You can also press Space to get another menu. Once you are on the apps screen and have navigated with the arrow keys to a program of interest, you can press Enter to launch the app or program. Press the Windows key to go back to Metro. Standard features like the Control Panel are accessed from this apps page. Use the arrow keys to navigate this screen. It's much like what would have been accessed via the Start Button in previous versions of Windows. This brings up an apps screen containing icons for all apps and programs. To access all of the apps and programs you must press Control+Tab while in Metro. Not all programs are displayed on the Metro screen. Once you arrow to the program or app you want to launch, press Enter to launch it.
There are things such as Maps, Weather, People, Xbox, Messaging plus any Programs that you have "Pinned to Start" (explained later). While in Metro, the arrow keys can be used to navigate to the individual icons. The arrow keys can be used to navigate this menu. This brings up a menu that contains three options: Change Account Picture, Lock and Sign Out. After first arriving at Metro, you can Tab once to go your user account. Pressing Tab will move you between the program and App icons in Metro and your User Account. The Metro screen also contains an icon for your personal user account. I do not know how this dynamic approach will work with a screen reader. The music app icon shows what is playing, etc. For example, the Weather icon shows temperatures and weather conditions. Their icons are dynamic, in that they show the status of the apps and programs they represent. The Metro screen contains many icons that can be used to launch programs and apps, which are new to Windows 8. This makes the table more difficult for a blind person to navigate. Unfortunately, all the cells are not the same size.
This displays a series of icons in table - some might call "tile-like" - format. The Escape key takes you back to the Login Screen.Īfter logging in, you go to what Microsoft calls the Metro User Interface. The menu contains: Narrator, Magnifier, On-Screen Keyboard, High Contrast, Sticky Keys, and Filter Keys. If no keys are pressed, the menu selections advance on their own after a short time interval. The Ease Of Access Button gives a Menu that can be navigated with the up and down arrows. While at the Login Screen, repeatedly pressing Tab will cycle from the Login Box to the Submit Button to the Ease of Access Icon to the Shut Down icon then back to the Login Box. Once there, hit "enter" to get a menu for: Sleep, Shut Down or Restart. Navigate to it by pressing Tab repeatedly. The Login Screen also contains an icon for shutting down the computer. This is apparently done to allow access to the many cloud-based features built into Windows 8. Hotmail users will already have a Microsoft account.
Windows 8 is designed to encourage the use of a Microsoft Account and its associated username and password for logging into your local PC. Once at this location you can type in your password. To advance to the Login Screen you press "Tab". This Screen displays information such as the time of day but does not allow for any user input.
When Windows 8 first boots, it goes into what Microsoft calls a "Lock Screen". Other internal drives are two RAID0 arrays each 2 x 1TB WD Caviar Black and two NEC 1920x1200 displays. My hardware is a Gigabyte MoBo i7 Hex core at 3.2GHz OC 24GB DDR3 RAM nVidia GTX580 512 host OS Win7 on 250GB Intel SSD VM on 150GB partition on an internal 2TB SATA300. I run Windows 8 Consumer Preview on a VMware Player 圆4 v4.0.1 virtual machine.