In-Depth with the Windows 8 Consumer Preview

Working with a mouse

To navigate all of this with a mouse, Microsoft has introduced something it’s calling the “four corners”—each corner of your screen becomes a hot corner with a different function. Clicking repeatedly in the top-left corner will switch between all of your running Metro apps and the desktop (if it’s running), clicking in the lower-left corner will invoke the Start screen, and moving your mouse pointer along the left edge of the screen from either corner opens up the app drawer that shows all of your running apps.

Hovering in either corner on the right of the screen will bring up the Charms menu, which we discussed before, and clicking at the top of the screen and dragging to one or the other edge of the screen (while in a Metro app or sitting at the desktop, but not while running a desktop app) will invoke Metro Snap.

If this all sounds a bit confusing in concept, that’s because it kind of is—there’s no obvious indication that the four corners of the screen do anything in particular, and the “hot” areas of the screen can be easy both to miss or to activate by accident—I found the Back button in a maximized browser window to be tough to hit without invoking the app drawer. There are also some slightly misleading visual cues—for example, when invoking the Start screen from the lower-left corner, one’s impulse is to move the mouse pointer from the corner to click the thumbnail of the Start screen that appears. However, in practice, this will make the thumbnail disappear.

The four corners are especially annoying to deal with on a multi-monitor setup—since the corners are only present on your primary monitor, you’ll frequently find yourself overshooting corners on the edge of the display that is shared with other monitors. You can get accustomed to all of this with some practice, but it’s not particularly efficient, and stuff like this is usually what people are thinking of when they complain about how bad Metro will be for the desktop. It works, but it lacks precision.

Working with a Keyboard

Where Metro actually shines pretty brightly on the desktop is with a keyboard, though there’s one major caveat: if you want to make the most of Metro, you’re going to have to learn your keyboard shortcuts. It has always been true that people who know and make frequent use of keyboard shortcuts in desktop operating systems can do things much more quickly than with a mouse, but in Windows 8 knowing the keyboard shortcuts can be the difference between hating Metro and making peace with it.

In Windows 8, the Start key becomes your PCs “home” button—it will always call up the Start screen whether you’re using a Metro app or the regular desktop. Pressing it again will toggle back to the app you were using. The Windows key will be getting even more of a workout after you learn all of these convenient keystrokes.

Charms:

• Windows + C: See the top level of the Charms menu.
• Windows + Q: Brings up Search. This can also be invoked by typing while on the Start screen.
• Windows + H: The Share charm.
• Windows + K: The Devices charm.
• Windows + I: The Settings charm.

Search:

• Windows + Q: Brings up Search, defaults to searching Apps.
• Windows + W: Brings up Search, defaults to searching Settings.
• Windows + F: Brings up Search, defaults to searching Files.

Others:

• Windows + D: Starts or switches to the Desktop.
• Windows + L: Locks screen without signing you out.
• Windows + Print Screen: Takes a screenshot of the screen's contents and saves it to the Pictures library in .PNG format.
• Windows + Tab: Brings up the application drawer. This keystroke used to bring up Vista and 7’s Flip 3D, a fancy and less-useful Alt+Tab, which mercifully seems to have been killed in Windows 8.
• Alt + Tab: Still switches between all open apps. Unlike Windows + Tab, Alt + Tab shows both individual Metro apps and individual Desktop apps.
• Windows + Z: Brings up menus for Metro apps. In Internet Explorer, for example, this invokes the address bar and the tabbed browsing mechanism.
• Windows + (period key): Invokes Metro Snap—by default, it snaps the currently running app to the right edge of the screen. Pressing it again will move the app to the left edge of the screen, and pressing it a third time will expand the app to take up the whole screen.
• Windows + (plus/minus key): Invokes Magnifier, zooms in/out.
• CTRL + (plus/minus key): Zoom in/out
• CTRL + ALT + DEL: Brings up menu to lock the screen, switch users, sign out, open the Task Manager, or power off the computer.
• Alt + F4: Closes Metro apps.

Metro conclusions

For most, the number one fear with Windows 8 and with Metro is that Microsoft is sacrificing current desktop and laptop users of Windows in an effort to chase the tablet market. Some may disagree with me, but I don’t think this is true. The Start menu is gone, but consider this: the best thing that Microsoft did to the Start menu came in Vista, when the new integrated search made it so that you didn’t actually have to go digging through folders and sub-folders. Not only is that search functionality alive and well in Windows 8, but the problem of folders and subfolders that it was created to avoid is also gone.

Yes, Metro is very different from what came before, and yes, Metro was clearly designed with touch in mind, but once you learn its tricks (and especially once you’ve got the new keyboard shortcuts dedicated to memory) it acquits itself as a flexible and powerful user interface. Even if you’re on a massive 2560x1440 display with multiple monitors and never, ever touch the Windows Store or a Metro app, the Start screen serves as a much more configurable and useful application launcher than the tiny Start menu ever was.

I don’t want to say that the Start screen is definitively better for PC users, especially those who rely on Windows 8's sometimes flaky mouse motions, but I strongly disagree with anyone who says that it’s worse. Microsoft has greatly improved Windows’ functionality on tablets (and if you’ve never used Windows 7 or something older on a currently available tablet PC, let me tell you: it isn’t pretty) while not greatly impacting the operating system’s usability on desktops and laptops. Metro's biggest problem right now is going to be what users bring with them: years of accumulated experience about how Windows should look and work. Windows is still Windows, but all of these changes add up to a new interface that is just different enough to spook users who rely on remembered actions to get around their computers, rather than an actual understanding of how and why things work.

Metro’s other problem (which will be a bigger problem on tablets than it is on desktops) is that too many of the more advanced configuration options kick you to the desktop—things like adding certain networked printers or VPN connections, setting fixed IP addresses, changing power settings and more all open up desktop control panels rather than integrating the functionality into Metro itself. This is OK on a PC, where many users will be spending a lot of time on the desktop anyway, but if this continues to be true of the RTM version (and if it’s also true of Windows on ARM), it could definitely be a problem. To be competitive with Android and iOS, Metro needs to be able to do at least most of the things that they can do without sending you to the Windows desktop. Not all of the desktop control panels need to be crammed into Metro, but advanced users are going to find themselves on the desktop a bit more than should be necessary in a touch-friendly OS.

Now, about the desktop...