Replacing Windows 8's Missing Start Menu

[wraggster]

The Start Button, which has offered Windows users quick access to important programs, folders, and configuration options since 1995 and has looked more or less the same for all that time, has been re-engineered beyond recognition for Windows 8, replaced by a Start Screen of colorful Metro tiles that greets the user upon startup. One big problem: once you enter Desktop mode to access non-Metro apps, you lose easy access to all the stuff you expect from the Start Button. This has given rise to something of a cottage industry for Start Button replacements (http://www.itworld.com/data-centerservers/300901/how-replace-missing-start-button-windows-8), with multiple replacement utilities available even before Windows 8 officially arrives

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/10/08/1241236/replacing-windows-8s-missing-start-menu