How to Add a Windows 8 Start Menu?

Windows 8 brings with it a whole new user interface for our collective consideration. This is The Interface Formerly Known As Metro (TIFKAM), then named ModernUI, and they've now settled ambiguously on the “Windows 8 interface” running “Windows Store apps.” Whatever its name, the interface is based on tiles, full-screen applications, and the ability to run -- at a maximum -- two applications side by side. Hot corners are important, and there is a new “charms” bar, required for shutting down or accessing system settings.

A start button will appear using the Classic Shell logo (a Windows-themed shell.) This is a “classic”-style start menu, harkening back to Windows 2000, rather than Windows XP or Windows 7. The classic start menu also puts the Windows 8 shutdown functionality in a more familiar place, allowing us to restart, sleep, hibernate, or shut down our PCs without having to use the charms bar.

The most critical choices to make regarding the new Windows 8 experience are found under the Windows 8 tab. Here you can choose to bypass TIFKAM at startup and also choose whether or not you wish to disable hot corners.

Choosing the Skip Metro Screen option will try to prevent you form having to deal too much with TIFKAM when you log in. You’ll still have to swipe the stylized space needle away with your mouse, and you’ll still have to log in. The change this option provides is that instead of dumping you into the Start Screen at login, the system will behave as though you had clicked the “desktop” tile immediately after login. The Start Screen will appear for a fraction of a second and then fold out of the way, dropping you on the desktop.

The niggle with this option is that on a brand-new system, Windows 8 loads to the login screen so fast that you may log in before Classic Shell has had a chance to load in the background. If you are quick on the draw, you still end up at the Start Screen immediately after login, despite choosing Skip Metro Screen in Classic Shell’s settings. Yes, the developers are aware of the issue and they are working on it.