One of the changes that Win 8 brings is an attempt to make the menu area less cluttered.  The way this is achieved  is to only show those menu options that are likely to be needed. Let me demonstrate what I mean with an example.

I wanted to adjust the search indexing on my new laptop running Win 8 – a very important area to control if you want to find your work quickly and easily. If you go to Internet explorer – there is the search option as you would expect, but no way to set the controls…..

But now click in the search box and suddenly the new Search Tools menu with all its features appears

On the whole this might work well, but it is a change in the way you need to think when exploring the new PC environment, and it can be very frustrating until you realise what is going on.

Another example that caught me out.  I like playing Spider Solitaire and for those of you unfamiliar with it I should explain that there are varying level and versions ie it can be played with a single suit, 2 suits and 4 suits. The game is beautifully recreated as part of the Microsoft Solitaire games pack, but I couldn’t find out how to set the suit options. A careful reading of the written instructions told me that F5 opened the Option window.  What it didn’t tell me was that the options offered where different depending on context; so F5 when in the help area did not include the suit changing feature, but F5 in the game area was context specific and did include the suit changing option with a single click.

This can be deeply frustrating, so I offer this blog as a helping hand to anybody trying to get to grips with Win 8 for the first time. Be aware that lots of option may be hidden from immediate view and will only appear when you have clicked on the relevant feature.