Move, Rearrange and Change Tile Size in Windows 8

Getting used to the new Start Screen in Windows 8? It’s basically composed of a bunch of tiles that are either static or “live” tiles, which means they are updated in real-time with various types of data. I kind of like the new tile interface, but I hope Microsoft allows more customization of the Start Screen by the time Windows 8 is released.
There are a couple of things you can do to customize the look and feel of the Start Screen such as moving tiles, rearranging tiles and changing the size of the tiles. In this article, I’ll show you what you can adjust and how to do it.

Move & Rearrange Tiles in Windows 8

Moving tiles in Windows 8 is pretty straight-forward. Just click or hold your finger over the tile and drag it to a new position. Note that there are tile groups and you can drag and drop tiles between different groups.

If you drag the tile within the same group, it will just just rearrange the other tiles by pushing them down. You can create as many groups as you like by just dragging a tile to the far right where there are currently no tiles.

Rearranging Tile Groups in Windows 8

Now that you have tile groups, it would be nice if you could move them around. For example, my setup currently looks like this:

However, if I just press the CTRL key and then swipe up on the trackpad/screen or zoom out with my mouse wheel, everything will shrink and then you can drag and move the entire group of tiles.

Now the start screen looks like this with the two column tile group moved over to the right:

Change Tile Size in Windows 8

Lastly, you can change the size of some tiles, not all. If a tile is big, which usually means it’s width is double that of a small tile, then you can right-click on it and choose Smaller in the options that pop up in the bar at the bottom of the screen.

And, of course, vice versa will also be there, so if you right-click on certain small tiles, you’ll see an option to make it larger. Not all small tiles can be made larger though. Also, the sizes are fixed, you can drag the corners of a tile and adjust it’s size manually. This may change in the future, but that’s the way it is now.
Also, you currently can’t change the color of individual tiles on the start screen. Changing the tile color in Windows 8 is a feature that I’m really hoping comes out with the final release. Everyone loves to customize their PCs and this will be no different. Enjoy!