Windows 8 Start Screen
Microsoft’s new Metro interface is great for touch but how about keyboard and mouse users?
We’ve put together a few tips and tricks to help you along your Windows 8 way with your traditional desktop. Feel free to comment if you have more and we’ll update the post with a mention and your tip/trick.
  1. To unlock the lock screen, double tap on your mouse or hit any key on the keyboard instead of dragging to the top
  2. To bring up the “charms bar” (share, settings, shutdown, etc), hit the lower-left corner of the screen with the mouse – no clicking required or use winkey+c
  3. In any app, right click to bring up the “app bar” to see everything you can do
  4. To go back to the Start screen, simply use the Windows Key on your keyboard
  5. Bump your mouse against the left side of the screen to see a thumbnail of your most recently used app. Use the scroll wheel to see all open modern apps
  6. Modern apps don’t generally need to be closed — they are suspended when they’re not in view. If you really need to close them, use the task manager (via the tile or ctrl+shift+esc) to force quit
  7. To search for anything on your system like applications, setting, or files, simply start typing from the Start screen, and the search box will automatically pop up or use winkey+f
  8. Glance at your desktop by using Winkey+y
  9. Activate application settings charm by using winkey+i
  10. Project onto an external TV/monitor using winkey+p
  11. Use the page up and page down keys to move between tile groups on the Start Screen
  12. Bump your mouse to the left and grab an app, if you pull it towards the right and then bump it to the left it will cycle to the next app (Thanks Tom Servo)
  13. Pin/unpin tiles or remove apps by right clicking on tiles on the Start Screen (Thanks @FreddyFuentes)
  14. Activate Semantic Zoom in Metro apps by using Ctrl+ mouse scroll
  15. Switch the input language and keyboard layout with Winkey+Spacebar
  16. Show the desktop using Winkey+d
  17. Open the share charm with winkey+h
  18. Open the connect charm with winkey+k
  19. Lock your Windows 8 PC with winkey+l
  20. Lock screen rotation using winkey+o
  21. Cycle through apps using winkey+tab
  22. Switch between apps using alt+tab