windows 8
• How To Use Charm In Windows 8
• How To Shutdown Windows 8

But to help you understand the basic features and utilities of windows 8, we have brought you a guide that is a series of posts on “How To Operate Windows 8”.

Let’s look at the basic features one by one:

How To Use Lock Screen In Windows 8

Windows 8 has a very forthright lock screen that opens up at the very beginning. The screen seems pretty but for a user using it for the first time, the idea might get hazy, but still the usage is simple. This is just a screen which uses a regular image to hide the regular login screen. So, you just have to tab the space bar, use the mouse wheel to move upwards on touchscreen to reveal the login screen where you can enter the password you created at the time of installation.

How To Use Start Screen In Windows 8

Windows 8 has a very colorful and eye pleasing start screen which is basically a metro screen, which consists of metro tiles that are nothing but apps in the system. This new interface is designed for touch friendly apps. Just tap on any app you wish to use and it will open for you, also the apps’ status is dynamic, it changes and updates itself from time to time. For the users having tabs, it becomes a lot easier as they just have to swipe either left or right to move the screen.

The regular desktop can be scrolled easily by just using the mouse wheel. Suppose, I tab on “photos” on metro screen, then the app will open as shown below.

You can anytime return to the start screen by pressing windows button from any app.

The start screen is also very user friendly because it lets you organize your apps the way you want. You can drag and drop your apps anywhere you want and just organize your stuff.

How To Use Charm In Windows 8

Windows 8 gives a new feature called “Charm” which gives access to control panel, search, settings, start options. Just take the mouse cursor to the bottom at the right hand side of the screen, and the Charm menu will pop up.  The Charm menu is shown below:

In the Charm menu, you can select the option “Search” from where you will be able to search everything you want. The search feature in windows 8 is a really powerful one because it gives access to all the apps installed in the system at once. The search option is shown below in the red mark:

You can use the Desktop option which gives access to control panel, personalization, pc info and help.

In control panel, you will find the same conventional interface as in windows 7.

After you click on “Personalization”, the personalization settings screen pops up where you can manage the lock picture, account picture etc.

Moreover, you will notice many other options such as your network connection, volume control, brightness/contrast, notifications, language settings and power option which lets you restart and shut down the system.

How To Shutdown Windows 8

When you go to the charm menu by using your mouse at the right bottom end of your screen, you will see “Settings” options which you have to use for shutting down or restarting your windows 8.

Click on “settings” and you will see two options as:

You can select “Shutdown” if you want to shut down the system or use “Restart” in case you wish to restart the windows.

More features and apps will be brought into the limelight in the next posts of the series.