I was an early adopter of windows 8. And I do admit it is a very fast stable OS but MS really blundered in my opinion when it took away windows basic functionality we have used for the past 25 years. Yup I mean the trusty start button! I can understand getting away from that older technology etc with the movement toward tablets. But hello there are millions of non touch screen machines in the world and lets face it windows works better with a start button. That being said windows classic shell comes to the rescue. if you are running windows 8 it is a definite must have!
first thing download it from sourceforge
Make Windows8 usable for people who think it’s not. Add a start menu to the desktop and tweak the way Explorer and Internet Explorer behave, all thanks to a piece of software called Classic Shell. If you like tweaking your user interface, and miss the options provided by previous versions of Windows, you’ll love this software.
To say Windows 8 is controversial would be an understatement. While many love the new security and speed of Redmond’s latest offering, some wish there was an optional way to avoid the Metro interface – including most of the MakeUseOf staff. Forcing a touch-based interface on a mouse-and-keyboard loving populace probably isn’t the smartest thing Microsoft’s ever done – even if it could help them sell a couple of phones someday.
So I’m glad there are ways to make Windows behave a little more like the operating system we know how to use properly. Classic shell gives you exactly the start menu you prefer, whether that’s the one from Windows 7, XP or even older versions of the OS. It also lets you tweak Windows Explorer, adding a customizable toolbar and letting you make other changes to the classic shell in Windows 8.
The Start Menu
Install Classic Shelland you’ll see it immediately – a start menu! The button will stick out like a sore thumb at first but you can configure it to blend in with Windows 8 quite nicely. Here’s how it looks on my computer:
Once you install Classic Shell, Windows automatically boots to the desktop – nice if you’d rather avoid Metro’s distractions and get right to work.
Do you want to change that, or anything else? Right-click the start menu and you’ll find a “Settings” button. From here you can change the style of start menu you want:
You’ll find a wide variety of options; just be sure to hit the “All Settings” options so you can see all tabs. You can make your start menu work exactly the way you want, so check it out.
Explorer
Many people like the new Windows Explorer, but if you’re not one of them Classic Shell is here for you. With it you can make the file manager behave just the way you remember. When you launch it you’ll see a new toolbar in Explorer. Click the Classic Shell button on it and you can configure things, including what does and doesn’t show up in your toolbar:
Again, you can configure just about anything here. Explore the options and you’ll be blown away.