Windows 8.1: configuring Start and desktop behavior

For non-touchscreen users, this is where you want to go first on a Windows 8.1 device. I wanted to put this info out there for anyone who might find it useful. Right-click on the taskbar, click "properties," go to the "navigation" tab, and these are the options you have to toggle on and off:

Here are my recommendations for people not using a touchscreen and not interested in metro apps (X equals checked, O equals unchecked, ? means exactly what you think):

Just wanted to bring these settings to people's attention in case they didn't know about them or where to find them. It ensures a charms-free, live-tile-free experience if that isn't your cup of tea. Instead, you boot to the desktop and these are what you see when you click on the start button or hit a start key (there are several different sorting options):

Spoiler

EDIT: and don't forget the menu you get when right-clicking the start button! Left-click the start button to launch programs; right-click the start button for everything from task manager to run to shutdown...

Spoiler

 

Thanks bro, it helps a lot! I'm enjoying my Win 8.1 better and better and now also looks excellent! Now I just would like to remove the unnecessary start button from the taskbar. Any suggestion on that?

 

There's no way to remove the start button with just settings; you'd need to use third-party software.

 

Does 8.1 require a windows live login now? I wasn't using one before, but now it won't let me access my outlook account from the mail app, without signing into it from the metro thing. I hope this isn't the case, I hate this spiderweb social-network bs, get enough of that from google.

 

When installing the update, at some point it will prompt you for upgrading your local account to a MS account. Just click "i am not [username]".

 

You can just set up a "[email protected]" address that you don't use for anything else; it can simply be an account that they use to keep track of what apps, if any, you download from the Windows app store (remember that the 8.1 upgrade is from that store, and if they release 8.2 down the line, it might be from there as well).

EDIT: the right-click start-menu options:

Spoiler

Also, even if you initially link your computer to a Microsoft account, you can always unlink your account or link it to a different account later. Go to charms-->settings-->change PC settings-->accounts-->disconnect.

 

When setting up Windows 8.1, when it asks you for a MS account, click on use an existing account and then on use my current account (or something similar, I don't remember the exact wording) and you'll have bypassed the whole you need a MS account thing and still be on a local account. Sort of convoluted, but it works.

 

This useful-but-hard-to-find settings menu just made the New York frickin' Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/01/t...ing-windows-8-1-in-desktop-mode.html?src=recg

 

on that: i really don't like how they combined this setting with what happens when you close all apps. more often than not, i prefer to boot straight into the desktop (unless i'm plugged in to an external display). however, when i'm in the start screen or using a metro/modern/whatever app and i close said app, i prefer to be returned to the start screen--usually to access another non-desktop app. these are two seemingly unrelated settings so why on earth would they be combined?

Sent from my Windows 8 device using Board Express Pro

 

thanks a lot you guys!! thanks to this, windows 8.1 is starting to grow on me.

 

I just got a new Dell with 8.1 but every time I close a modern app which does not use the desktop, I would like it to return to the start and NOT the desktop. The item in the properties is not checked. This behavior is different than the other 8.1 laptops / tablets I have. Am I missing something?