Closing Windows 8 Apps

Closing ‘Apps’ (not traditional desktop applications, new Windows 8 style apps) can seem like a pain to most users, they never quite seem to go away, indeed this seems like a conscious decision by Microsoft as they don’t provide a close button, and would rather have us just minimise Apps to the background where they will always be accessible.

Of course, there are still plenty of ways that you can completely close an application if you really want to.

  1. Drag the App with your mouse (or finger) from the top of the screen to the bottom – as you drag the App will minimise into a thumbnail to start with, and then when you get to the bottom it will close and disappear.
  2. The old Alt+F4 trick from earlier versions of Windows still works on most Apps.
  3. If either of the above two options are too easy then you can always hit Ctrl+Alt+Del and go into the Task Manager and close your App from there.