4/15/15 8:14 PM

have a new laptop running win8. it's a non-touch device, so i have no need/desire for any tablet-centric capabilities.

i'm using classic-shell to make that happen and it looks like classic windows now...except for this weird disappearing tablet-centric menu that appears when the cursor slides off the screen to the right. i tried googling to learn more about it, but i dont know what it is called!

the closes thing i can turn up is the new "windows power menu" which is something else.

so if anyone can point me in a direction for this thing, even just a name for it, so i can go about trying to suppress it.

<img src="http://brown-snout.com/misc/2015-04-15%2021_58_18-.png">

Last edited by walter on 4/16/15 11:29 AM; edited 1 time in total

4/15/15 8:16 PM

...that's just sooooo friggin.....contrived

http://www.techattend.com/disable-charms-bar-in-windows-8-1/

edit: those tips didnt fully disable the charms...but there is a setting in classic-shell that did the trick "disable active corners = ALL"

Last edited by walter on 4/16/15 11:30 AM; edited 1 time in total

4/15/15 8:44 PM

I edited in the registry the right tap zone to a negative number and it quit popping on one note. It took a single digit number on another...

4/16/15 4:24 AM

You might be still eligible for a free upgrade to Windows 10. It will address your specific needs, including ditching the charms bar. You can then take the Win8 DVD and use it as a hub reflector (gratuitous cycling related content).

4/16/15 4:42 AM

Win8 was a radical shift, and I wasn't all that happy with it until I set up Classic Shell, but now it works fine. Win10 should be available as a free (so I've heard) install over *all* existing copies of Windows, even those that are not, strictly speaking, legal.

The idea is somewhat akin to adverse possession--MS probably wants to quiet things down so that *everyone* is running, or can run, the same OS. Then they won't be quite so wedded to legacy code.

4/16/15 10:12 AM

Your set-up looks very similar to Ubuntu. l like the task bar at the top but can't change it on my work machine, it is to locked down.

4/16/15 10:20 AM

Unfortunately, not all applications pay proper attention to the task bar location when it's at the top of the screen. And strangely enogh, ONLY when it's at the top of the screen. On any wide-screen machine, I tend to keep mine at the left, leaving the rest of the screen for work.

4/16/15 4:22 PM

All my Ubuntu and Apple machines are at the top. Though I have not used my Ubuntu machine in quite some time.

4/16/15 9:01 PM

I use the Start8 program from Stardock to make Windows 8/8.1 look like Windows 7. I also use their program Fences to group desktop icons by function.

4/16/15 9:40 PM

I used Start8 on the win 8.1 machine I built in December, and had issues with it hanging during the startup process after login. It would display an icon-less classic desktop until I mouse clicked on it for a few seconds to a minute or more. After removing Start8, I installed Classic Shell, and found that the best way to start up was to launch Classic Shell to the Win 8.1 metro screen, and then click on a browser or other application icon to go to the Classic desktop. No troubles since doing that. Looking forward to see what fun Win 10 brings.

4/17/15 3:22 AM

Sorry, I should have specified that such is the case for *Windows*. I don't know why, but I had bad experiences with a number of programs no properly recognizing that the screen under the task bar was not available for their use and so tucking their title bars up under it. Weird. I am not sure if the problem is a bug in Windows or a failure of application programmers to take the possibility of a top task bar into account.

4/17/15 6:40 AM

I've gotten used to the Windows 8 screen and now prefer it to the classic desktop. My Android ASUS Transformer just died and I picked up the latest ASUS Transformer running Windows 8.

4/17/15 7:53 AM

i'll be getting a win8-based version at some point, too.

my tf201 is getting slow and living with android on a quasi-laptop device is just too limiting. love the form factor and premium build, but the OS not so much in this type of device. the quad-core processor used to be da bomb, but for whatever reason it performs like a dog now.

i think the next version of the transformer, after the just-released one, for win8 will be "the one".

4/17/15 11:22 AM

"gotten used to the Windows 8 screen and now prefer it to the classic desktop"


Me too, still hate the charm bar though... And my registry edit did not work on the last notebook I tried it on. So that one is out with the computrainer. ;)

5/5/15 5:31 PM

The touchpad on this Dell laptop activates the charms bar at random. At least it seemed that way. The threshold is far enough from the lip of the touchpad that you drift into it. In the middle of a task the charms bar appears - hence this thread was started.

About the only thing I like about the Charms bar is how consistent the interface is. As long as the charms bar is active nothing else works. (rimshot - cymbals crashing) But seriously, no surprises compounding the irritation.

I like to watch my iPad trained girlfriend use this laptop; the touch pad may as well be a candy dish in the keyboard to her 'cause she just uses the screen. I don't think she's ever used the candy dish.

A handy touchpad feature is two-finger-scroll. Just use two fingers instead of one, like it sounds.

Recently when I was in Google Maps I tried using the screen to zoom out, instead of their +- controls. It worked but all the map widgets zoomed away too. Later when I made a Google search using the Firefox search addin on the addressbar the results came back "zoomed out," i.e. tiny font. Gmail behaved the same. Thank goodness fixing it only involved pinch zoom. No other websites were affected. It's interesting that Google stores, is able to store, that kind of information. I did not write that to open the Google big brother tangent. Three tangents are enough for one posting!