How to view four apps at once in Windows 8.1

One of the headline features of the Windows 8.1 update is the ability to run four apps at once side by side. This is how to get it working:

(1) open four different apps from the start screen
(2) open the desktop
(3) move cursor to top left of the screen
(4) click and drag the little preview screen that appears and place the first app next to the desktop (it should move aside)
(5) repeat (4) twice being careful to drop apps next to and not on top of others

Once you've done this you can resize using bars and push other apps off the screen by dragging bars to the right.

If you want to choose exactly which app you want to open (or you have more than four open) you can repeat step (3) and take the cursor to the top of the screen then drag to the right then back to the left to see the apps that are running but not displayed in a Start bar.

If you want to return from the Start screen or a single Desktop view or any other app to this multi-app view go to the top left of the screen with your cursor and click on the preview.

Additional thoughts

It takes a little bit of time to learn how to make things work in the way you want with the dragging, and the arrangement into columns feels restrictive compared to the free positioning of desktop apps. I was also expecting when I first heard about the feature to be able to have four square boxes (or rectangles) on the screen. At first glance columns seem less intuitive and less practical because most apps are designed primarily for the landscape orientation of screens and tablets, but only time will tell how productive or how useful this setup is. I suspect three app working is more comfortable than four and that four is only for when you really need it in this column layout. I see no reason, however, why the the screen couldn't be split horizontally as well as vertically, having perhaps two rows of three apps.

For details on restrictions and settings, see this article.

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