8.1, desktop and making life easier

[HeyCori]

I made a few changes to my hot corners and taskbar location that, IMO, makes it a lot easier to switch between modern and desktop apps. I started by removing the upper left and upper right hot corners. This helps a lot when using an app in a maximized window (for example, a web browser). Now the hot corners won't get in the way. To change hot corners,

Right click on the taskbar > Properties Navigation tap > under Corer navigation uncheck all the boxes in that section.

Added in 8.1 is the option to have modern apps appear on the taskbar. To access that, use the steps above, on the taskbar tab, make sure Show Windows Store apps on the taskbar is checked. You can also pin store apps on the taskbar and have the taskbar appear in modern apps by moving your mouse to the bottom of the screen.

However, what I found was that having the taskbar at the bottom was inefficient for pulling it up inside of modern apps. When you move the cursor to the bottom of the screen, you have to go just a little bit further down to bring up the taskbar. If you're like me, you move your cursor down by moving your mouse inwards towards your palm. That sometimes makes it awkward to move the cursor to the bottom and then try to move it a little bit more if I didn't get it right the first time.

To alleviate this, I moved my taskbar to the left side. You can also make that change under the taskbar tab and changing Taskbar location on screen to the left. Moving left never feels awkward, even if I didn't get it right the first time, I can easily move just more to pull up the taskbar.

Finally, I populated my taskbar with my most used modern and desktop apps. Though I'm sure most of you do that anyway. It takes some getting used to having the taskbar on the left side but I've used a similar setup before. These changes can also be applied to Windows RT. Hopefully this is helpful.

 

[anon(7900571)]

Windows 8.1 update 1 made my windows 8 PC experience to a new level. I am loving modern apps on my taskbar. I can easily kill them by clicking on X. Furthermore it reduces the windows 8 size on my Acer iconia w4.

 

[hopmedic]

Nifty tip, Cori. Myself, I've had the taskbar on the left side of my screen ever since the first time I started using multiple monitors. Back in XP, IIRC, if I had the taskbar at the bottom, it went across all the screens, and I didn't want that, so I put it on the left side, and have used it there ever since, simply for that reason. I'm one of those holdouts that still uses the quick launch bar, too. So my quick launch toolbar is at the top, and the taskbar is wide enough for the quick launch to be three wide using small icons.

I hadn't thought to bother looking to see if there was a way to turn off those hot corners, but I will certainly do this on my Win8 computers (I'm at work, with Win7 right now).

 

[herbertsnow]

I spent an hour after installing 8.1 update removing all the changes that it made. This is the first update from MS that I regret installing. Now I just need to find a way to remove the useless title bar the MS defaced Modern apps with. I never use the desktop, and I shouldn't be forced to use it.