Software

Bring back the Start button on Windows 8

Abe Olandres Editor-in-chief April 8, 2013 · 1 min read

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While taping our 7th episode of Team Tech Squad last week-end, we debated on whether we should install Windows 8 or stick with Windows 7 on our newly built gaming rigs. Today, we finally found a solution.

Basically, we went with Windows 8 and installed a software that works around to bringing back the Start button.

We found two — one is Start8 and the other is StartIsBack. Start8 is more expensive at $4.99 while StartIsBack is cheaper at $3 for 2 PCs or $5 for 5 PCs. We got StartIsBack.

You can get them here for a 30 day free trial.

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Abe Olandres

Editor-in-chief

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and is considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines.

8,007 Articles

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30 Comments

fotolocco · 13 years ago

When W8 scrapped the Start button, I didn’t look for it. :)

abuzalzal · 13 years ago

Parang tanga lang yung iba dito. Eh hindi naman hybrid touchscreens mga computers niyo bakit kelangan noyo pa Windows 8?

The benefit of Windows 8 on non touchscreen devices is almost NOTHING

apokalips · 13 years ago

Have you tried windows 8? I used on everyday, on my surface pro, and non-touchscreen desktop and laptop…. I also have a windows 7 laptop, and starting up alone is worth it, all of them have ssd’s and core i7’s except for the surface pro of course… and start ups alone, windows 8 is very much quicker… and I don’t use start menu very on windows 7 as my my most used programs are pinned…

abuzalzal · 13 years ago

Mas mabilis mag boot? Lol as if deal breaker yun to justify a Win7 to Win8 upggrade…yes I have used the Win8 RC last year at kahit LIBRE yan hindi ko pag aaksayahan panahon yan.. walang may gusto sa Win8 ikaw lang cguro

weatherballoon · 13 years ago

Para mo na ring sinabi na wag na bumili ng bagong laptop/pc eh bundled na agad yun. Besides RC lang pala nasubukan mo. Hindi lang po bootup ang mabilis sa W8 kahit read/write to disk and mounting and dismounting of external drives/flash drives mabilis din sa W8.

abuzalzal · 13 years ago

Goodness Weatherbaloon…you are such a noob…malaki ba punagkaiba ng Release Candidate sa Final version? I’ve been fiddling with RC versions ever since nung baby ka pa…. almost identical lahat excepr with minor unnoticeable tweaks….mag aral ka nga.

weatherballoon · 13 years ago

Wow sir hindi lang ikaw ang sumubok ng RC. abuzalzal != whole world. Minor tweaks unnoticeable or not may experience ka man sa W8 or wala please refrain from calling those users “tanga” dahil pwede rin naman sa non-touchscreens ang W8.

Enya · 13 years ago

If youre from Vista, youll appreciate Win8

ry@n · 13 years ago

Updated my win 7 to win 8. Hindi touch screen monitor ko. I like win 8 kesa sa win 7, I don’t use much of the metro applications ksi mostly desktop lang ako. If you use your pc for more that 2hours a day you would easily notice na mas mabilis ang win8. What I really like is that na improve ang pag manage ng resources sa win8, sa win7 pag sobrang dami ng nka open na app and windows minsan ng llag ang cursor or ibang windows sa 8 smooth as butter.

arman · 13 years ago

start button is essential for me… lalo na sa lola ko…

Alfred Aquino · 13 years ago

You do not need the “start menu”, Just right click the left bottom of the screen and all the menus will be there.

haha · 13 years ago

no need to pay,pirates.haha

JP · 13 years ago

The Start8 application is definitely worth it, and has more styling options than that *ugh* Classic Shell, apart from looking great out of the box.

I have a single license installed on two machines. As long as you own all the machines you install it on (or simply limit the number of activations), it probably won’t “phone home” and block further activations.

It’s an essential for people who like to switch tabs a lot (e.g. programmers).

Windows 8 is fast and if you got the legit version, you’ll find the free AV software, Defender (formerly Security Essentials), to not be a process hog. But keep in mind, in a dual-boot environment with Linux (and Unix-like systems) you’ll have to use a third party bootloader editor (i.e. EasyBCD), otherwise the distros won’t show up.