All the time it takes for the full screen metro UI to animate into and out of view, is time I could be searching for something.
2. Start typing the name of the app you want
3. Press return
4. It opens
Same exact flow as Windows 7. Typing while on the Start Screen will perform an app search.
(1) mouse-over to the bottom left of the taskbar (same place as before) and in place of a fixed icon (start ‘orb’) a small image of your start screen will pop-up which you can click to open the start screen
(2) from there just start typing (as before) and it will automatically change the layout showing you results for apps. by default the first app in results is selected so you can just press enter to launch it or navigate to others via keyboard/mouse (same as before). that’s it.
you can, of course, still just hit the windows keyboard button and start typing as well which i find faster. there are also now additional keyboard shortcuts that let you quickly search for specific items (win + q/f/w allow you to narrow search between apps/files/settings respectively)
pro tip: if you right-click in the same space (bottom left of taskbar) a menu comes-up with more power-user specific commands (run, command prompt, admin tools, etc...)