0Windows 8: Fix the start menu

So, Win­dows 8 is com­ing in late July (Octo­ber for retail cus­tom­ers).  There are no signs that Microsoft will relent provide an option to switch back to the Win­dows 7 start menu, and instead will force the [int­link id=“2543” type=“post”]horrible metro interface[/intlink] upon every­one.  As a res­ult many of us will undoubtedly stick quite hap­pily with Win­dows 7, how­ever there are 2 reas­ons to use Win­dows 8: being forced to as it will come on all new PCs soon and for improve­ments includ­ing a per­form­ance increase and the new [int­link id=“2283” type=“post”]storage spaces[/intlink] fea­ture amongst oth­ers.  If you fall into either of these camps but, like me, can­’t stand metro, there are now more options avail­able than when I [int­link id=“2552” type=“post”]last wrote[/intlink] about this issue.

Start8

Start8 is provided by star­dock — well known for provid­ing pre­vi­ous UI enhance­ments and makeovers for win­dows.  Start8 is free and restores the start but­ton along with a new style startmenu

ViStart

ViStart is also free and provides a start­menu that looks just like the one in Win­dows 7.  It is also skin­nable and includes vari­ous extra features

Classic Shell

Clas­sic shell is a third free option.  It does­n’t provide a win­dows 7 style start­menu — it provides a clas­sic start menu last seen in Win­dows XP

Manually

The option to cre­ate a [int­link id=“2552” type=“post”]‘kind-of’ start menu[/intlink] without any down­loads is still an option.  For more inform­a­tion refer to my pre­vi­ous art­icle on this topic.

My per­son­al favour­ite is ViStart — it looks the most like the Win­dows 7 start menu and includes addi­tion­al options.  With it Win­dows 8 becomes dis­tinctly more pleas­ant to use.