windows 8 start menu replacement classic shell

In addition to the long run as a tech writer and editor, Jason spent over a decade as a college instructor doing his best to teach a generation of English students that there's more to success than putting your pants on one leg at a time and writing five-paragraph essays. In 2023, he assumed the role of Editor-in-Chief. In 2022, he returned to How-To Geek to focus on one of his biggest tech passions: smart home and home automation. In 2019, he stepped back from his role at Review Geek to focus all his energy on LifeSavvy. With years of awesome fun, writing, and hardware-modding antics at How-To Geek under his belt, Jason helped launch How-To Geek's sister site Review Geek in 2017. After cutting his teeth on tech writing at Lifehacker and working his way up, he left as Weekend Editor and transferred over to How-To Geek in 2010. He's been in love with technology since his earliest memories of writing simple computer programs with his grandfather, but his tech writing career took shape back in 2007 when he joined the Lifehacker team as their very first intern. Jason has over a decade of experience in publishing and has penned thousands of articles during his time at LifeSavvy, Review Geek, How-To Geek, and Lifehacker. Prior to that, he was the Founding Editor of Review Geek. Prior to his current role, Jason spent several years as Editor-in-Chief of LifeSavvy, How-To Geek's sister site focused on tips, tricks, and advice on everything from kitchen gadgets to home improvement. He oversees the day-to-day operations of the site to ensure readers have the most up-to-date information on everything from operating systems to gadgets. Jason Fitzpatrick is the Editor-in-Chief of How-To Geek. The Windows 10 Start Menu looks like Windows 7 and all the stuff on it is right where you want it: not a tile in sight. With Classic Shell all you need is a few minutes to install things, another minute or two to tweak the basic settings, and you're in business. If you do take the time to tweak the menu that in depth, however, we'd strongly encourage you to use the backup button at the bottom of the menu and backup all the tweaks you've made to an XML file you can save and then import later if the need should arise. Don't worry though, you don't have to pick every setting from scratch when you switch over to the all-settings mode it keeps all the current defaults and just gives you the option to tweak them. You'll go from four tabs to 13 and gain the ability to tweak things most users never even consider modifying. So far we haven't felt much compulsion to dig into changing the way Windows 10 handles Windows Explorer but the tweaks are there if you'd like to dig into them.įinally if you want to get really crazy and micromanage every aspect of the Start Menu experience from the millisecond timing of the menu to the infotip popup delay to the way icons load, then you need to check 'Show all settings' at the top of the menu. In addition to adjusting the Start Menu, the focus of our tutorial today, the Classic Shell system includes not only the Classic Start Menu but Classic Explorer (a package of tweaks and adjustments for the Windows Explorer experience). The Classic Shell program includes both an overhaul to the Start Menu system that allows you to switch out the Windows 8/Windows 10 system for the classic single column Start Menu that harkens all the way back to Windows XP, a two-column arrangement, and the Windows 7 style. The only thing we need, besides your Windows 10 installation, is a very handy little program known as Classic Shell. Thankfully we won't be doing any mucking about in the registry, there's no hand-editing of any variables or values, and you won't have to make any sacrifices to ensure the process works smoothly. We've installed Windows 10 on everything from desktop PCs to our aging ultrabook laptop and have been rather impressed with the improvements found therein (that old ultrabook hasn't run so snappy since, well, ever). Now, before we proceed, we do want to make it clear that just because we're not huge fans of what Microsoft has done with the Windows 10 Start Menu (and the Windows 8 menu before that) doesn't mean we're outright negative toward Windows 10 in general. Some people learned how to wrestle with the Start Menu back in Windows 8 and they'll take that experience with them to Windows 10. Most people skipped Windows 8 altogether though and the massive rollout of Windows 10 is going to send them slamming headlong into a totally new Start Menu paradigm that doesn't suit their workstyle or sensibilities about what a Start Menu should be in the first place. If you're among those new Windows 10 users that want nothing to do with the new menu, we're here to help sort things out. Not everyone (and we'll include ourselves in that group), however, is such a fan of the new Start Menu system.

Windows 8 start menu replacement classic shell