Windows 7 Start Menu on Windows 8 RTM!!

If like me, you are pining for the good "old" days of the Windows 7 Start menu while using Windows 8, never fear!!  The makers of ViStart have conveniently allowed us to use the Windows 7 Start menu that we have come to know and love back into Windows 8!!

You can download ViStart from here: http://lee-soft.com/vistart/

There were some earlier rumors that Microsoft was pulling out the functionality to use tools such as ViStart in Windows 8 RTM, but thankfully they have turned out to be false rumors after all....

Below is a screenshot of the Windows 7 Start Menu re-introduced through the installation of ViStart on Windows 8 Enterprise RTM:

One of the things that the ViStart menu DOES NOT bring back, however, are the typical conventions that we are used to with right clicking on Start menu items to perform various operations.  In fact, no right click menu support is available whatsoever.  Instead, we are still forced to perform right click menu operations through the new Windows 8 Start menu (or Windows Explorer) to perform the traditional operations we have come to know in Windows 7 such as Pin to Taskbar.

1. Open the Windows 8 Start menu
2. Find the Application Tile that you want to Pin to the Taskbar
3. Right click on that Application Tile
4. You will see a new pane with various button options
5. Select the the Pin to Taskbar button
6. Return to the Desktop and you should now see your newly pinned program

If you are looking for other Windows 8 Start Menu alternatives, you can check out this blog post: http://samirvaidya.blogspot.com/2013/02/list-of-windows-8-start-menu.html

If you are looking for a detailed comparison between Classic Shell and ViStart, you can check out this blog post:  http://samirvaidya.blogspot.com/2013/03/classic-shell-vs-vistart.html