Oh happy day that lets me get Windows 8.1 — see How to Update to Windows 8.1 Preview — and start to step away from the mess that is Windows 8’s Metro UI. If I wanted a touch-tablet experience for my OS, I’d buy a tablet. But I’m on a desktop PC, just trying to get my job done. Which is all well and good, but now that I have Windows 8.1, I don’t actually see anything new or improved. Bah! A pox on Redmond! More seriously, how can I log in directly to my Desktop instead of to that cursed Start screen?
Wow, I think that’s my first question that sounds like William Shakespeare had written it. A pox on thee, indeed! I’m tempted to write my response in iambic pentameter, but then I’d have to really put an extraordinary amount of work into it and I’m pretty sure that you, dear reader, might want some entertainment, some drama, some chuckles, but don’t want to wade through stanza after stanza of geek poetry about Windows 8.1, of all things.
Oh, cursed the day that brough this opp’tunity onst the site!
Yeah, okay, I’ll stop now.
You are right in your assessment that Windows 8.1 Preview edition really doesn’t offer much over the somewhat funky Windows 8, a user interface that’s dramatically different in key ways from Windows 7, Vista, 95, Me, and all previous versions of Windows. The two greatest changes, of course, are that when you log in to your Windows account you are dropped onto a new Start page populated with tiles that act as shortcuts to specific programs, features and sites and that when you do figure out how to get to the Desktop, there’s no Start menu on the lower left.
In Windows 8.1 Preview, Microsoft added a sort-of replacement for the Start button on the Desktop’s toolbar, but not really. Click on it and, well, you’re back at the Start screen again (though you can configure it to take you to a list of all your Apps, but it’s still full screen, not a pop-up menu as millions upon millions of Windows users have learned to expect). It’s not much of a fix, in my opinion.
On the other hand, you can indeed change your settings so that logging in to your account drops you into the Windows 8 desktop, rather than the Start screen.
You’ll need to click / tap on the “Desktop” tile from the Start screen, then right-click on the toolbar anywhere there’s not an app or icon. It brings up this menu:
You’ll want to click on “Properties” to get to the spot where the desired setting is located.
Do so and…
I’ve made this nice and big so you can read the options listed here.
Notice the first under “Start screen” says Go to the desktop instead of Start when I sign in. No surprise, that’s what you want. Click / tap on the checkbox and then Click / tap “Apply. Done.
But wait, before you go and revel in the new (slightly) improved Windows 8.1 experience, note option #4: Show the Apps view automatically when I go to Start. That’s how you can configure the new Start button to bring up an App view rather than just drop you at the Start screen. Your call on that one.
That’s the trick. Now if Microsoft could just give us the option of the old-school Start menu from the taskbar, we’d have something to talk about. 🙂
This fix for signing in at start up no longer works. Has 8.1 changed that I can’t go straight to the desktop with out signing in?
I want to turn my computer on and go to my desktop without signing in each time I shutdown or restart on window s 8.1