In 1995, Microsoft came up with a way to improve multi-tasking, and that was the taskbar. They've included it in all of their desktop operating systems from Windows 95 to Windows 7, and it's still there in Windows 8. It included the iconic Start Menu, the optional Quick Launch toolbar to... quickly launch an application, a task switcher to switch between running applications, and the notification area for system features like volume or the network utility, or application features like security software. In Windows Vista, The Start button was changed to just an orb with the Windows logo. Windows Vista also gives a window preview when you hover over an item in the task switcher. Windows 7 changed the functionality of the taskbar to group applications together by default, replaces the Quick Launch toolbar with the ability to pin applications to the taskbar, and moved the Show Desktop button to the far right with the additional ability to get a quick peek at the desktop by hovering over it (Aero Peek).
But with the development of Windows 8, Microsoft decided it was time for a change.
This is Windows 8's Start Screen, which is the first thing you'll see when logging into your user account. The Start Screen is where you'll have all of your application shortcuts which appear as tiles, which you can customize somewhat. Some tiles can only be set as a square, while others can also be set as a two-space rectangle. The start screen is a little picky about where you can place the tiles, for example, you can't place a tile by itself below another one, it needs to have two horizontal spaces taken before you can put something below it, and even then, you can only place it on the left unless you have another tile next to it at which point you can switch them. You can create new columns of tiles following a space, but sometimes you can start a column immediately after the last one. I think that requires the previous column to be full. It's a bit hard to explain, and as I said, rather picky.
Windows 8 has two user interfaces, the new Metro UI and the Classic Desktop. Seeing as the Metro UI is the main "attraction" of Windows 8, that's what I'll start off with.
