We heard from a reader who was really annoyed with himself for spending $40 to get Windows 8 instead of just buying lottery tickets. In frustration, he said, he “almost trashed a very capable Dell laptop.” Then he found a fix. It’s called “Classic Shell” and it’s free.
ClassicShell.net is one of a handful of Windows 8 fixes and it seems to work well. We tried two other freebies but they made our machines unstable after a while. Classic Shell gives you three choices: the classic Windows start menu, Windows XP style or Windows 7, whatever you’re used to. We added it to our Windows 8 machine, but some people use it to make Windows 7 look more like Windows XP.
Now when we click “start,” we get a familiar programs list plus a list of our “apps:” weather, news, games, etc. You don’t get that in a regular Windows screen!
Now we again see our familiar links to “Control Panel,” “help and Support,” “shut down,” and so on. That’s pretty neat, but now the Windows 8 “Tile World,” (also known as the Start screen), is no longer the first thing we see after boot-up. However we can still get to it.