Sunday, March 17, 2013

How to Pin to the Windows 8 Start Screen

How to Pin to the Windows 8 Start Screen

pin-to-8Windows 8 introduced a whole new concept by eliminating the traditional Start Menu and replacing it with the Start Screen. From there, you can open live tiles to access your favorite apps and programs. Windows 8 does not give users a way to create or pin live tiles on their own, so users must rely on third party programs to do it. WinAero’s Pin to 8 is a great solution for users looking to pin to the Windows 8 Start Screen.

Is it useful to pin your own tiles in Windows 8?

Pinning your own tiles in Windows 8 is one of the most useful and efficient ways to access just about anything you can imagine. With a utility like Pin to 8, you can pin tiles to open files, folders, programs, libraries and s pecial items. Since Windows does not offer this option on its own, if you find yourself going to great lengths to open things you use all the time, why not pin them to the Start screen for easier access?

How to use Pin to 8 to pin anything in Windows 8

1. Download Pin to 8 from here. Pin to 8 does not need to be installed, so you can start using it right after it finishes downloading.

2. Open Pin to 8.

using-pin-to-8

3. Click “Pin a File.”

pin-file

4. Select the file you want to pin to t he Windows 8 Start Screen. This can be any type of file on your computer.

5. Select whether you want to pin the file to your Start screen or the taskbar. Select “Pin to Start Screen” and click “OK.”

where-to-pin

Your pinned file will be available to open from the Start screen in Windows 8.

6. Head back to Pin to 8. Click “Pin a Folder.”

pin-folder

7. Choose any folder on your system you want to pin to the Start Screen.

8. Once again, choose “Pin to Start Screen” and click “OK.”

You now have pinned a folder to the Start Screen in Windows 8.

9 . Back in Pin to 8, click “Pin a Library.”

pin-a-library

10. Select a Library you want to pin to the Start screen and click “Pin.” You can choose any pre-created Library by Windows 8 or any you create yourself.

11. Choose “Pin to Start Screen” followed by “OK.”

Pin to 8 will pin that tile in the Windows 8 Start screen for you.

12. Once more, head back to the main screen for Pin to 8 and choose “Pin Special Item.”

pin-special-item

This is one of the biggest benefits of using Pin to 8. You can pin a variety of special items to the Start Screen, such as links from your Control Panel, Tasks and more. While you can access these by searching through the apps and settings, this makes it much quicker to open a special item you use often.

13. Choose a special item to pin and click “Pin.”

14. Click “Pin to Start Screen” and “OK” to create the pin on the Start screen. On the Start screen in Windows 8, you will see the tiles you pinned with Pin to 8.

pinned-items-on-start-screen

15. You can remove the pins at any time by right-clicking and selecting “Unpin.”

What’s the difference between Pin to 8 and something like OblyTile?

When we covered OblyTile, we showed users how to create liv e tiles from scratch.  While Pin to 8 only allows users the ability to pin a tile to the Start screen, it gives uses more functionality when pinning Libraries and Special Items.  OblyTile has issues creating live tiles for Libraries and Special Items, as it does not always link properly to those types of tiles.  OblyTile is updated infrequently and is prone to several issues that force users to re-create live tiles. Pin to 8, on the other hand, is a much newer utility from WinAero who has developed a handful of utilities to improve the look of Windows. Depending on the type of tile you want to create, OblyTile allows you to create from scratch whereas Win to 8 simply lets you pin items to the Start screen.

Let us know in the comments below what you pin to your Start Screen.

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