Tech Tips and Tricks

How Can I Get Windows 8?

First, you’ll want to make sure that your PC can run Windows 8, and thankfully the Windows 8 system requirements are basically the same as Windows 7. You can probably get away with installing this on a PC with lousy specs, but obviously you’ll have a better experience on a faster machine. Here’s the specs:

1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
Taking advantage of touch input requires a screen that supports multi-touch

The key thing to note is that you don’t need a touch device to install Windows 8. Keyboard and mouse will work just fine.
Just head to dev.windows.com and download the ISO images from the page. Then head to the Microsoft Store page and download the USB/DVD Download Tool, which can put the ISO image onto a bootable flash drive for installation—all you have to do is choose the ISO, choose the drive, and wait for it to finish copying.

So What’s New in Windows 8?

There’s a ton of new stuff in Windows 8, but the biggest change that you’ll notice right away is the addition of the new tile-based Metro interface, which you can see in the screenshot above. Keep in mind that this is the developer preview release, which means it’s nowhere near finished, and you should definitely not install this on your primary PC.
We’ll go into loads of detail about everything as you read further, but first here’s a quick list of just some of the new features:

Metro Interface – the new default interface in Windows 8, keep reading for everything about this.
Faster Boot Times – Windows 8 will boot much faster than Windows 7, thanks to a partial hibernation mode and a lot of improvements in the loading process. On my old Dell laptop, it boots in less than 10 seconds – on new machines, it’s crazy fast.
Less Memory Usage than Windows 7. That’s right. Microsoft is saying that not only will this version use less RAM than Win7, it also uses less running processes.
Windows Explorer overhauled, now has the Ribbon UI, Revamped File Copying, and ISO mounting.
In-Place PC Refresh will reload Windows in just a couple of clicks, keeping your files intact.
ARM processors are now supported, which will lead to an entirely new class of low-power, battery-efficient tablets.
Hyper-V is now part of Windows – so now you can create virtual machines easily without installing anything extra.
Taskbar can now span multiple monitors – this very simple feature has finally made it into Windows.
Wallpaper can now span multiple monitors – yet another feature that should have been around 10 years ago.
Universal Spell Check across Metro applications.
Windows Live Integration for Sync, Mail, Skydrive lets you sync all your settings across your PCs, including your files, mail, and photos. The sync is available in the preview, but the Skydrive and Mail are not yet.
Windows Store will let you purchase Windows apps all in a single place.
New Task Manager is completely revamped with much better tools, including a way to disable startup applications, track application resource usage over time, and even easily restart Windows Explorer.

There’s way more changes all over the place, and we’ll try and cover as much as possible, but there’s no way we can get everything. Not to mention the fact that this is a preview, so there’s probably a whole lot more coming in the beta.

Run Multiple Copies of Applications from the Taskbar

The Windows 7 taskbar serves a dual purpose, which can get confusing at times. It's used to launch programs, and also to switch between programs that are running. So you launch a program by clicking its icon, and also switch to that program after it's running by clicking its icon.
But what if you want to launch a second instance of the program? Once the program is running, it seems there's no way to launch a second instance, because when you click its icon, you only switch to the running instance.
There's a simple fix: If a program is already running and you want to launch a second instance from the taskbar, hold down the Shift key and click the icon. A second instance will launch. You can keep launching new instances this way.

Launch Taskbar Apps Without a Mouse

Likewise, you can launch any program on the taskbar without the mouse. Press the Windows key and the number that corresponds to the position of the application on the taskbar -- for example, Windows key-1 to launch the left-most application on the taskbar, Windows key-2 to launch the second left-most application and so on.

See Taskbar Thumbnails Without a Mouse

If you're a fan of using the keyboard rather than your mouse whenever possible, you can move your cursor from icon to icon in the taskbar without a mouse -- and still see thumbnail previews. Press Windows key-T, and you'll move the focus to the leftmost icon on the taskbar. Then, while still pressing the Windows key, press T again to change the focus to the next icon to the right. You can keep doing this as long as you like.