Managing Windows Server 2012 : Server 2012's Interface (part 2) - Accessing and Running Management Tools, Customizing the Interface

The desktop can be customized in very much the same way as in Server 2008 R2 or any other recent Windows operating systems. Right-click any empty space on the desktop to pull up a submenu from which you select “Screen resolution.”

From the Screen Resolution window (shown in Figure 7), you can adjust the display settings. Clicking the “Make text and other items larger or smaller” link brings up the Display window (Figure 8).

Figure 7. Screen resolution

If you have ever tweaked the display settings in Windows, this screen will be familiar. You can change the desktop background, window colors, the screen saver, and more to customize the desktop. One desktop option you don’t have in Server 2012 is the Aero theme. You can give Server 2012’s desktop more of a Windows 8–style look by installing the Desktop Experience feature. To do so, from Server Manager’s “Add Roles and Features” wizard, select the checkbox next to Desktop Experience underneath the “User Interfaces and Infrastructure” feature.

You can place apps from the full Start menu onto the desktop by adding them as shortcuts. For example, if you want to add a shortcut to Control Panel, you can right-click anywhere on the desktop, click New, and then click Shortcut. In the Create Shortcut window you then simply type Control Panel, but you could also choose to browse to the program’s location by clicking Browse. You then click Next, name your shortcut Control Panel, and then click Finish. You now have a shortcut to Control Panel on the desktop.

Figure 8. Display window

You can also pin apps to the taskbar. Switch into the Start menu view and open “All apps.” Right-click the app you want to pin, and the tile gets highlighted with a checkmark. At the bottom of the screen, several clickable options appear once a tile is checked: “Pin to Start,” “Pin to taskbar,” “Open new window,” “Run as administrator,” and “Open file location.” Clicking “Pin to taskbar” places the tile’s associated program as a shortcut on the taskbar on the desktop. In Figure 9, the Performance Monitor tile is checked.

In Figure 10, the Performance Monitor shortcut is pinned to the taskbar. There isn’t a set limit on the number of shortcuts you can pin to the taskbar. When the number of items pinned exceeds the length of the taskbar, up and down arrows are shown at the far right of the taskbar. These arrows allow you to scroll through all the pinned items. Pinning too many items causes the taskbar to get crowded, however. Scrolling through many shortcuts defeats the purpose of quickly accessing and opening an app, so reserve pinning for apps you use frequently.

Unpin the shortcut by right-clicking it from the taskbar and selecting “Unpin this program from taskbar.”

When an app is pinned to the taskbar in desktop view, its tile remains in the full Start menu. You can also unpin shortcuts from the taskbar from the Start menu.

Figure 9. Checked Performance Monitor tile

Figure 10. Performance Monitor shortcut pinned to the taskbar

The Start menu view is also customizable. Although by default the Start menu has only seven tiles, you can add more. To add another app tile to the Start menu, right-click anywhere on the screen in the Start menu view to pull up “All apps.”

Adding tiles follows the same steps as pinning items to the taskbar. Right-click the app to check it and select “Pin to Start” from the bottom menu that appears.

You can also choose to hide administrative tools, which is useful if you manage the server remotely and don’t want anyone accessing them on the local machine. To do so, bring up the Charms menu. Click Settings. In the resulting window, click Settings again. To hide the tools, toggle to No under the “Show administrative tools” option. (See Figure 11.)

Figure 11. Show or hide administrative tools