Where IE Metro and Desktop Meet… and Don’t
As we discussed previously in this chapter, it’s very easy to launch the desktop version of Internet Explorer from the Metro version: Just tap the Page tools button in the navigation bar, and then View on the desktop to load the currently displayed web page in the desktop version of the browser. You may want to do this when you run into a web page that won’t work in IE Metro, perhaps because it expects an add-on of some kind.
In such cases, you’ll see some content that isn’t displaying correctly, along with a message like that shown in Figure 7-30 indicating that the site would load properly only if you downloaded the appropriate add-on. This happens most frequently with Adobe Flash (though many such sites do work in IE Metro) and (irony alert) Microsoft Silverlight based sites.
Don’t be fooled by this. Yes, you can follow the supplied link and, yes, you can download and then install the appropriate add-on. (This will happen in the desktop environment, which is perhaps a clue to the futility of this action.) But when you do, the add-on is only installed in the desktop version of IE. When you return to IE Metro and reload the page, you’ll get the same message about needing to download the add-on.
Figure 7-30: When good sites go bad: Browser add-ons won’t run in IE Metro.
We wish IE Metro were a bit more sophisticated about this. But you’ll quickly learn, and remember, that IE Metro can’t work with add-ons. So you’ll have to do something different, like load that page in desktop IE and see if it just works. Chances are it will.
OK, so you know how to handle the situations where you’re in IE Metro and want (or need) to load a page from desktop IE. But what about launching IE Metro from desktop IE?
Unfortunately, there’s no direct way to open a page you’re viewing in IE for desktop in IE Metro. But if you really want to do this for some reason, the simplest way is to just copy the URL of the page, switch to IE Metro, and paste it into the IE Metro address bar. As always, keyboard shortcuts are your friend: Alt + D will select the One Box/address bar in either browser, and Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V can be used to copy and then paste, respectively.
IE 10 and Default Browser Selection
Before moving on from our look at web browsing and Windows 8, there’s a final, somewhat uncomfortable topic to discuss. And that’s what happens when you change the default web browser in Windows 8 to anything other than the Metro version of Internet Explorer. Trust us; this is going to get weird.
First, understand that in a clean, unchanged install of Windows 8, the Metro-style version of Internet Explorer 10 is indeed the default browser. This means that anytime a web browser is needed by the OS, another Metro-style app, or a desktop application, IE 10 Metro is invoked.
Likewise, in this default configuration, you will find an IE 10 Metro tile on the Windows 8 Start screen. What you won’t find, curiously, is an IE 10 desktop tile. And there is no way to add an IE 10 tile to the desktop when IE 10 Metro is the default. That’s just the way it is.
Unfortunately, Windows 8 is oftentimes not configured in this way. And of course, you can change things yourself. So let’s look at some of the scenarios in which IE 10 Metro is not the default browser, and see what happens.
If you’d rather use the desktop version of IE 10 as the default browser and not IE 10 Metro, you can do so by accessing Internet Options from within IE 10 desktop as described earlier in the chapter. Then navigate to the Programs tab and change the Choose how you open links option to Always in Internet Explorer in the desktop.
And if you want the desktop IE tile on the Start screen (and any pinned websites) to open desktop IE instead of IE Metro, also check the box titled Open Internet Explorer tiles on the desktop.
When you perform both of these steps, IE Metro, for all intents and purposes, is removed from your system. It’s not literally gone, of course; it’s just inaccessible. And it will remain so until you change those settings back.
Like previous Windows versions, Windows 8 allows you to install your choice of third-party browsers. But when you do so, things can change with IE 10, depending on how the other browsers are configured.
Specifically, if you configure a third-party browser—Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox for example—to be the default browser in Windows 8, the Metro version of Internet Explorer disappears.
The only way to return IE Metro is to make IE the default browser in Default Programs again.
You can see the change on the Start screen: The tile for IE has changed to a tile for desktop IE, not IE Metro.
If you upgrade a Windows 7–based PC to Windows 8, you may notice that the IE tile on the Start screen is for the desktop version of IE 10 and not for the Metro version as expected. This is for the same reason as stated earlier, and you had configured a different browser as the default browser before upgrading. So Windows 8 hides IE 10 Metro. Again, to return IE as the default, you will need to access the Default Programs interface.
Summary
If ever there were a poster child for the dual—one might say dueling—nature of the Windows 8 user experiences, it’s Internet Explorer 10. As with the OS on which it runs, Internet Explorer 10 offers two separate but complementary user experiences: a standard Windows application that runs in the desktop environment and a touch-first, Metro-style app.
The Metro-style version of Internet Explorer 10 works best on tablets and other touch-based devices, offering all of the gesture support you’d expect combined with the best features of the desktop browser.
For users on traditional PCs, or those who prefer the more full-featured desktop versions, Internet Explorer 10 builds on the improvements of previous IE versions, offering better performance, better web standards support, and, of course, some great integration with the Metro browser.
The strangest part of this dual browser experience, perhaps, is understanding how each of these products works with the other and, more confusingly, with third-party browsers. Here, the dual nature of Internet Explorer becomes more confusing than complementary. But with a little bit of understanding, you’ll be able to configure your PC to work with the browser or browsers you prefer.
• Understanding the relationship between your Microsoft account and key Windows 8 productivity apps
• Using People to manage contacts
• Using Mail to manage e-mail
