Windows 8 start menu replace full version#
Windows 8 start menu replace software#
Windows 8 start menu replace windows 7#

Pros: Nice interface with ability to switch between regular start menu and metro start menuĬons: Limited configuration and customization options, limited documentation, lacks support for virtualized environments

Pricing:The Beta version is currently free to download or you can pay $4.99 and receive the full version once it becomes available after Windows 8 is released. Start8 has a compact footprint that uses less than 1 MB of memory.

The vendor informed me that they do not support their software in a virtualized environment, which I found to be a rather surprising limitation in a world where virtualization is now so prevalent. Although I selected the option to boot directly to the desktop, I was not able to make this work correctly on a virtual machine. The documentation claims that Start8 can be configured to boot directly to the desktop. As to look and feel you cannot make changes to colors and themes, but the start menu automatically matches the color scheme you have selected. It essentially takes the tiles and organizes them into a start menu like configuration, which really is only an option with larger screens in high resolution. Start8 has limited configuration options, but there are a few choices such as the ability to use a metro style start menu, which is a hybrid between the old Windows start menu and the new Start Screen with tiles. Once the Start Screen tiles are displayed the status bar we have known since Windows 95 is also hidden, but Start8 adds a panel you can use to quickly get back into familiar territory.

Not only is the button identical, but the entire start menu looks just like Windows 7 with the same options in the same location.Īs mentioned in the intro, Windows 8 boots to the new Start Menu by default. Once the installation is complete, the familiar round start button you remember from Windows 7 appears.

Stardock's Start8 is installed using an executable file and like the other two products I tested, it installs quickly with no options presented during the install. Overall I thought Classic Start was the best of the three, as it contains many more configuration and customization options than the other two products. Each product produces a reasonable facsimile of the legacy Windows start button. The tests were run on Windows Preview version build 8400. In this review I tested three different Start button replacements (Power8, Start8 and Classic Start Menu). Early testers considered this an alpha or beta glitch, but Microsoft has confirmed that the missing start button will not be making a re-appearance in the release version of Windows 8. The familiar start button went missing in Windows 8 and instead users are left staring at an empty space with no apparent way to access programs and applications. Clicking the desktop option opens a Window that contains – actually not much. By default, Windows 8 now boots to a “Start Screen” that displays “tiles” that link to a limited set of programs and features for various options such as mail, video, music, and somewhere among the 16-20 tiles, a desktop option. Whatever you might think of Windows 8, at startup there is something missing that can vex, or at least perplex, users from the get-go.

Windows 8 start menu replace full version#

Windows 8 start menu replace software#

Windows 8 start menu replace windows 7#