You purchased your new Surface and there is a good chance that you already upgraded to Windows 8 as well. But now when you try to launch one of the new Windows Store apps like the Mail, Messaging and MetroTwit, they will not open. What’s happening? What do you do now? Well there are various things that could be happening and the solution will depend where are you using Windows 8. — Let me explain what I mean below.
If you are using the new operating system in a desktop or in a laptop, the first thing you have to make sure is that you meet the minimum resolution requirements, which is 1024×768 pixels to run Windows 8 apps, a resolution of 1366×768 pixels is best and it will allow you to run two apps at once in split mode. If your PC isn’t configured with this resolution or greater, you can easily fix this by going to the Windows Desktop, right-clicking and selecting the Screen Resolution option and configure the proper resolution.
Now, Surface with Windows RT has a default resolution of 1366×768 pixels, this means that what I have just explained above doesn’t apply to the device, in this case and if your system meets the minimum resolution requirements, there are a couple of things you can do. First, you may have started the app and now it is just hanging or unresponsive in the background, and it isn’t opening because it is already running. What you need to do here is to manually close the app and restart. There are various ways in which you can do this, you can check this previous article to learn four different ways in which you can close an app. But the best way to make sure that the app is really close is by using the Task Manager method.
Second, there could be a change that the app didn’t install correctly or there is something misbehaving, what you can do in this case is to uninstall the Windows 8 app and reinstall it. To do this, simply right-click the app to select it, click Uninstall and then confirm by clicking Uninstall again. Then go to the Windows Store, do a search for the app you just uninstalled and install it back again. Try to launch one more time and now it should be working — below there is a short video tutorial that can help you in more detail how to uninstall and reinstall an app in Windows 8.
Mauro Huculak is a Windows How-To Expert who started Pureinfotech in 2010 as an independent online publication. He has also been a Windows Central contributor for nearly a decade. Mauro has over 15 years of experience writing comprehensive guides and creating professional videos about Windows and software, including Android and Linux. Before becoming a technology writer, he was an IT administrator for seven years. In total, Mauro has over 21 years of combined experience in technology. Throughout his career, he achieved different professional certifications from Microsoft (MSCA), Cisco (CCNP), VMware (VCP), and CompTIA (A+ and Network+), and he has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for many years. You can follow him on X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn and About.me. Email him at [email protected].