How to Restore the Start Menu on Windows 8

How to Restore the Start Menu on Windows 8

If you recently bought a new computer, you are probably already wondering how to restore the Start Menu on Windows 8. You probably had to stumble through a few unfamiliar screens (such as the new Metro Start Screen) just to get to your Desktop. And when you finally pulled up your Desktop, you still couldn’t find the Start Menu we used to take for granted. And worse yet, features such as the Control Panel seem to be buried and difficult to find. Don’t worry though, because I am going to show you exactly how to restore the Start Menu on Windows 8.

Yes, Microsoft completely removed the Start Menu from Windows 8, but there are several 3rd party replacements (most of them free) that you can install in just a few minutes. I’m not going to review them in this post, but rather, I just want to get you up and running with a free Start Menu as quick as possible so you can start using your new computer the same way you used your old one. You can then start exploring the new Metro Start Screen at your own pace without the frustration of figuring out where everything went.

The program I recommend you to get started with is called “Classic Shell”. I use Classic Shell myself and I am very content with it so far. It can be configured to provide either the classic Windows 98/2000 look, Windows XP, or a Windows Vista/7 Start menu. While it has quite a few settings that can be tweaked, there are really only 3 or 4 settings that I would change and I cover those in the video below. One quick feature I like is when you are in the Metro Start Screen, you can press the Windows Start key to immediately pop-up the Classic Shell so you can use the Start Menu features.

You can download the “Classic Shell” utility from http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/index.html, but in the video above, I will show you a fast, easy way to download and install Classic Shell with Ninite to restore the Start Menu on Windows 8.

About the author

Dale Powell is the founder of ComputerAfterCare.com, a training website with a wealth of video tutorials about how to perform preventive maintenance on PCs to make them run faster, more reliably, and to last longer.