Enable advanced animations for the Start Screen in Windows 8

In Windows 8,  the Start screen is your primary way to launch applications. It replaces the good old Start menu and displays classic shortcuts and modern live tiles. Today, I am going to share hidden tweaks which allow you to enable more advanced Start screen animations. You can set it up so that you see the animation only when you logon to Windows 8, or you can also enable this each time the Start screen is showed.

Here are step-by-step instructions:

1. Open Registry Editor (Press Win+R on the keyboard and type "regedit.exe" without quotes, press Enter key after all).
2. Navigate to the
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ImmersiveShell\Grid key.
   Tip: You can use this script: How to jump to the desired registry key with one click
3. Right click in the right pane and create a new DWORD value called Launcher_SessionLoginAnimation_OnShow.  Set it to 1.
4. Now press the Win (Windows-logo) key at your keyboard. Enjoy unlocked nice animation every time when you switch to the Start Screen.

A demo video:

The  Launcher_SessionLoginAnimation_OnShow  value set to 1 is what enables the animation each time the Start screen is shown. If you only wish to see the animation at logon, set this to 0.

UPDATE

There are more parameters. Thanks to MDL user Windows Fan for pointing me to them.

Launcher_SessionLogin_Icon_Offset defines the offset for user picture. The greater the value, the greater is the image's right margin during animation.

Launcher_SessionLogin_IconText_Offset - same as above but for the user name.

Launcher_SessionLogin_IndividualTower_Offset produces the carousel view for tiles and defines the "far" distance of the circle

Launcher_SessionLogin_Tower_Offset defines the close distance.
For example, the following tweak with pre-defined values

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ImmersiveShell\Grid]
"Launcher_SessionLoginAnimation_OnShow"=dword:00000001
"Launcher_SessionLogin_IndividualTower_Offset"=dword:00001388
"Launcher_SessionLogin_Tower_Offset"=dword:00001388
"Launcher_SessionLogin_IconText_Offset"=dword:000003e8
"Launcher_SessionLogin_Icon_Offset"=dword:000003e8

will cause the following animation effect:

Update 2

Start Screen Animations Tweaker

I have released a tool to control all these registry parameteres. It is Start Screen Animations Tweaker.

With Start Screen Animations Tweaker you will able:

• to change behavior of the user name text slide animation.
• to change behavior of the user picture slide animation.
• to change behavior of Tiles slide animation. It has two options:
  • left-to-right animation. Tiles will fly from the "far" left corner into the screen. This reminds me effects from the Solitaire windows game.
  • right-to-left animation controls the right position from where Tiles will slide to their regular positions
• to enable animations for every time you visit the Start screen in Windows 8, not only at login.

Read more and download Start Screen Animations Tweaker here

For those who prefer ready-made registry files:

Download the Start screen animations registry tweak