The issue is that most users were already familiar with an interface, which everyone mastered throughout the years and Windows 8 changes all that, causing (many) people to have to learn new skills. I am sure that if you’ve used the new operating system for sometime now, you are pretty much comfortable to the new Modern UI, but if you still cannot figure out or the new Start screen just isn’t your taste, today you can try StartW8. StartW8 is a well designed alternative to the old Windows 7 Start menu. The program is free and the installation is pretty simple — just your typical next, next, next…

Once the installation completes, you’ll notice a new window icon in the lower-left corner of the screen, in the same place where the old iconic Start button was, and the program’s settings will also appear. There you have two sets of options: Basic settings, is the place to configure if you want to log-in directly to the desktop bypassing the Start screen and assign the default action for the Power button, and from the Menu items you can set which items the menu will show, e.g., Documents, Control Panel, Computer, Music, etc.

Features

Bypass the Start screen log-in straight to the Windows 8 Desktop Added Windows Start menu in Windows 8 design, but with Windows 7 functionality Activate menu with Win key Configure the shut down menu: Log off, lock and turn off buttons Traditional search field Add locations All user configurable Support for silent installation Multilingual support

After you finish configuring StartW8, you will once again get access to All programs, Documents, Computer, Control Panel, etc., also recent programs start to populate; the search box works as expected, and the Shut down menu is there like in the old times.

Things to know

This utility doesn’t disable the new Windows 8 interface, StartW8 is just an add-on. You’ll still be able to use the hot corners to go back to the Start screen and use the Windows 8 apps. One thing though, the Windows keyboard key gets re-mapped for the new menu, but like I just mentioned, you can use the hot corners to get access to the Start screen.

Get StartW8 from AreaGuard

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