If you’re interested in opining on the quality of an app—for better or worse—you can write a review of your own. Reviews have a few components: a rating, which can go from 1 to 5 stars, a title, and then the review itself.
You will need to have first installed the app for the Write a review link to appear. Obviously.
To write a review from within Windows Store, visit the app’s landing page and click the Write a review link you’ll see in the colored pane on the left side of the Overview view. In the next screen, shown in Figure 6-29, you’re provided with stars for the rating and fields for a title and the review body.
Figure 6-29: Windows Store app review form
Once you’ve written a review, the Write a review link on the app’s landing page will change to Update your review.
Note that you are accountable for the reviews you write: The name and picture associated with your Microsoft account will accompany the review, for all the world to see. But with awesome responsibility comes awesome power: Your rating will impact the overall rating of the app, and your review is now open to the plaudits —or criticisms—of your fellow Windows 8 users.
Uninstalling Apps
If you’re familiar with the horrific and unreliable method for uninstalling traditional Windows desktop-based applications, which in many cases does nothing to remove spurious files and registry entries, you’ll be delighted to discover that uninstalling a Metro-style app is simplicity itself. Most surprisingly, perhaps, you uninstall these apps from the Start screen.
To uninstall an app, navigate to the Start screen and locate the tile for that app. If it’s not present, you can use the Windows 8 All Apps list, or Start search to locate the app. Here’s how:
• All Apps: From the Start screen, open the app bar. This can be done by swiping in from the top or bottom edge of the screen, by pressing Winkey + Z, or by right-clicking an empty area of the Start screen with the mouse. Then, select All apps from the app bar and locate the app you want to remove from the list.
• Start Search: From the Start screen, open the app search experience. This can be done by swiping in from the right edge of the screen and choosing Search from the Charms bar. (Alternatively, press Winkey + Q, or activate the Charms bar and choose Search with the mouse.) From this interface, type the name of the app you wish to uninstall until it becomes obvious in the filtered app list.
Whichever method you’re using—the Start screen, All Apps, or Start Search—to uninstall an app you must select it first. This is done on a touch interface by tapping and holding and then dragging down until a selection border appears (Start screen tile) or the app tile is color-selected (All Apps, Start Search), and the app bar appears. With a mouse, simply right-click the tile. Keyboard selection is a bit trickier and less common, but you can use the arrows keys to highlight the correct tile or app, and then press Ctrl + Space to select it.
Figure 6-30 shows what a selected Start screen tile looks like.
Figure 6-30: A selected tile on the Start screen
Wherever you make this selection—from the Start screen, All apps view, or from Search, you will see an Uninstall choice in the app bar. To uninstall the app, simply select this button. As you can see in Figure 6-31, you will be prompted with a pop-up window and informed that Metro-style app uninstall is a complete wipe: not just the app but its data is removed from the PC.
Figure 6-31: Are you sure you want to uninstall that app?
Configuring Accounts and Preferences
To do this, move the mouse cursor to the upper- or lower-right corner of the screen and then move the cursor along the right edge of the screen toward the center. It’s a bit more natural to perform than it is to describe.
Like other Metro-style apps, Windows Store provides a simple Settings interface, and it is through this interface that you can access your account settings and other store-related preferences. Likewise, accessing this interface occurs as it does in other Metro experiences, through the Settings pane. You can access this pane from within Windows Store by typing Winkey + I, by swiping in from the right edge of the screen, or by using the mouse to enable the Charms bar and then choosing Settings.
The Windows Store settings pane is shown in Figure 6-32.
Figure 6-32: Windows Store settings
Click App updates to manually check for app updates.
While the Preferences option may seem to be the most relevant, it leads to a screen with only two configurable choices—Make it easier to find apps in my preferred languages (which is enabled by default) and Make it easier to find apps that include accessibility features (which is not). Instead, click Your account. When you do, you’ll see a full-screen interface like that in Figure 6-33.
Figure 6-33: Your account
From here, you can configure some useful settings related to Windows Store. These include the following:
• Your store account: You can sign out of your current account and use a different account for store activities.
• Payment and billing information: Windows Store uses the credit card information that is registered with your Microsoft account for purchases by default, so this option is generally set to No. However, if you’d prefer to manually sign in to your Microsoft account every time a purchase is made for security reasons, you can make that change here.
• Your registered PCs (and devices): When you install any app (paid, free, trial) on a PC or device, it is added to the list of 5 PCs/devices to which you can install apps. These apps, of course, and the 5 PCs/devices list, are tied to your Microsoft account. Via this interface, you can remove a PC/device from the list of your registered PCs and devices, as shown in Figure 6-34. Doing so will prevent those apps from running on the deselected PC/device going forward.
Figure 6-34: Removing a PC from your list of registered PCs and devices
Summary
