Windows 10 All-in-One For Dummies. Woody Leonhard

but underneath it’s gone through radical transformations.

I figure that 90 percent of the stuff that most of the people do with a computer runs fine on a tablet or a Chromebook. So why put up with all the hassles of running Windows on a piece of iron that weighs more than your refrigerator, and breaks down a lot more often? Maybe you’re addicted to blue screens and frozen mice. Or maybe you’re ready to leave it all behind and tap your way to something new. But if you’re still solidly stuck in the Windows column, this chapter’s for you.

      In this chapter, I show you what’s to like about both the old-fashioned side of Windows and the new app side, how to get around if you’re new to Windows, and if you’re an experienced Windows hand, how to reconcile your old finger memory with the new interface. It isn’t as hard as you think.

      Really.

      I also show you how to be input-agnostic — how to use either your fingers, or a pen, or your fork, er, mouse to get around the screen. And I give you a few not-at-all-obvious tips about how to get the most out of your consorting with the beast.

Windows’ New Beginnings

      

The way I look at it, most people starting with Windows 10 start in one of five groups, with the largest percentage in the first group:

       Somewhat experienced at some version of Windows and primarily comfortable with a mouse and keyboard. (More than 1.5 billion people have used Windows.)

       Experienced at Windows but want to learn touch input.

       Windows 8 refugee who’s hoping and praying Windows 10 isn’t so disorienting.

       New to Windows, prefer to use touch.

       New to Windows and want to visit the 19th-century dentist’s office to see what all the screaming’s about.

      

If you fall into that final group, you need to learn to use the antique interface apparatus known as a mouse and keyboard. I’m reminded of Scotty on the Enterprise picking up a mouse and saying, “Computer! Computer! Hello computer …” When Scotty’s reminded to use the keyboard, he says, “Keyboard. How quaint.” At least he didn’t say, “Hey, Cortana!”

      TAP OR CLICK, PAPER OR PLASTIC?

      Lots of people have asked me whether I’m serious about tapping on a Windows machine. Yes, I am, and I hope you will be, too.

      I tried the old stylus Windows interface, back when the luggable Windows tablets first appeared, in the Windows XP days. I hated it. I still hate it. I hated it so much that when I saw someone using an iPad, all I could think was, “Oh, that must suck.” (Remember, suck is a technical term.)

      An hour later, I tried an iPad, and suddenly using a finger was fine. More than fine, it was tremendous. When my then-18-month-old son spent a few hours playing on the iPad and started using the interface like a virtuoso, I was hooked. The tap-and-swipe interface is astonishingly easy to learn, use, and remember.

      Windows 10’s tap interface isn’t as elegant as the iPad’s. Sorry, but it’s true. The main difference is that Windows has to accommodate lots of things that the iPad just doesn’t do — right-click comes immediately to mind (although tablets have tap-and-hold to simulate right-click; the iPhone even has 3D touch, which goes way beyond clicking). But for many, many things that I do every day — web surfing, quickly checking email, scrolling through Twitter, catching up on Facebook, reading the news, looking at the stock market, and on and on — the touch interface is vastly superior to a mouse and keyboard. At least, it is to me.

      That said, yes, you can get used to a tablet without a mouse and keyboard.

      As I’m writing this book, I have three computers on my desk. One’s a traditional desktop running Windows 10, and one’s running the latest beta test version of Windows 10. The third is a Win10 tablet with a portable keyboard — a Surface Pro. When I want to look up something quickly, guess which one I use? Bzzzzzt. Wrong. I pick up my Nexus phone — or my iPad. “OK, Google, where is Timbuktu?” “Navigate to Costco.” “Call the Recreation Center.”

So this section offers a whirlwind tour of your new Windows 10 home that helps you start clicking and tapping your way around.

      A tale of two homes

      As you undoubtedly know by now, Windows 10’s Start menu has two faces. They’re designed to work together. You can be the judge of how well they live up to the design.

On the left side of the Start menu (see Figure 1-1), you see the Start menu that’s supposed to look like the Windows 7 (and Windows Vista and Windows XP) Start menu. On the right side of the Start menu, you see a bunch of tiles, some of which have useful information on them.

      FIGURE 1-1: The Windows 10 Start menu as seen on a 1920 x 1080 (HD) monitor.

      Although the left side of the Start menu is supposed to bring back warm, comforting memories of Windows 7 (and Windows XP), underneath the surface, the left part of the Start menu has almost nothing in common with Windows 7 and earlier Start menus. The old Start menu has been ripped out and replaced with this Windows 10-style list of links and, on the far left, a set of shortcut icons.

       See the funny icon in the upper-left corner (and shown in the margin)? For the mathematicians in the crowd, it looks just like an equivalence sign. In the computer world, that’s known as signaling a hamburger menu (see the nearby sidebar).

      

The new stab at a Start menu is both good and bad. As you’ll see, the left side of the Start menu is a wimpy thing, built according to inflexible rules. If you gnawed away at the Windows 7 Start menu back in the day, you’ll find that there’s very little meat to the new Start menu. Conversely, the Windows 10 Start menu doesn’t get screwed up as easily — or as completely — as the Windows 7 Start menu.

      On the right side of the Start menu, you see a vast sea of tiles. Unlike the tiles on your iPhone or iPad or Galaxy, these tiles have some smarts: If prodded, they will tell you things that you might want to know, without opening up the associated app. In this screenshot, you can see a bit of the weather, a news story, a photo, a preview of an email message, and a little peek at the calendar. You also see lots and lots of ads. That’s the Windows tile shtick, and it’s apparent here in all its glory.

      THE HISTORY OF THE HAMBURGER ICON

      There have been many harsh words about the lowly hamburger. On the one hand, the icon doesn’t really say anything. On the other hand, so many systems and programs now use the icon that it’s close to being universal. Even cross-platform.

      Ends up that the hamburger icon (like so many things we take for granted today) was designed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, PARC, for use on the first graphical computer, the Xerox Star. Norm Cox designed it at PARC, and you can see its first appearance at https://vimeo.com/61556918. Software designer Geoff Alday contacted Cox, and this is what he said:

      “I designed that symbol many years ago as a ‘container’ for contextual menu choices. It would be