How to Find Computer Management and Administrative Tools in Windows 8

If you love Windows 7, transitioning to Windows 8 may be pretty darned annoying, at least initially. If you have finally reached a certain level of comfort in accessing all your programs and applications in previous versions, you may now find yourself having to relearn how things work in Windows 8. For instance, accessing the control panel, computer settings, or options to personalize the computer are not intuitive or convenient. That said, once you figure out where the options lie, and that’s not too hard to do, you’ll be on your way to working efficiently and productively as before. In this post, I’ll show you how to find computer management and administrative tools in Windows 8 from the Start screen, so that you don’t waste time searching for them.

Let’s first start with the Control Panel. Almost everyone using a PC has had to work in the Control Panel at one time or another. You can access the Control Panel settings in one of the below mentioned ways.

How to Find the Control Panel in Windows 8

If you are on the Start screen or on the desktop, move your mouse to the lower left of the screen until you see the Start screen thumbnail and right-click it.

A quicker way to achieve this is to simply use the keyboard shortcut Windows logo key + X.

You can also access the Control Panel settings from the Charms menu. On the desktop view, open the Charms menu; (hover the mouse pointer over the top right of the screen.) Click the Settings Charm and you’ll find the option.

How to Find Computer Management and Administrative Tools in Windows 8

To find the Computer Management and administrative tools in Windows 7, you would right-click the Computer icon and then select Manage. Now that the Start menu is no longer available, you can access administrative controls such as the Command Prompt, Run dialog, Task Manager, and Computer Management from the right-click context menu at the bottom left of the screen, or just use the shortcut key Windows logo key + X.

This menu can also be configured to your convenience, so if you want to add additional links to it, you can.

If you are someone who frequents the computer management and administrative tools often, why not add it to the Start Screen as a Live Tile. Here’s how you do it.

How to Add Administrative Tools as a Tile on Start Screen

1. On the Start screen, display the Charms menu.

2. Choose Settings.

3. Select Tiles.

4. In the Show Administrative Tools options, select Yes.

All the administrative tools in Windows 8 will now show up on the Start screen as individual tiles.

Hopefully, this Windows 8 tutorial was helpful to you in your transition.