As you view the Start screen, you will see that tiles appear either as small squares or as large rectangles. You can change the size of certain tiles to make them  small or large. Increasing the size of a tile for  an app that you frequently use gives it more  prominence. Decreasing the size of a tile allows you to squeeze more tiles into the same  amount of space, saving room on the Start screen. Not all tiles can be resized this way — for example, tiles for the Camera app, Maps app, and Windows Store app cannot  be resized. But many of the apps that come with Windows can be resized. Tiles for certain third-party apps can also be resized. This task explains how to resize a Start screen app.

1 Look for Resize option: Right-click the tile for an app on the Start screen. If the tile can be resized, a button appears on the app bar that says Larger or Smaller.

2 Increase or decrease the tile size:   If the app is small, click Larger to resize it into  a large rectangle. If  the app is large, click Smaller to resize it into a small square.

3 View new tile: The tile resizes and the surrounding tiles move to fill the increased or decreased space.


tip 
        You  can change the tile size for certain Windows  8 apps but not for desktop apps.

Start screen tiles are already set up for all the apps that come with Windows 8, such as Mail, Music, People, Photos, and  Calendar. Tiles are also automatically created for every  application that you install in both Windows 8 apps and desktop apps. But you will probably want to create tiles for your  most commonly used applications so you can quickly launch them from the Start screen.  This process is known as pinning an app to the Start screen. The Apps screen displays all  the apps installed on your computer, so this is a good place to look for apps to pin to the  Start screen. This task shows you how to pin and unpin an app on the Start screen.

 1  Open the app bar: Right-click any empty area in the Start screen to display the app bar at the bottom of the screen.

2  Open the Apps screen: Click the All Apps button on the app bar. 

3  Choose your app: Right-click the app that you want to add to the Start screen.

4  Pin to the Start screen: Click the Pin to Start button on the app bar.

5  Return to the Start screen: Click the Start screen thumbnail in the lower-left hot corner or press the Windows key to return to the Start screen.

6  View the new tile: Scroll to the far right side of the Start screen, and you will see a tile for the app you selected.

 7  Unpin an app: Right-click a tile in the Start screen to display the app bar. Click Unpin from Start to remove it from the Start screen.

 tip 
       You  can right-click multiple tiles on the Start screen and unpin  them all in one shot.

Tired of being forced to click through Windows 8’s lock screen before you get to the Start screen? Here’s how to bypass it. 

                                        Boot your PC or wake it from sleep, and you go straight to Windows 8’s lock screen, which looks more like the screen you’d expect to see on your smartphone than on a PC. It tells you the time and date, and a variety of timely information—meetings taken from your calendar, updates from social networking sites, an indication of your power level, email notifications, and other similar information. 

                                      That’s all very nice, but if you’re on a PC, you probably want to get straight to work. And that means getting to the Start screen faster. If you like, you can bypass the Lock Screen.

Note: If you’re using a Windows 8 tablet, you may find the Lock screen more useful, since you may want to glance at your calendar or social networking sites while you’re on the go.

                  To do it, you use the Local Policy Editor. Launch it by pressing Windows key+R to open the Run bar, type gpedit.msc, and press Enter or click OK. The Local Policy Editor launches

                             Go to Computer Configuration→Administrative Templates→Control Panel→Personalization. Double-click the “Do not display the lock screen” entry, select Enabled, then press Enter or click OK. Exit the Local Policy Editor, then reboot. 

            The new setting should take effect immediately. The next turn you reboot or wake your PC, you won’t see the Lock screen. Instead, you’ll go straight into logging into Windows 8.

                   The Local Policy Editor comes only with Windows 8 Pro and Windows 8 Enterprise. But you can still turn off the Lock screen in any version of Windows 8 by using a Registry hack.  In the Registry Editor, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Personalization and create a DWORD called NoLockScreen. Change its value from 0 to 1, exit the Registry Editor, and exit and restart Windows 8. (Note: If you don’t find the Personalization key, you’ll have to create it before creating the NoLockScreen DWORD.)