Windows 8.1 may make it easier to customize Start scren

I honestly don't care about all this customization thing. just give me the ability to snap the apps at any size ratio. Like 50/50. Everything else is just a filler.
 

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Thanks for the tidbits Brink.
Personally, I don't think it matters anymore. Classic Shell already answered my complaints. I just can leave my start screen empty. But I am sure, this new build is aiming to get more sales and to help the technically challenged users.

Cheers!
 

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Now, I was iffy about this, but since Decor8 I have to say, there has to be a custom Start Screen background image capability in the OS. The reason why I was iffy about this is because certain Start Screens with a lot of things pinned to it will have a parallax scroll to it. Every image other than panoramic and wide screen images won't work with that decently for the UX. Seeing as there are now baby tiles in 8.1, that can LITERALLY shrink down a lengthy Start Screen to half at least. Less parallax scrolling. But the image should be sized up some to provide some parallax scroll. Also, on the Xbox Dashboard, the UI design is obviously similar to Windows 8. Key difference? Custom background images.
 

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Hi there
I think the main beef is that if you don't have or want to use a touch screen then the Start screen as is currently set out is a bit of a "Dogs Dinner" -- forget all the Metro stuff for a moment -- for Classic Windows applications --Aka Office, Photoshop / CAD / Visual studio etc etc then a tile seems to be generated for every wretched .EXE file whether it's actually a runnable application or not.

For example just for NERO there are 16 (YES SIXTEEN) of these wretched tiles -- now imagine loads of other applications --you could easily have numbers approaching 100 (yes A HUNDRED).

Anybody with even HALF a pea sized brain could tell you that operating a computer this way - even with touch is just a total load of pure Bovine Scatology. You can with a bit of work tidy this up, and group the applications together -- assuming in this dogs dinner of a mess you even KNOW which ones you generally want to use but it DOES take quite a bit of organising and your typical home user isn't going to bother.

I've done the usual get arounds by custom toolbars, task bar and desktop short cuts but I can assure you it certainly was more than 5 mins work --and I've used every Windows OS since 3.0, some linuxes and even IBM mainframe OS'es in my time so hopefully I do have experience with loads of different GUI's.

The start button and menu is probably an irrelevance IF the start screen could be sensibly sorted out for desktop users -- 100's of those silly tiles isn't going to cut it in any way shape or form.

On the whole I LIKE w8 but the current Start screen --Forget it.

Here's what I mean about Nero tiles after a bog standard DEFAULT install.
You can see what a mess this is just even for this ONE application. Nero tiles are striped through in red.

OK you can say why do I need NERO --probably don't any more or very rarely but that's not the point --I'm trying to show how some perfectly common and standard applications appear when installed on W8 with purely the default choices.

Cheers
jimbo
 

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  • nero.png
    nero.png
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On the whole I LIKE w8 but the current Start screen --Forget it.

I know this is not your favorite topic, but I will forge ahead anyway. You might not believe this but that version of Nero has an incompatible installer. If you install the latest version, nero 12, it only puts 1 tile on the start screen. Launching the tile takes one to a tile screen on the desktop. The apps area is separately organized.

It is not the problem of the start screen, it is how one uses it. Would you plaster your desktop with 100 icons?

nero 12 on start screen
neros.jpg

nero 12 on the desktop
neros2.jpg

nero 12 in all apps
nero4.jpg


What is this? A desktop layout.
thedesktop.jpg


I'm trying to show how some perfectly common and standard applications appear when installed on Windows 8 with purely the default choices.

unpin them - it is not the start screens fault - it is the installer
 

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100's of those silly tiles isn't going to cut it in any way shape or form.

From your screenshot, (with the red lines) > 99 per cent of those tiles could be unpinned.
 

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So according to this logic, Office 2013 also has an old installer? Because it sure threw up a whole bunch of icons on my start screen. Every executable that comes along with offices 2013 is there. And of course they are mixed in with icons from other applications as well. I have steam icons next to SQL stuff which is next to Office,... Yeah, I could fix them and group them all together in nice little groups but my OCD only can take so much organization before I will give up and avoid the whole mess! Just like the vast majority of windows 8 users out there and one more reason that the start page is a complete joke
 

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Hi Guys
I don't think you understood or read my post properly.

OF COURSE you could unpin then / re-arrange them but I'm talking about a NORMAL user who just installs something (like they did on say W7) and then use them. On these forums we are reasonably (or at least I hope we are) good at finding our way around windows and getting some sort of sensible order into this mess.

A typical user installing Nero and looking at that start screen would have to say "What on Earth do I do with THIS mess).

With the sort of dogs dinner that comes up the poor user has to know WHAT to unpin and what are the essential apps -- it might be ANYWHERE on the start screen - the apps might be in "Alphabetical order" so another app could be in the middle of that bunch of tiles.

Also your Nero 12 example still has 10 (TEN) tiles so even this IMO if you have a few apps with this number of tiles on it you could still get to the 100 mark very quickly.

It's not the USERS responsibility either if the installer works like that.

As I said before WE can sort it out OK but the typical "Mom and Pop" home user --good luck if you can sort it all out for them.

Cheers
jimbo
 

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So according to this logic, Office 2013 also has an old installer? Because it sure threw up a whole bunch of icons on my start screen. Every executable that comes along with offices 2013 is there. And of course they are mixed in with icons from other applications as well. I have steam icons next to SQL stuff which is next to Office,... Yeah, I could fix them and group them all together in nice little groups but my OCD only can take so much organization before I will give up and avoid the whole mess! Just like the vast majority of windows 8 users out there and one more reason that the start page is a complete joke

unpin them
 

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Also your Nero 12 example still has 10 (TEN) tiles so even this IMO if you have a few apps with this number of tiles on it you could still get to the 100 mark very quickly.

10 tiles?

neros.jpg
 

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So users should run out and by Nero 12 just to have it install one tile? when they may have a working copy of 10? Or spend 5 minutes trying to unpin and orginize?
 

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So users should run out and by Nero 12 just to have it install one tile? when they may have a working copy of 10? Or spend 5 minutes trying to unpin and organize?

No. One can unpin 50 tiles in 30 seconds. 5 minutes? "trying to unpin" ?
The organization is in all apps.
 

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So according to this logic, Office 2013 also has an old installer?

Not old. Just not perfected. Some installers are better than others.
 

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Office 2013 still throws a ton of icons to stuff that 99% of users will never touch. That problem was solved with the tree structure system that Microsoft threw away. And you think that is perfected?
 

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Office 2013 still throws a ton of icons to stuff that 99% of users will never touch. That problem was solved with the tree structure system that Microsoft threw away. And you think that is perfected?

No. I said NOT perfected. Like I said, unpin them.

Microsoft did not throw the tree structure away. It is still there with your free classic shell.
 

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so all software companies need to rewrite installers to make up for the fact that W8 doesn't know what to do with the .exe's? If you install the same Nero on W7 it puts the main launcher icon on the desktop (if the checkbox is left) and it creates a folder in the start menu for everything involved. So which is flawed? the installer or the OS?
 

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so all software companies need to rewrite installers to make up for the fact that W8 doesn't know what to do with the .exe's? If you install the same Nero on W7 it puts the main launcher icon on the desktop (if the checkbox is left) and it creates a folder in the start menu for everything involved. So which is flawed? the installer or the OS?

Yes. That's correct. They do, to be compatible with the WinRT shell.
 

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Why couldn't the shell be written to understand the installer? Why do the software makers have to revolve around what MS is telling them to do?


(just playing devils advocate here :) )
 

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It's different code. They don't have to do anything. If they want to play, there are rules.

wm.jpg
 

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