In Windows 7, Vista and XP, when you open the Start menu, you initially see a collection of the programs you use most. If you want to use a program that doesn’t appear in this short list, you click on (or hover the mouse over) All Programs and you see all the programs installed on your PC, neatly organised into folders. In Windows 8, however, there’s no Start menu, so there’s no ‘All Programs’ item. So how do you find a list of all your programs?
The equivalent of the Start menu in Windows 8 is the ‘Start screen’ which contains lots of rectangular blocks called ?tiles’. There’s one tile per program, but you won’t find all your programs here. In particular, quite a few of the useful Windows accessories are missing – you won’t see Calculator, WordPad, Notepad, Paint, Character Map, and so on. (See Post 51 on our Blog via the link below).
Fortunately, there is an equivalent to the ‘All Programs’ list of old, and this is where you’ll find those Windows accessories along with all your other programs:
When you’re looking at the Start screen, right-click on any blank space. A bar will appear along the bottom of the screen: when it does, click the All apps button in the bottom-right corner. The layout of the Start screen will change, and now you’ll see all your programs organised into groups with headings. Those headings correspond to the folders you used to see on the Start menu, making it much easier to track down the program you want to use.
Extra Tip If you download and install a very nice, simple to install, free application called “Classic Shell” (Google it) you will be able to set up Windows 8 with the familiar Start Button and menu system. Try it to save a lot of frustration. I use it all the time so have the added features of 8 plus the comfort and familiarity of 7.
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