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HOW TO CUSTOMISE THE NEW START SCREEN IN WINDOWS 8.1

The Windows 8 Start screen is largely a
love-it-or-hate affair. But even those who
aren't too keen on the screen may welcome the new ways you can
customize it in the Windows 8.1 Preview.
Right off the bat, Windows 8.1 offers a
dedicated Customize button for the Start
screen where you can tweak a variety of
settings. Right-click anywhere on the
Start screen to display the app bar and
click on the Customize button. You can also right-click on any tile to open the Customize view.
The screen dims slightly. You can now
drag and drop any tile to another spot on the screen. Moving a tile by dragging and dropping is nothing new. But in this
Customize view, you can't accidentally
open an app by clicking on or tapping its tile.
You can select multiple tiles by clicking on them, and then drag and drop all of your selected tiles en masse to another spot.
There's an array of other options that
can be run on multiple tiles.
You can unpin them from the Start
screen, uninstall them, resize them, turn off any live tiles, or just clear the selection. You also have more tiles sizes from which to choose. Certain tiles offer a choice of small, medium, wide, and large. You can enlarge the tiles for your favorite apps and shrink the ones for apps you rarely use.
If you organize your tiles into distinct
groups, you can more easily name them.
In the Customize view, simply click on the text box for Name Group and enter a
name.
To get out of Customize view, just click or tap on the Customize button on the app bar.
What other tricks will you find in the new
Start screen? Less clutter for one.
In Windows 8, any app you install automatically takes up residence on the
Start screen, easily turning it into a crowded and disorganized mess. In
Windows 8.1, apps don't make their way
to the Start screen unless you pin them
there.
After you install a new app, click on the
down arrow in the lower left corner of
the Start screen. That takes you to the
App screen where you'll see any recently-installed apps highlighted with the word New. Right-click on the tile or tiles of any apps that you wish to appear on the
Start screen and click on the Pin to Start
button. Windows 8.1 then transports you
back to the Start screen to reveal the new tile.
Finally, more choices are available for you
to change the color and background of
the Start screen.
Hover your mouse over the small dash
icon in the lower right corner of the
screen to display the Charms bar. From
there, click or tap on the Settings charm
and then select the Personalize option.
You can pick background and accent colors from the on-screen palette or
choose a specific background image.
Best of all, you can pick the same
background image used by your desktop. That option makes the visual trip between the Start screen and
desktop less jarring.
The Start screen may still seem like an
unnecessary annoyance to many
Windows users, especially those working with a non-touch PC. Windows 8 does offer a boot to desktop mode where you can bypass the screen entirely. But the latest tweaks in Windows 8.1 do make
the Start screen a bit friendlier and
decidedly easier to manage.