Windows 8.1 Pro Preview build 9374 makes it easier to customize apps on your Start Screen

Ron

Windows 8.1 Live Tile

With the recent leak of Windows 8.1 Pro Preview build 9374, we got to play with the upcoming update to Windows 8. The leaked build featured a few new features that were not seen in other leaked builds. One of the new features is the dimming of app tiles when you customize the Start Screen.

As you can see from the screenshot above, users will see all apps dimmed when they press the customize button on the Start Screen. In the past, users would simply see a checkmark on the app they right-clicked on. Microsoft has evolved this feature to make it a little bit easier to do all your Start Screen customizing.

In this leaked build, as soon as you right-click on the Start Screen, you can select a button called “Customize” from the app bar. Once you select this button, the entire Start Screen will dim, allowing users to easily select which app they want to customize. A selected app will no longer be dimmed, which is great because you can easily differentiate what app you are working on and what apps are dimmed.

You can also easily edit the name group of your app tiles, as well as adjust the tile sizes to your desired specs (either large, standard, wide, or small).

This feature is present in the leaked build of 9374 and hopefully it makes it to the final build. Microsoft is known to add features in certain builds and then remove them in subsequent builds. Do you like this feature?

You can check out a video walk through of the leaked build. In this build, we get our first glimpse of Kiosk mode too!