JorgeA

Added a listing and link for WinAero's Win+X Menu Editor. It's not exactly a Start Menu replacement, but it can be used to add features and functionality to the "power user" menu that pops up when you right-click in the lower left corner of the screen. For some users, this might be enough of a replacement. --JorgeA

This would be the supreme irony: Microsoft will be saved by open-source It would be quite something if Classic Shell actually ended up helping to rescue Windows 8 from disaster: This is an issue that I wrestled with when thinking about starting the "Ways to get back the Start Button/Menu in Win8" thread: anything that makes Windows 8 more bearable to use, decreases its chances of failure. It was a close call, but ultimately I decided to put together the list for the benefit of those who (for whatever reason) get stuck with Win8. Beyond that issue, the entire article is pretty incisive, for example with the following description of MS bigwigs' thinking process: Read and find yourself nodding through the whole writeup. --JorgeA

Oh, now I understand -- it was the standalone version that you had in mind. Could be an oversight on MS's part, or maybe part of a strategy to push people "forward" to the latest and greatest. --JorgeA

In case of need: jaclaz Ahhh -- that was refreshing! I sure needed it, thanks! --JorgeA

Tripredacus, Can you fill me in on that one? I'm not sure how that's different from the way things are with earlier editions of Windows. The only way to get a different .NET version is via the Internet, no? I still need to finish waking up, so I'm probably missing something really obvious here. ( @CoffeeFiend, can you e-mail me some of your brew? ) Keep us posted on new impressions and headaches as you keep working with Win8... --JorgeA

dubsdj, Are you referring to Windows 8, or to one of the Start Menu/Button alternatives? I'm guessing Win8, but just asking to make sure. Or maybe you're saying that Win8 can't be saved even with a revived Start Button. --JorgeA

Wow, that was pretty bad. How long have they been in business in Europe? (a rhetorical question) But don't worry, they assure the public that the abiity to change the country you're registered in, is coming REAL SOON NOW. --JorgeA

you missed quite alot You're right. Up until 2008 I wasn't into computers at all, except strictly as a business tool. I had just the faintest notion of what a USB port was: my Win98 box has two of them and I didn't even know it!! I got interested in tech again after 20 years, only when my PC went on the fritz and I had to start learning REAL FAST. Actually, if it weren't for that old computer acting up on me (turned out it was dust inside...), there's a good chance that I'd still be tooling around the Information Superhighway in that golf cart. --JorgeA

Paul Allen (remember him?) weighs in on Windows 8 with a nuanced, not fanboyish approach. While expressing excitement over Microsoft's new OS, he also voices concerns over a number of aspects of the Win8 UI: (emphasis added -- he really did write that!) Allen makes other observations which -- if they had been posted by you or me -- would get us tagged as "trolls" or "haters" by the fanboys. His entire post makes for informative reading. (Article found via Neowin.) --JorgeA

That was an illuminating analysis, jaclaz -- thank you. And it makes sense. I never used Win2K or ME. I jumped from Win98 (and FE, at that!!!) all the way to Vista, so my experience with XP is limited and recent. I imagine that the change for me was probably even bigger than for those who went to XP from either ME or 2000. --JorgeA

Thanks, xpclient. When I started using Windows 98 (up from 3.11), I thought that the flyout menu was pretty cool. (Although almost anything was better than Program Manager...) And I stil think it's neat to see them pop out the side like that. But honestly, over the years it got to be a growing annoyance that the menus would cover up a big part of my screen, and I had to be so careful to put my mouse pointer over the exact spot lest I end up with an unwanted menu. So when the Vista menu made its appearance, I welcomed the change. In my personal order of preference, it's the Vista/7 menu on the top rung, then the classic menu, and -- way, way below -- the Metro start screen. (Hmm, it just hit me that the Metro screen is a bit like Program Manager, with the links to the various programs displayed in a grid when you first boot into Windows. And, like with 3.11, in a Metro-only environment -- such as they're pushing with Windows RT -- when you have a program open you can't tell at a glance what other programs are open. But I must stop here, as my own rule is that this isn't a thread for comparing the Metro start screen to the start button/menu...) What I like the best about ClassicShell is the separate feature that brings back most of the functionality of the IE status bar. --JorgeA

Three pre-RTM versions of Windows 8 were released -- the DP, the CP, and the RP. Thus, people interested in checking out the OS could have installed "Windows 8" three different times, bulking up the download numbers. How many totally public pre-RTM versions of Windows 7 were there? The explanation might be that while Win8 betas may have been downloaded more times than Win7 betas, a higher proportion of Win7 than Win8 previewers ended up using the OS regularly, and so that usage shows up in the market share stats. Therefore the whole bit about Win8 being "the most thoroughly tested OS" strikes me as suspect. A lot of people tried it, saw that it s*cks big time, and (unlike Win7) stopped using it. --JorgeA

A dose of their own medicine! After all, MS has kicked the Start Button off the Desktop, trampled on the Start Menu, and given the middle finger to those who object. --JorgeA

Wait a minute -- so that Vista/7-style skin for Classic Shell, simply changes the look and not the functionality? --JorgeA

As noted before, obviously there is no public clamor for this FrankenOS. I went in to see how the Neowin fanboys would try to spin that one. Curiously, there didn't seem to be any attempt in the article itself, while the comments are decidedly mixed. Windows 8: a solution to a problem that no user felt. --JorgeA

In addition to what @xpclient says, the third listing in Post #1 above is for a Vista/7-style start menu skin for Classic Shell. So as the saying goes, we can have our cake and eat it, too! --JorgeA

Agreed! XP's durability has sure been amazing. Shows you that they got it just about right then. I suspect than in 2023, XP and Vista and 7 will be viewed as the high point of Microsoft OS's. <going out on a limb> Who knows, maybe we'll even be looking at MS the way we look today at, say, Digital Research Inc. --JorgeA

The adoption rate is pathetic compared to Win7 at a similar stage Yup, unlike with Windows 7 vs. Vista there is manifestly no great public clamor for what The Two Steves are offering, despite the best efforts of 'Softie fandom to drum up enthusiasm for Windows 8. --JorgeA

xpclient, The original idea WAS only to pile up all the Start menus in the world (in passing, helping to show how much interest in the Start Menu there is "out there"). But nobody could object to reviews and discussion of the various alternatives as people try them, so let's go to it. When time permits, I intend to break out the listing into choices that offer only a Start Button and/or Start Menu, choices that offer only to bypass Metro, and choices that do both of these things. BTW, I've refrained from including a couple of candidates because they came from sources that looked questionable. --JorgeA

Thanks, Andre -- added it to the list. --JorgeA

LOL --JorgeA

Yep, that first paragraph is nothing but a steaming pile of advertising pooh written by a team of overpaid underachievers. But in that last sentence are they tipping their hand? The website really says nothing at all which is pretty much par for the course from Microsoft. So we are left to infer a meaning. Could this be the start of product placement in the kindergarten color squares of Windows 8 and Metro on the desktops of hundreds of millions of unsuspecting users around the world? Any guesses? If they start putting live ads on the Metro Start Screen, I would hope that that would be the final nail in the coffin for Windows 8. Although I do note that a recent Microsoft.com Panel survey tested respondents' reactions to having ads on the Xbox home screen (or whatever they call it). Dunno what the results were, but I sure would have given the thumbs-down to that idea. Finally, in line with your speculation, see the last paragraph in the Neowin post that you linked to: I can just picture working hard at the computer to write down a sudden flash of insight, only to have my flow interrupted and the insight gone POOF by some ad dancing and blinking across my screen. :angrym: --JorgeA

There probably have been studies about this, but for a potent demonstration of the dangers, see the movie "Contagion." --JorgeA

Added Win8StartButton to the list.

This may be the kernel of truth in what Paul Thurrott reported a few months back, and which got this thread started: (Here's the link for the .scf hack.) Not exactly a Start Button killer (more like a "Metro Start Menu bypass killer"), but I wonder if that's what the reports about code being removed were about. --JorgeA