How to find the apps you want quickly and easily!

When you open the Windows 8 store, you’re presented with a screen showing spotlighted apps, top free, and new releases.  From there, you scroll over and see various categories of apps.  But when you’re looking for something specific, you don’t want to scroll through categories or pages of apps.  Yet there’s no obvious search button on the screen…

There are two ways to do a  Windows 8 Store search in order to find the apps you want.  Both of these methods work for searching for ANYTHING in Windows 8.  We briefly how to search for an app in an earlier post, but in case you’re new to our nerdy little site, you can search by typing or by using the charms bar.  For both methods, first open up the store (the live tile shown at the left.)

The first method, while in the store, is to just start typing for what you’re looking for.  A column will appear on the right side of your screen, showing what you’re typing.  You may notice that the “store” icon, about halfway down the column on my computer, is highlighted.  This lets you know that you’re performing a Windows 8 Store search, and not searching within your computer or a different app.

The second method is to pull out the charms bar and click on the search icon.  This is the top icon (the classic detective eyeglass.)  Clicking on the search charm will bring out the same column, and you can begin typing.

In either case,  once you finish typing and hit enter, a list of suggested apps in the Windows 8 store will appear.  In our example, we searched for Angry Birds, which isn’t a Windows 8 app.  Yet.  Mattering on how specific you were, there may be one app or many.  You can sort your results by category, price (especially helpful if you’re just looking for free ones,) or relevance to your search.  Click on the one you want in order to learn about the app and install it.

That’s it!  If you then want to look for a second app, just clear your typing out of the search box, and search again.  There are many apps out there, and hundreds more being added.  Good luck finding the perfect app!