Windows 8 questions

[techie81]

I was able to get in on the $14.99 deal last night but I am trying to figure out a couple of things.

1. Media Player; when I play a video from the metro tile it becomes full screen. Is there anyway to make this play in a window? Maybe I need to look at some keyboard shortcuts? Right clicking didn't bring up any settings that I need.

2. Chrome via the metro tiles and chrome via the desktop are treated as two different programs? I log into chrome via the tile to load my preferences and when I open up chrome on the "desktop" I had to log in like I never opened the browser before?

3. Local account vs. live account? What are the benefits to this? I had turned off a lot of the syncing but yet it continued to sync my browser history and wallpaper.

 

[heatlesssun]

1. You can change the program association to whatever program you want to use: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/change-file-association-in-windows-8/

2. This is correct, Metro apps are heavily sandboxed and don't directly interact with the desktop.

3. If you have multiple computers you can synch settings and IE web browser favorites and history, it's quite useful. I think.

 

[[F8]]

I had a similar issue with pictures/videos, I basically chose the default program to windows photo viewer for pictures. Then I installed good old mpc-hc for videos

 

[techie81]

1. You can change the program association to whatever program you want to use: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/change-file-association-in-windows-8/

2. This is correct, Metro apps are heavily sandboxed and don't directly interact with the desktop.

3. If you have multiple computers you can synch settings and IE web browser favorites and history, it's quite useful. I think.

I want to use media player but I don't want it to be in full screen. I never use media player in full screen. Is there a way to do that?

What is the purpose of sandboxing those apps?

I see how this could be convenient but I'm not sure how I feel about MS having info about my machines.

Thanks for the info

 

[heatlesssun]

I want to use media player but I don't want it to be in full screen. I never use media player in full screen. Is there a way to do that?

What is the purpose of sandboxing those apps?

I see how this could be convenient but I'm not sure how I feel about MS having info about my machines.

Thanks for the info

When you say media player do you mean Windows Media Player or the Metro media player? Metro apps only run two ways, full screen or snapped to the side, there's no way to window them.

The sandboxing is for security purposes. One of the goals of Metro was to prevent Metro apps from being susceptible to the same malware that desktop apps are, and to also prevent Metro apps themselves from being malware. That sandboxing also is part of the reason why Metro apps can't be windowed as Microsoft says that breaks the sandbox. I know its not a popular decision but there are reasons why things work the way they do and I'm jut conveying what I know.

And yeah, I understand the issue with cloud services for some. Again, just explaining the option, I find it convenient enough to use the Microsoft account.