The new HP W8.1 PC

This new HP LT has 12G RAM and a 1TB HD. W8.1 came with it. I installed
ClassicShell because the Tiles were unbearable.

What is that blue oblong in the middle of the desktop? I can make it larger
or smaller but can't get rid of it. What is it for? It's annoying as hell.
It's in every window.

I remember to start a new thread for each question.

R.H. Breener wrote:
This new HP LT has 12G RAM and a 1TB HD. W8.1 came with it. I
installed ClassicShell because the Tiles were unbearable.

What is that blue oblong in the middle of the desktop? I can make it
larger or smaller but can't get rid of it. What is it for? It's
annoying as hell. It's in every window.

I remember to start a new thread for each question.

That could be "Narrator" program at work. It's an
Ease Of Access thing, for people with disabilities.

http://www.microsoft.com/enable/imag...8-Narrator.jpg

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials...ows-8-1-a.html

Seems to be a bit pestilent.

http://superuser.com/questions/47341...y-in-windows-8

I'm not a big hot-key guy, and maybe that's why I
haven't managed to trigger it. Some people manage
to memorize a 100 key sequences (just like the
EMACs crowd used to), but that's not me. I'd
forget them by tomorrow.

Paul

"Paul" wrote in message
...
R.H. Breener wrote:
This new HP LT has 12G RAM and a 1TB HD. W8.1 came with it. I installed
ClassicShell because the Tiles were unbearable.

What is that blue oblong in the middle of the desktop? I can make it
larger or smaller but can't get rid of it. What is it for? It's annoying
as hell. It's in every window.

I remember to start a new thread for each question.

That could be "Narrator" program at work. It's an
Ease Of Access thing, for people with disabilities.

http://www.microsoft.com/enable/imag...8-Narrator.jpg

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials...ows-8-1-a.html

I see nothing there explaining how to get rid of it. How do I get rid of
that blue square? Nothing is checked in Ease of Access Center but the square
is still all over the place.



Seems to be a bit pestilent.

http://superuser.com/questions/47341...y-in-windows-8

I have not tried it personally but here's what I found.

It says to do this:

Navigate to %systemroot%\System32
In this folder a file called Narrator.exe is to be found
Right click the file and choose Properties
Choose the Security tab and press Advanced
In the top of the window press Change to change the Owner permissions
In the text field write your username and press OK to all the dialogs

1. Typing my User name in the window don't work. It says my username can't
be found. So that wont work.

2. What does "enter the object name to select" mean? At the top is says
"Select user or Group." Clicking on Examples took me to a website written
for Technicians. I don't know the technical terminology so the website was
useless. How do I get past this since it wont take my name and I have no
idea what a group or object is.


I'm not a big hot-key guy, and maybe that's why I
haven't managed to trigger it. Some people manage
to memorize a 100 key sequences (just like the
EMACs crowd used to), but that's not me. I'd
forget them by tomorrow.

I just want those infuriating blue boxes off all the windows.


Paul

R.H. Breener wrote:

"Paul" wrote in message
...
R.H. Breener wrote:
This new HP LT has 12G RAM and a 1TB HD. W8.1 came with it. I
installed ClassicShell because the Tiles were unbearable.

What is that blue oblong in the middle of the desktop? I can make it
larger or smaller but can't get rid of it. What is it for? It's
annoying as hell. It's in every window.

I remember to start a new thread for each question.

That could be "Narrator" program at work. It's an
Ease Of Access thing, for people with disabilities.

http://www.microsoft.com/enable/imag...8-Narrator.jpg

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials...ows-8-1-a.html


I see nothing there explaining how to get rid of it. How do I get rid
of that blue square? Nothing is checked in Ease of Access Center but the
square is still all over the place.



Seems to be a bit pestilent.

http://superuser.com/questions/47341...y-in-windows-8


I have not tried it personally but here's what I found.

It says to do this:

Navigate to %systemroot%\System32
In this folder a file called Narrator.exe is to be found
Right click the file and choose Properties
Choose the Security tab and press Advanced
In the top of the window press Change to change the Owner permissions
In the text field write your username and press OK to all the dialogs

1. Typing my User name in the window don't work. It says my username
can't be found. So that wont work.

2. What does "enter the object name to select" mean? At the top is says
"Select user or Group." Clicking on Examples took me to a website
written for Technicians. I don't know the technical terminology so the
website was useless. How do I get past this since it wont take my name
and I have no idea what a group or object is.


I'm not a big hot-key guy, and maybe that's why I
haven't managed to trigger it. Some people manage
to memorize a 100 key sequences (just like the
EMACs crowd used to), but that's not me. I'd
forget them by tomorrow.

I just want those infuriating blue boxes off all the windows.

Click Start.

Now you get to enter text.

Type in "Narrator" without the double-quotes.

You will see two entries. Select the second
one down, which should be a daisy-like icon (indicating
it is a Metro program) and have the word Narrator
in the string.

The Metro tile that opens, should have a slide
switch at the top, which turns Narrator on and
off.

If your sound volume was turned up, you would
have heard a steady dribble of computer synthesized
voice output.

Once Narrator top slide switch is set to OFF,
use the "X" in the upper left corner to dismiss
the Metro tile.

Your laptop could have 8.0 or 8.1. If you're running
8.1, the Metro tile has a "X" in the upper right
hand corner. If you have 8.0, try Alt-F4 to escape.

*******

Narrator talks to you, when it is enabled.

The Ease Of Access Center, will also talk to you,
and especially if Narrator is switched on.

This is intended to help blind people (maybe).
Or annoy blind people, as the case may be.

Paul

"Paul" wrote in message
...
R.H. Breener wrote:

"Paul" wrote in message
...
R.H. Breener wrote:
This new HP LT has 12G RAM and a 1TB HD. W8.1 came with it. I
installed ClassicShell because the Tiles were unbearable.

What is that blue oblong in the middle of the desktop? I can make it
larger or smaller but can't get rid of it. What is it for? It's
annoying as hell. It's in every window.

I remember to start a new thread for each question.

That could be "Narrator" program at work. It's an
Ease Of Access thing, for people with disabilities.

http://www.microsoft.com/enable/imag...8-Narrator.jpg

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials...ows-8-1-a.html

I see nothing there explaining how to get rid of it. How do I get rid of
that blue square? Nothing is checked in Ease of Access Center but the
square is still all over the place.



Seems to be a bit pestilent.

http://superuser.com/questions/47341...y-in-windows-8

I have not tried it personally but here's what I found.

It says to do this:

Navigate to %systemroot%\System32
In this folder a file called Narrator.exe is to be found
Right click the file and choose Properties
Choose the Security tab and press Advanced
In the top of the window press Change to change the Owner permissions
In the text field write your username and press OK to all the dialogs

1. Typing my User name in the window don't work. It says my username
can't be found. So that wont work.

2. What does "enter the object name to select" mean? At the top is says
"Select user or Group." Clicking on Examples took me to a website
written for Technicians. I don't know the technical terminology so the
website was useless. How do I get past this since it wont take my name
and I have no idea what a group or object is.


I'm not a big hot-key guy, and maybe that's why I
haven't managed to trigger it. Some people manage
to memorize a 100 key sequences (just like the
EMACs crowd used to), but that's not me. I'd
forget them by tomorrow.

I just want those infuriating blue boxes off all the windows.

Click Start.

Now you get to enter text.

Type in "Narrator" without the double-quotes.

You will see two entries. Select the second
one down, which should be a daisy-like icon (indicating
it is a Metro program) and have the word Narrator
in the string.

Nothing happened after I clicked on it. I had to find it with Agent
Ransack. MS no longer provides a useful search feature. There's an error
that "The app failed to start because it's side by side configuration is
incorrect." Brand new PC and something was not installed correctly.

Brevity snip.

In message , Paul writes
The Ease Of Access Center, will also talk to you,
and especially if Narrator is switched on.

This is intended to help blind people (maybe).
Or annoy blind people, as the case may be.

FWIW, because I had serious problems with this with my W8.1 tablet ( I
was holding it in a way that meant I was pressing a volume button as I
pressed the On button), I thought I would try it again.

What a mess it is. I couldn't now reproduce the original effect. I don't
know why - maybe an update has altered something. But see below!

I then went through ease of access to find the narrator tick box and
ticked it.
It made the blue box and talked to me.
I closed down the machine and restarted. Same Narrator operation.

Tried to set machine back to Narrator off. Tried to untick box. Found
the double click action didn't work anywhere, although it seemed to
understand that I had single clicked or triple clicked.

Shut down. Restarted. Unticked box with double click. Shut down and
powered up again. Still a blue box.

Went back through the process. Shut down and re-switched on. Now gone
and back to normal.

Then thought that I should have been full Restarting rather than
shutting down and powering up again.

Now I have just remembered that the original Narrator problem that I had
when I first got the machine was that I couldn't sign in, and that
Narrator was working before the machine logged on. Setting it within
W8.1 doesn't do this, so there must be differences when using the key
combinations to activate from a full restart versus using the key
combinations from a shut Down restart.

Sorry about the confusing ramble, but there might be a clue in here
somewhere. I think if I were blind, I'd have thrown the thing out of the
window by now.

--
Bill

"Bill" wrote in message
...

Sorry about the confusing ramble, but there might be a clue in here
somewhere. I think if I were blind, I'd have thrown the thing out of the
window by now.

I can't use this LT with the blue thing blocking text, always there, moving
from one place to another and nothing getting rid of it. This is a new LT
and Narrator doesn't work. Even if it did work I doubt it would help get
rid of these blue rectangles and squares. Googles shows this is a common
and well known problem with W-8 and nothing is done about it.

On 3/3/2015 5:21 AM, R.H. Breener wrote:
This new HP LT has 12G RAM and a 1TB HD. W8.1 came with it. I
installed ClassicShell because the Tiles were unbearable.

If you use the native Window 8.1 equivalent of the Start menu, it may
resolve some of your problems. The Windows 8.1 Start menu is the MS
Icon on the left of the Desktop Toolbar. With this right click you can
access System, Control Panel, Network, and Disk management tools.

First make you computer boot to the desktop instead of the Metro/Modern
menu.

Go to the Desktop (Item in the Metro Start Icons) and right click in the
Desktop Toolbar. Select Properties, and in the Navigation Tab check
"When I sign in or close all apps .......... ". This will make you
computer boot directly to the Desktop.

To get the list of recently used programs, on the Desktop, Properties
Jumplist tab, make sure the "Store and display recently opened items
.............." Click "Store Recently opened programs" if you like.
With this checked a right click on the program icon in the desktop start
menu will bring up a list of files recently opened by that program.

In message , R.H. Breener
writes

"Bill" wrote in message
...

Sorry about the confusing ramble, but there might be a clue in here
somewhere. I think if I were blind, I'd have thrown the thing out of
the window by now.

I can't use this LT with the blue thing blocking text, always there,
moving from one place to another and nothing getting rid of it. This
is a new LT and Narrator doesn't work. Even if it did work I doubt it
would help get rid of these blue rectangles and squares. Googles shows
this is a common and well known problem with W-8 and nothing is done
about it.

Have you actually tried

Go to Control Panel - Ease of Access - Ease of Access Center -
Explore all Settings - Use the computer without a display. Uncheck the
checkbox by Turn on Narrator and click Apply and OK.

Then restart the machine (NOT close down and then press the on button).

If this doesn't work, it would help to know the model of the machine and
whether it is running 8 or 8.1.
--
Bill

"Bill" wrote in message
...
In message , R.H. Breener
writes

"Bill" wrote in message
...

Sorry about the confusing ramble, but there might be a clue in here
somewhere. I think if I were blind, I'd have thrown the thing out of the
window by now.

I can't use this LT with the blue thing blocking text, always there,
moving from one place to another and nothing getting rid of it. This is a
new LT and Narrator doesn't work. Even if it did work I doubt it would
help get rid of these blue rectangles and squares. Googles shows this is
a common and well known problem with W-8 and nothing is done about it.

Have you actually tried

Go to Control Panel - Ease of Access - Ease of Access Center - Explore
all Settings - Use the computer without a display. Uncheck the checkbox
by Turn on Narrator and click Apply and OK.

They were UNCHECKED by default.


Then restart the machine (NOT close down and then press the on button).

If this doesn't work, it would help to know the model of the machine and
whether it is running 8 or 8.1.

It's running 8.1 which was already installed by HP.

--
Bill

"Keith Nuttle" wrote in message
...
On 3/3/2015 5:21 AM, R.H. Breener wrote:
This new HP LT has 12G RAM and a 1TB HD. W8.1 came with it. I
installed ClassicShell because the Tiles were unbearable.

If you use the native Window 8.1 equivalent of the Start menu, it may
resolve some of your problems.

I do use the equivalient of it. It's a blue scallop shell. Nothing has
gotten rid of the blue triangles and squares.

The Windows 8.1 Start menu is the MS
Icon on the left of the Desktop Toolbar. With this right click you can
access System, Control Panel, Network, and Disk management tools.

Ok.
..

First make you computer boot to the desktop instead of the Metro/Modern
menu.

Go to the Desktop (Item in the Metro Start Icons) and right click in the
Desktop Toolbar.
Select Properties, and in the Navigation Tab check
"When I sign in or close all apps .......... ". This will make you
computer boot directly to the Desktop.

OK.



To get the list of recently used programs, on the Desktop, Properties
Jumplist tab, make sure the "Store and display recently opened items
............." Click "Store Recently opened programs" if you like.
With this checked a right click on the program icon in the desktop start
menu will bring up a list of files recently opened by that program.


They were clicked by default.

"Keith Nuttle" wrote in message
...
On 3/3/2015 5:21 AM, R.H. Breener wrote:
This new HP LT has 12G RAM and a 1TB HD. W8.1 came with it. I
installed ClassicShell because the Tiles were unbearable.

If you use the native Window 8.1 equivalent of the Start menu, it may
resolve some of your problems. The Windows 8.1 Start menu is the MS Icon
on the left of the Desktop Toolbar. With this right click you can access
System, Control Panel, Network, and Disk management tools.

First make you computer boot to the desktop instead of the Metro/Modern
menu.

Go to the Desktop (Item in the Metro Start Icons) and right click in the
Desktop Toolbar. Select Properties, and in the Navigation Tab check
"When I sign in or close all apps .......... ". This will make you
computer boot directly to the Desktop.

To get the list of recently used programs, on the Desktop, Properties
Jumplist tab, make sure the "Store and display recently opened items
............." Click "Store Recently opened programs" if you like.
With this checked a right click on the program icon in the desktop start
menu will bring up a list of files recently opened by that program.

I did that and rebooted and now I lost ClassicShell. I'm stuck with a window
full of tiles and no way to get Classic Shell back. If I click on the bottom
bar there are no Properties. It just says NameGroups. I have no idea what
that means.

How do I undo that now? There is no start button on the bottom left. Now
what?

On 3/3/2015 9:32 AM, R.H. Breener wrote:
tuck with a window full of tiles and no way to get Classic Shell back.
If I click on the bottom bar there are no Properties. It just says
NameGroups. I have no idea what that means.
Have you opened the desktop.

Have you tried to uninstall the clasic start.

It would appear the the Clasic Start is interfering with the normal
Windows *8.1 system.

"Keith Nuttle" wrote in message
...
On 3/3/2015 9:32 AM, R.H. Breener wrote:
tuck with a window full of tiles and no way to get Classic Shell back.
If I click on the bottom bar there are no Properties. It just says
NameGroups. I have no idea what that means.

Have you opened the desktop.

How do I open the desktop?


Have you tried to uninstall the clasic start.

No. I didn't ininstall anything.


It would appear the the Clasic Start is interfering with the normal
Windows *8.1 system.

How can I get it back and get rid of these useless tiles?

In message , R.H. Breener
writes
There is nothing but tiles all over the desktop. I can't get past them.
I can't do anything but move them around.

If you move the cursor to the bottom of the screen, do you see a down
arrow in a little circle. If you do , click it and it should open the
official Win8.1 start menu.

This should give you a list of programs. This may give you desktop under
D.


--
Bill