In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

still there are some good start menus out there and most are free.

Any good recommendations? And does MS offer one? I suppose not as they removed it from their mainline OS. Looked on their d/load site, which does offer much more meaty apps than the MS Store, and on the Store itself, but only found a few by unknown publishers.

One which many people use is classic start which is free or Classic shellis another one. i usestart is back, but it is not free. but it is only $3.

No chance of Ms putting a start menu out there, they want us to use the Metro UI and buy their apps. I know it is being said that the next version of windows will have a start menu, but I don't think MS have made that official.

Classic Start (as linked to by zyborg47) is the program that I use & have found it very effective!

Do you have more than 1 user on your PC? Do they all get the Classic Start 8 button on L of taskbar?

I've installed it but only I can see its button & menu. Yet it is invoked in Registry at [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run] the usual place for All Users start-ups.

I tried out Classic Start 8 but I couldn't get it to show up under any of my other users, altho' it was invoked from the Registry [Run]s for all users. Also I didn't like the way its start menu sacrificed some useful links like 'Run' for some seemingly advertising links like 'Backup' & 'Protection', and that it provided no support other than a few obvious FAQs.

So now I've gone over to Classic Shell. It provides a highly customizable Start Menu together with ability to tailor File Explorer & IE. It also supports full individual multi-user functionality, whereby diff users may have diff Start Menus based around an All Users Start Menu as did previous versions of Windows prior to Win8. I particularly like that it has its own forum where you can get help & support. I'm still learning all its bells & whistles but I like it so far.

+1 for Classic Shell.