Windows 8 Start Menu

[Brian Bartley]

For those of you playiong around with Windows 8.  You may have found the lack of a start menu frustrating, at least I did.  Start8 is a cool little application that creates a Start Button/menu, forces the computer to boot to the desktop screen instead of the tiles screen and has a bunch of other options you can set.  Has a 30 day trial, is $4.99 to purchase, we've been playing with it for a few days and seems to work very nicely.

Brian

 

Download it here

[Bryan Berg]

Brian - couple things - so Win8 doesn't have any built-in options for booting in the classic screen? I thought that was supposed to be an option...but I guess not. So $5 more per machine for that option...wow.

Other thing - are you still looking at FitnessGram? Dale is talking with the company to find out what SSC would have to do to be a third party host - it is a possibility, there's just some hoops to go through. But even if it's just Hayfield and Dover-Eyota, I'm thinking that should make for a cheaper option (and maybe easier) then us having to buy and set up yet another server?

[Brian Bartley]

I haven't found any way to find a start menu or boot to a standard desktop.  I don't like the tiles.

 

 

we are still interested in Fitnessgram.  The Dover elementary principal has talked to our elementary principal and both schools want to do it.

[Grant Voth]

Lots of other options for this (see link). I used classic shell and like it so far - it's free. not sure if the boot to desktop is an option with it.

 

Definitely recommend a touch screen device for win 8, however - much much easier to navigate and run metro apps. Desktop apps still work better with a keyboard and mouse. Because of that I find it easier to grab and use a touchscreen ultrabook than a win 8 slate and have to deal with a sometimes keyboard/mouse, sometimes not. Am using asus vivobook 14" for most of my stuff - $699 on newegg, includes hybrid hdd/ssd for fast bootups, battery ok - held up all day for student use (mixed intensity). Am hoping someone throws out a convertible ultrabook/tablet in this price range or less, as the $999 predicted for surface pro puts it out of our league for any widescale deployment.

 

http://www.infoworld.com/d/microsoft-windows/9-windows-start-menus-...

http://www.classicshell.net/