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[marko]

I tried Windows Eight for a day and a bit when it first surfaced, and was back to Windows Seven faster than a fast thing!

I couldn't believe I was having to resort to Google to find out how to shut the thing down. That, plus a load of other stuff I found completely disorientating were enough for me.

I got Windows 8.1 now, and have been happy enough to pay for it and keep it. It's actually pretty neat. I originally set it to go straight to desktop, but now have it boot to start screen again as you can pile some good stuff on there. I use a local account, signing into apps individually. Not sure why, but for now, I prefer it that way. Maybe it's a control thing...

Which brings me to apps... full screen apps... how to close? For a bit, I would just use the Windows key to get out of there, which leaves the app running. Then I found that the good old alt+F4 works... but there must be some other way, surely...

Next, I learned why I get a hand for a cursor when I hit the top of the screen, but what a pain dragging all the way from top to bottom to close an app. Not any more though. I found a registry tweak that shortens the distance required to drag to close an app, so now, it's just a small inch-ish flick of the mouse downwards, and the app is closed. Excellent.

Code: [Select]

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ImmersiveShell\Switcher]
"CloseDwellTimeout"=dword:0000012c
"MouseCloseThresholdPercent"=dword:00000060
"TouchCloseThresholdPercent"=dword:00000050
Exported key attached. Restart to take effect. The threshold values work really well for me. Screen is 1200 pixels high. I'm not sure if, if yours is different, different values may work better.

-marko.

[Hendrik]

Doesn't the top left corner of the screen bring you back to the start screen?
Its kinda intended to be used like a mobile OS, ie. you don't worry about when the apps start or close, Windows will close them when they are idle for long enough.

[6233638]

Which brings me to apps... full screen apps... how to close? For a bit, I would just use the Windows key to get out of there, which leaves the app running. Then I found that the good old alt+F4 works... but there must be some other way, surely...

"Metro" runs like a tablet OS - apps go into hibernation when they are in the background, and they are only closed if another application needs those resources. (which is usually only a very small amount of RAM)
 
So when they are not visible, they are effectively "closed".

[JimH]

Some apps can be closed by grabbing the top of the screen and "throwing" it quickly down.

It feels messy the way it worked on 8.0.  Sometimes, when I tried a slow swipe from the top of Explorer, it would just close Explorer and all the windows I had open.

I just switched to 8.1, so maybe it will be better.

[marko]

I'll try and get my head adjusted to the whole 'like a tablet' thing, but being old, I'm pretty firmly rooted in the 'when you're finished, close it' mentality. The registry tweak makes it infinitely more easy for me to do that.

[glynor]

Windows 8.1 Update 1 (coming April 8 via Windows Update) will add back in standard close and minimize widgets to Metro apps when you're using a machine with a mouse.

[Ninouchka]

I am using 8.1 Pro x64 now for about two weeks, and at first after two days I wanted to put my acronis image back from 7 ultimate, but as I am a learner,
after two weeks digging in 8.1 new very well hidden good stuff, I really start to like it, specially the fast boot time.
Windows explorer, now called Files Explorer, is much easier and faster to work with. And the start screen is nice on my htpc.
If you want you can straight boot into the desktop view.
I bought the cheap upgrade from windows xp, vista, 7 to 8 Pro via amazon co uk. And updated to 8.1 Pro via the Windows Store app.
The upgrade with keeping my files and software took some time, about 1 and half hours, made sure before doing this
that all my software and drivers were compatible with 8.1.

Thanks for the registry tweak, I didn't know that one.

On the left bottom button, when clicked left you can go directly to the start (apps) screen, right clicked you get a sort of list of the most important
shortcuts that you need like command prompt, command prompt with admin rights etc and shutdown, sleep etc.

[6233638]

Windows 8.1 Update 1 (coming April 8 via Windows Update) will add back in standard close and minimize widgets to Metro apps when you're using a machine with a mouse.

A lot of these seem like ugly hacks to placate people who refuse to learn something new. Hopefully you can turn a lot of them off.

[MrC]

Here's an entirely different meaning to the "closing" of a Metro app:

    http://www.zdnet.com/mozilla-abandons-development-of-metro-firefox-for-windows-8-7000027346/

[6233638]

Here's an entirely different meaning to the "closing" of a Metro app:

    http://www.zdnet.com/mozilla-abandons-development-of-metro-firefox-for-windows-8-7000027346/

Mozilla frustrate me to no end with the decisions they have been making for the last few years now.
 
They're wasting development on Australis - a project that should have been cancelled years ago. It's been taking too long, breaks compatibility with a huge number of extensions and customizations, strips the browser of its identity (just looks like Chrome now) when I last checked on it all the new graphics were bitmapped and did not scale to retina resolutions (worse than the current Firefox UI) the new look is out of place on Windows and Linux, only looking at home on Macs.

Most of the UI/UX decisions seem to be handled by one or two people that only care about their specific use-case, but those people are not content with ruining the UI, they are intent on removing all the customizability that made Firefox great. You don't like the add-on bar? Well that's fine, it was disabled by default anyway. Oh no, we have to remove it because we don't use it at all, therefore no-one can. Let's ignore that its removal breaks features in a lot of add-ons.
(I don't keep it visible, but some of my extensions require the use of it)

Firefox UI/UX development went seriously downhill when their lead developer left a few years ago.
 
 
Browser sync has now been made less secure with the latest revamp in order to make it "simpler" when the real problem with sync is that it's slow to make changes, and only syncs half of the data you want. It syncs your add-ons, but not your settings for them. You can restore an individual tab from another device, but not sync the entire session over etc.
 
Frankly, I don't know why they're even bothering with these Sync changes when they pulled the iOS Firefox Sync app down from the Apple store years ago (it was limited but it worked) so there's no way to access your bookmarks/tabs on any of these devices at all now.
They had a "Firefox" branded browser planned for iOS but then cancelled it, just like them wasting two years of development on Metro Firefox and cancelling it now.
 
 
They had a fully working 64-bit version of the browser, and cancelled it.
Then they brought it back, but decided that you could only get it on the nightly branch, and disabled auto-updates for 64-bit builds.
After all, it's not like anyone on the nightly branch would want their browser to update itself.
 
 
Firefox is likely to remain my browser of choice for the moment, but they're making it difficult, and I've been pushed back from running the Nightly builds to using the extended support builds, hoping that they will get their act together before they push Australis into the release versions.

[ldoodle]

@Jim,

This isn't related to closing apps, but as glynor posted an image from an upcoming update it got me thinking: could JRiver leverage the Windows 8 Weather app, instead of using it's own? I don't know if MS provide an API.

Would make so much more sense to have to only configure one weather app, rather than the Windows and JRiver one's independently.

Same for any other app that both have (news?)

[6233638]

Windows 8.1 Update 1 (coming April 8 via Windows Update) will add back in standard close and minimize widgets to Metro apps when you're using a machine with a mouse.

Well Update 1 is out, and as I suspected this just feels like a quick hack to try and please everyone that was complaining.

I really don't like the way that the taskbar is displayed on the Start Screen now, and it doesn't seem to work properly for me.
If I move away from the taskbar, I can only get it to show up again after mousing over the taskbar area four or five times - is this happening for anyone else?
 
With Start8 you can have it look a lot more integrated than the current implementation - see the attached images to compare for yourself.
Though now that I'm used to using the Windows 8.1 native Start Screen, having Start8 installed is a nuisance - it overrides right-click on the Start Button with its own preferences instead of the Win+X menu.
 
 
What used to be a one-handed operation - selecting multiple icons on the Start Screen - now requires you to either deal with each icon individually, or hold down the CTRL key to make a selection.
 
Right-clicking on the Start Screen now brings up a weird unstyled menu with underlined keyboard shortcuts.
It doesn't follow the desktop style, or the Metro themed menu style.


At least they improved the app grouping in the "All Apps" View

 
No, wait, improve is not the word I was looking for there - these used to all be grouped under a single heading.
 
 
Even though I have animations disabled, a number of animations now seem to be displayed in the Metro interface.