Windows 8 introduces the new Metro user interface and Metro apps. Metro apps built for Windows 8 are simply beautiful, immersive, and intuitive. The all new Metro UI and Metro apps make Windows 8 simply beautiful . The beauty of these Metro apps is that they work on x86, x64, and ARM platforms.
When you are connected to the internet, Metro apps come alive and show you the latest content so that you can stay up to date at a glance without actually opening the app.
Windows 8 includes a number of Metro apps such as Alarm, Flash Cards, Sudoku, Feeds, Twitter, Weather and Stocks apps. One can also download more Metro apps from the Windows Applications Store.
By now, you probably have played with native Metro apps and the Start screen. As we have already mentioned, these apps are rich and beautiful. But what if you want to customize and change the look of these apps?
In this article, we will guide you how to customize Metro apps UI in Windows 8.
Step 1: Click on the Desktop tile on the Start screen to switch to the Desktop mode.
Step 2: Launch Windows explorer and navigate to C:\Program Files folder. Now you need to enable Show hidden files and folders option. To do this, click on View and then check Hidden items to view all hidden files and folders.
Step 3: Now, look for a folder named Applications in C:\Program Files. The Applications folder can’t be opened without the permission. When you try to open the folder, you get “You have been denied permission to access this folder” error.
So, you need to take the ownership of this folder to able to open it. Follow our how to take ownership of files and folder in Windows 8 guide to add Take Ownership option to the right-click menu.
Once done, right-click on Applications folder and click Take Ownership of the folder.
Step 4: Once you have the ownership of the Applications folder, double-click on the folder to open it. Here, you will see all installed Metro apps on your Windows 8 PC. Double-click on a folder to view all data related to a app.
Step 5: Here, you can edit the images of the Metro app, modify the CSS file, and other files to customize the Metro app to your liking. Don’t forget to create a backup of all files and folders before editing Metro apps.
For example, you can edit the files of Alarm app to change the app background.
deepak says
can you tell me how to change the name of “socialite (windows 8 developer preview)” to jus “socialite” so that i can add it in facebook app password settings and make it work!!!
Hun Boon Teo says
One additional interesting observation is that after you run explorer.exe with Administrative privilege, you will notice that you can’t run any of the metro application by clicking the tile if it is currently not run in the system. So either this is a bug or a deliberate check by explorer that once it has Admin. privilege, it will not run any of the metro app.
Hun Boon Teo says
Instead of taking ownership of the file.
You can do the following:
1. Open an administrative command prompt.
2. taskkill /f /fi “imagename eq explorer.exe” && explorer
This kills explorer and re-run it with Admin privilege.
If you kill the explorer.exe, you will notice that the Metro UI is gone because it is presented by explorer.exe