Lec. 9 17-18 Task Bar and Start Menu

Task Bar and Start Menu
The Windows 8.1 desktop
Most of the elements that make up the desktop in Windows 8.1 should be familiar to anyone
who has used Windows in the past decade. The taskbar and notifcation area work very much
like their Windows 7 counterparts. Desktop programs work just as they did in Windows 7.
Control Panel and File Explorer look a little different but essentially work the same as their
predecessors. The techniques for moving, arranging, and managing program windows on the
desktop are the same.
The desktop
that fills your screen is part of Windows, as is the taskbar at the bottom of the
screen and the big menu that pops up when you click the Start button.
If you’ve used a version of Windows prior to Windows 8, or seen someone else
using Windows in the past, you might think that this new version of Windows
looks a lot different—and you’d be right. Windows 8 introduced a completely
different user interface to the operating system, and Windows 8.1 builds on that.
The Windows 8/8.1 user interface is called the Modern interface, and it differs
from the traditional Windows desktop.
Although this new element occupies the same spot as the Start button in Windows 7, it
doesn’t lead to a Start menu. Instead, it leads to the Start screen and Apps view. In Windows 8.1, as in Windows 8, there is no direct equivalent to the Start menu found
in Windows 7 and previous versions.
In Windows 8.1, everything starts on the Start screen (the home screen full of
tiles for different apps) and goes from there.