Question from today's mailbox:

Disable Metro Ui
Windows 8.1 Disable Metro Start Menu
Remove Metro Windows 8.1

A useful registry hack can be used to disable Metro, restoring the classic Start menu and desktop view as the default user interface. Sadly this fix will only work with the Windows 8 Developer Preview, rather than with the new Windows 8 Consumer Preview, due to tighter integration of the Metro UI with the various Windows screens. How to keep the Windows 8.1 Modern UI out of your way. The Metro interface in Windows 8.1 makes sense on a touch-enabled device, but on a traditional computer, it's only an afterthought. In the first iteration of Windows 8, it was hard to get around on the desktop without the Start screen, hot corners, app switcher bar and other elements.

Is there a way to get the old-style (Classic) Start Menu back in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview?

I've lost count of how many times I've been asked the question over the past few days, and thanks to the good folks at AskVG, we have an answer. The answer comes in the form of a tool called ViStart, a tool initially developed to give Windows XP a Windows Vista/7 style Start Menu.

Disable Metro Ui

Note: If you are going to install ViStart, be careful during the install process because it offers you third-party programs (Babylon toolbar and Registry Cleaner Pro) that you might not want to install.

Install the program and the familiar Start Button (or orb) is back. However, there's a problem because the button overlaps with the Taskbar.

The trick around this is to create a new blank toolbar on the Taskbar to shift the other icons across. How to do this is detailed over on AskVG. Once you do this, Windows 8 starts to look and feel a lot like Windows 7.

I've tested ViStart on a couple of Windows 8 installations and it seems to work just fine.

Related:

Disable Metro Ui

Windows 8.1 Disable Metro Start Menu

Remove Metro Windows 8.1

Related Topics:

Disable Metro Windows 8.1