Windows 8: The Missing Manual

Chapter 3. How TileWorld Works

By this point, it may finally be sinking in that Windows 8 is two operating systems in one. And that it runs two different kinds of programs: traditional Windows programs and an all-new class of programs called, for want of a better term, TileWorld apps.

TileWorld apps look and act very different. You’ll know right away when you’re in one. TileWorld apps:

• Fill the whole screen, edge to edge. TileWorld app windows don’t overlap, ever.

• Are fairly simple. Photoshop, Quicken, Microsoft Access, tax software—complex programs like these will probably never come to TileWorld. TileWorld apps are more like iPad apps.

• Do not have menus. There’s no menu bar in TileWorld. You can swipe up from the bottom (or down from the top) to see a horizontal bar with a couple of option icons on it, but that’s nothing like a real menu bar containing dozens or hundreds of commands.

• Come from a single source: the Windows Store. You can’t get TileWorld apps from the companies that make them. You can’t get them on a disk. You must download them, and only from the Windows Store. (Tap the Store icon on your Start screen.)

• Are technically called Windows Store apps. Microsoft calls them Windows Store apps because they come from the Windows Store. Trouble is, Windows desktop programs also come from the Windows Store (although not exclusively), so “Windows Store apps” isn’t very descriptive. In this book, Windows Store apps are called TileWorld apps.

• Do not have viruses. Since Microsoft is ...