**Basic Customization and Use of Windows 8.1**

Windows 8.1 offers various ways to customize your desktop experience, including personalizing your start menu and desktop wallpaper. To access these customization options, go to the "Settings" app on your computer and navigate to the "Personalize" section. From here, you can choose from a variety of backgrounds and colors to personalize your start menu. Additionally, you can enable or disable the use of live tiles, which display information such as weather updates, news headlines, and social media feeds. To access these settings, hover your mouse along the right-hand side of the screen until the "Charm Bar" appears.

**Recreating the Classic Start Menu**

For those who miss the classic start menu from Windows 7, there are several alternatives available that can recreate its look and feel. One popular option is called Pokey, which is a custom launcher that mimics the classic start menu design. Another option is Classic Shell, which allows you to customize your start menu with various themes and layouts. Both of these programs are compatible with Windows 8 and can be installed using the Microsoft Store or by downloading them from third-party websites.

**System Tray Icons and Notifications**

One of the notable features of Windows 8.1 is its integration of system tray icons, which allow you to access frequently used applications and settings quickly. For example, wireless network connections, audio playback, battery life, Bluetooth devices, and more are all available in the system tray on your start bar. Additionally, Windows 8.1 provides notifications for various programs, such as Skype, Facebook, email, and Twitter, which can be accessed from the top-right corner of the screen.

**Internet Explorer and Google Chrome**

When it comes to web browsers, Internet Explorer is particularly interesting in Windows 8.1. When launched from the Metro mobile launch screen, Internet Explorer opens in full-screen mode on your tablet or computer. However, if you're using a desktop and launch Internet Explorer from within that environment, it will open in desktop mode. Unfortunately, Google Chrome is only available for Windows 8 users who have upgraded to the full version of the operating system (not Windows RT). When launched, Chrome can be set to either display in full-screen mode or desktop mode, but switching between these modes is not possible without restarting the browser.

**Program Integration and Notifications**

One of the standout features of Windows 8.1 is its integration with various programs, such as Skype, Facebook, email, Twitter, and more. When you receive notifications from these programs, they appear in your top-right corner, providing a convenient way to stay up-to-date on important events without leaving your desktop. This level of program integration is similar to how other operating systems, like OS X, handle notifications. By allowing users to access multiple programs and services with ease, Windows 8.1 has set a new standard for the modern operating system.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello everyone my name is eposvox sorry for the loud intro there and welcome to a quick video on windows 8.1 i i work at a tech office superstore basically and so i deal with a lot of customers who don't fully understand windows 8 or windows 8.1 and so i'm going to be showing you some of the just kind of basics to get your desktop or your computer back to how you had it if you previously had windows 8 or things set up in windows 7 and you want things to look more like how you originally had it just some basic customization and options you can do in windows 8. i am using my windows surface rt to do this video in case you were wondering so that will be what my basis is for this but it applies to touch it applies to the mouse and keyboard i have a mouse and the keyboard or type cover on the device so it's basically the same all right so biggest question and frankly i had the question for like five seconds myself when upgrading to windows 8.1 is about where is my desktop even though windows 8.1 does actually give you the option to boot to your desktop on some tablets or other devices your desktop may not initially be visible you see i have the desktop tile here but when i updated windows 8.1 it actually got rid of it i originally had it down here where my calendar tile is currently that's where i had it mounted but since they've redone essentially how all of the tiles work it's a little bit different now so if you need to find it click this blue arrow down here or white arrow down here or simply press down or swipe down and you'll get to all of your apps and you can just type desktop if you need to find it or it should be there but for the sake of this video i'll have it alone you see desktop right here you can of course just click it to launch it or you can right click it and pin it here i'll unpin it you can right click it and pin it to the start menu that way it creates a tile on your desktop for you to use now i will drag it back over here where i had it now to rearrange your tiles or resize them using your mouse you simply just click on it and drag while you're holding the click down if you're using the tablet you touch it and start to drag or you touch it hold it a little bit you gotta like yeah cut you hold down your finger on the tile and then you can move it around wherever you want you you now have the ability to name your groups and so if you want to group your tiles by what kind of programs they are and stuff you can simply in the name your group option here you can just name it so this is going to be my home menu this is going to be utilities and this is going to be games enter and then when we click out of the menu the the titles are now neatly available above the tiles now if you want a clock on your start menu unfortunately you still have to install an app i used this one i believe it's just called clock hang on yeah it's just called clock by jujube software available for free in the windows store so let me pull that up here via the windows stool tower tower tile i meant to say tile and i mean there may be one that you prefer other than the one i have chosen of course but i simply just searched for clock and basically it's just an app that keeps a running clock going based on your system clock and you see the one i have is the first available option and then it creates a live tile that displays the clock and that's actually a really neat feature about the live tiles is you can have apps that do just about anything with the live tiles they can keep you up to date on your twitter on your facebook recipes your twitter notifications skype notifications you can create something to keep pretty much anything in a live tile which i find very very now impressive next thing is of course resizing tiles now to resize the tile you can right click it and go to resize or if you're on the touch hold down on the tile and the menu will pull up go to resize and then you have large which is two rows of height or you have wide which is just the default wide tile here you have medium which is the square single tile and then you have small which is a one-fourth tile so it takes eight tiles to go across here and you can see i am using that for my office apps right here and then just some like accessories like the camera app and my games and things like that goes there and so from 8.1 from windows 8 to 8.1 large and small are actually new so they're new tile options for windows 8.1 now if you want to change your start menu you can right click and go to customize and that's also how you get to your names and your tile reorganization things like that if you want to change like the background and the colors swipe in from the right hand side or if you're using a mouse just hover your mouse along the right hand side and the charms will come up and actually some mice are now coming with charms buttons to give you that option on a button and you can go to personalize under settings you got different backgrounds to choose from different colors to choose from you have a lot of options available to you to customize your start menu and i like to just kind of change mine up every now and then just to make it different because i don't like having the same old thing every time i get on the computer and that's why my regular desktop wallpaper actually alternates every five minutes or something but yeah basic customization and again if you're wanting just your desktop your desktop is right there in the app you go to it windows 8.1 adds you the start menu button back there it doesn't pull up the classic style start menu it does take you back here but you can instantly go back and if you want the old style start menu there are tons of good free ones such as classic shell and the other one that i used in some of my videos that people were asking about before i updated to windows 8.1 which was called pokey and they're basically custom launchers but that you know recreate the old-school start menu kind of feel and this one looks very very similar to the windows 8 and windows vista start menu one thing to note is that these are not windows rt compatible these are only compatible with the full version of windows 8. so if you have a tablet it has to have the full version of windows 8 like the windows surface pro or just a desktop or laptop that comes with windows 8. if you have one of those it will work fine once you're on your desktop all of your system tray icons and you know wireless network connection audio battery life bluetooth etc all of that is still readily available in the system tray on your start bar all that looks very similar to the windows 7. and that's about it for your basic customization and use of windows 8.1 programs like office word and all the office suite adobe software that will all already launch on the desktop mode as they are desktop programs of course again you have to have the right version of windows 8 make sure you have that and they will just launch in desktop mode and you can use them on the desktop internet explorer is pretty interesting and unique in that if you launch it from the metro mobile you know tablet launch screen it'll launch in windows 8 mode in full screen here however if you're on the desktop and you know you primarily use the desktop and you're working on the desktop and you open up an internet explorer window it will actually open in desktop mode which is pretty cool unfortunately the google chrome that's available for windows 8 which is also only available for full windows 8 not windows rt yet but the version of chrome that is available for windows 8 you have to lock it to either being in desktop mode or being in full screen mode if it by default it's set to how internet explorer launches here in the full screen tablet mode but you can tell it to go to desktop mode but you cannot you know the different shortcuts do not switch between it you have to tell chrome to be one or the other so that's kind of cool that internet explorer is a bit more dynamic in that way one thing to appreciate about windows 8.1 or you know and windows 8 in general is your programs that provide lifestyles like skype facebook your email your calendar twitter weather alerts if you need them alarms if you set them they will all provide you with notifications in your top right hand corner here so for like twitter anytime i get a tweet i get a nice operating system integrated just brief notification in my top right hand corner letting me know i got a twitter reply or i got a skype message or i get an email it's non-invasive it's very similar to how os x and other operating systems and programs handle notifications and that some people have tried implementing on windows with a program like growl before and it's just nice to see that it's all very integrated into the os let's see if it will give me one if i tweet myself here test test tweet tweet okay it does not can't really expect it to let me tweet myself but you know it happens so that's my rundown of the basics that you need to know how to do in windows 8 and especially windows 8.1 hope you enjoyed the video guys if you like it like it if you disliked it hit the dislike button leave me a comment telling me why and be sure to subscribe i will see you all next time byehello everyone my name is eposvox sorry for the loud intro there and welcome to a quick video on windows 8.1 i i work at a tech office superstore basically and so i deal with a lot of customers who don't fully understand windows 8 or windows 8.1 and so i'm going to be showing you some of the just kind of basics to get your desktop or your computer back to how you had it if you previously had windows 8 or things set up in windows 7 and you want things to look more like how you originally had it just some basic customization and options you can do in windows 8. i am using my windows surface rt to do this video in case you were wondering so that will be what my basis is for this but it applies to touch it applies to the mouse and keyboard i have a mouse and the keyboard or type cover on the device so it's basically the same all right so biggest question and frankly i had the question for like five seconds myself when upgrading to windows 8.1 is about where is my desktop even though windows 8.1 does actually give you the option to boot to your desktop on some tablets or other devices your desktop may not initially be visible you see i have the desktop tile here but when i updated windows 8.1 it actually got rid of it i originally had it down here where my calendar tile is currently that's where i had it mounted but since they've redone essentially how all of the tiles work it's a little bit different now so if you need to find it click this blue arrow down here or white arrow down here or simply press down or swipe down and you'll get to all of your apps and you can just type desktop if you need to find it or it should be there but for the sake of this video i'll have it alone you see desktop right here you can of course just click it to launch it or you can right click it and pin it here i'll unpin it you can right click it and pin it to the start menu that way it creates a tile on your desktop for you to use now i will drag it back over here where i had it now to rearrange your tiles or resize them using your mouse you simply just click on it and drag while you're holding the click down if you're using the tablet you touch it and start to drag or you touch it hold it a little bit you gotta like yeah cut you hold down your finger on the tile and then you can move it around wherever you want you you now have the ability to name your groups and so if you want to group your tiles by what kind of programs they are and stuff you can simply in the name your group option here you can just name it so this is going to be my home menu this is going to be utilities and this is going to be games enter and then when we click out of the menu the the titles are now neatly available above the tiles now if you want a clock on your start menu unfortunately you still have to install an app i used this one i believe it's just called clock hang on yeah it's just called clock by jujube software available for free in the windows store so let me pull that up here via the windows stool tower tower tile i meant to say tile and i mean there may be one that you prefer other than the one i have chosen of course but i simply just searched for clock and basically it's just an app that keeps a running clock going based on your system clock and you see the one i have is the first available option and then it creates a live tile that displays the clock and that's actually a really neat feature about the live tiles is you can have apps that do just about anything with the live tiles they can keep you up to date on your twitter on your facebook recipes your twitter notifications skype notifications you can create something to keep pretty much anything in a live tile which i find very very now impressive next thing is of course resizing tiles now to resize the tile you can right click it and go to resize or if you're on the touch hold down on the tile and the menu will pull up go to resize and then you have large which is two rows of height or you have wide which is just the default wide tile here you have medium which is the square single tile and then you have small which is a one-fourth tile so it takes eight tiles to go across here and you can see i am using that for my office apps right here and then just some like accessories like the camera app and my games and things like that goes there and so from 8.1 from windows 8 to 8.1 large and small are actually new so they're new tile options for windows 8.1 now if you want to change your start menu you can right click and go to customize and that's also how you get to your names and your tile reorganization things like that if you want to change like the background and the colors swipe in from the right hand side or if you're using a mouse just hover your mouse along the right hand side and the charms will come up and actually some mice are now coming with charms buttons to give you that option on a button and you can go to personalize under settings you got different backgrounds to choose from different colors to choose from you have a lot of options available to you to customize your start menu and i like to just kind of change mine up every now and then just to make it different because i don't like having the same old thing every time i get on the computer and that's why my regular desktop wallpaper actually alternates every five minutes or something but yeah basic customization and again if you're wanting just your desktop your desktop is right there in the app you go to it windows 8.1 adds you the start menu button back there it doesn't pull up the classic style start menu it does take you back here but you can instantly go back and if you want the old style start menu there are tons of good free ones such as classic shell and the other one that i used in some of my videos that people were asking about before i updated to windows 8.1 which was called pokey and they're basically custom launchers but that you know recreate the old-school start menu kind of feel and this one looks very very similar to the windows 8 and windows vista start menu one thing to note is that these are not windows rt compatible these are only compatible with the full version of windows 8. so if you have a tablet it has to have the full version of windows 8 like the windows surface pro or just a desktop or laptop that comes with windows 8. if you have one of those it will work fine once you're on your desktop all of your system tray icons and you know wireless network connection audio battery life bluetooth etc all of that is still readily available in the system tray on your start bar all that looks very similar to the windows 7. and that's about it for your basic customization and use of windows 8.1 programs like office word and all the office suite adobe software that will all already launch on the desktop mode as they are desktop programs of course again you have to have the right version of windows 8 make sure you have that and they will just launch in desktop mode and you can use them on the desktop internet explorer is pretty interesting and unique in that if you launch it from the metro mobile you know tablet launch screen it'll launch in windows 8 mode in full screen here however if you're on the desktop and you know you primarily use the desktop and you're working on the desktop and you open up an internet explorer window it will actually open in desktop mode which is pretty cool unfortunately the google chrome that's available for windows 8 which is also only available for full windows 8 not windows rt yet but the version of chrome that is available for windows 8 you have to lock it to either being in desktop mode or being in full screen mode if it by default it's set to how internet explorer launches here in the full screen tablet mode but you can tell it to go to desktop mode but you cannot you know the different shortcuts do not switch between it you have to tell chrome to be one or the other so that's kind of cool that internet explorer is a bit more dynamic in that way one thing to appreciate about windows 8.1 or you know and windows 8 in general is your programs that provide lifestyles like skype facebook your email your calendar twitter weather alerts if you need them alarms if you set them they will all provide you with notifications in your top right hand corner here so for like twitter anytime i get a tweet i get a nice operating system integrated just brief notification in my top right hand corner letting me know i got a twitter reply or i got a skype message or i get an email it's non-invasive it's very similar to how os x and other operating systems and programs handle notifications and that some people have tried implementing on windows with a program like growl before and it's just nice to see that it's all very integrated into the os let's see if it will give me one if i tweet myself here test test tweet tweet okay it does not can't really expect it to let me tweet myself but you know it happens so that's my rundown of the basics that you need to know how to do in windows 8 and especially windows 8.1 hope you enjoyed the video guys if you like it like it if you disliked it hit the dislike button leave me a comment telling me why and be sure to subscribe i will see you all next time bye\n"