Using SkyDrive with the Windows desktop

While the touch‑friendly Metro‑style user experience is clearly the big story in Windows 8, most Windows users have a rich history with the Windows desktop and the many, many applications and utilities that have run in this environment for years. Fortunately, all of these things are still available in Windows 8, since this OS includes an updated and enhanced version of the traditional Windows desktop environment, its File Explorer file manager, and the other related capabilities Windows users know and love. And this is true whether you’re using a traditional desktop PC or laptop, or a newfangled tablet computer or hybrid PC, and whether you’re using Windows 8 or Windows RT.

NOTE

There is one major exception to this rule. While Windows 8‑based PCs and devices of course provide all of the desktop features you’ve come to know and love, those based on Windows RT–the ARM‑based variant of Windows 8–are somewhat limited in that they cannot run any third‑party Windows desktop software. That said, all of the features described in this chapter work equally well and identically in Windows RT as they do with their Intel‑type Windows 8 brethren.

How the Metro‑style environment and Windows desktop interact with each other is an important consideration for anyone moving to this new operating system. After all, in previous Windows versions, the Windows desktop was the entire user interface, the face that Windows presented to the world. But in Windows 8, the desktop behaves, conceptually at least, as an app that works within the new Windows Runtime (WinRT) and the Metro‑style user experience. As such, even users who stick strictly to the desktop environment will still need to deal with, and understand, various Metro‑style user interfaces, including the new Back and Start experiences, Switcher, and the Charms bar. And indignities of indignities, you’ll even need to use Metro to shut down your PC!

This chapter examines each of these issues as well as all of the new Windows desktop features that Microsoft added to this version of the OS. If you were expecting very little in the way of desktop enhancements thanks to a focus on the Metro environment, prepare to be surprised. There are some very nice updates to the desktop in Windows 8.