We've been reporting about it a lot before, Windows 8 is missing the well known start menu. The start menu has been in Windows since Windows 95 and has always been a prominent feature. If your desktop was filled with icons, you could always rely on the start menu for a structured presentation of the applications you had installed. Microsoft skipped this part of the Windows OS in Windows 8 and brought you Metro. Many people who tried Windows 8 missed the start menu and several applications popped up that are able to give you a start menu in Windows 8, such as ClassicShell and Power8. But they have drawbacks as they run additional services, require patching of a file or start additional processes.
Now an user called Tihiy has developed StartIsBack. According to him he has reinstated the Windows 7 start menu in Windows 8 without using any files of Windows 7. This was possible because, unlike what Microsoft said, there is still a lot of start menu functionality inside Windows 8. Parts of it were actually removed but the author of StartIsBack was able to re-implement them. Besides getting an original Windows start menu with drag&drop, search, theming etc. it will also allow you to boot Windows to the desktop. Other software made this possible, but they actually send fake key combinations that you else had to type manually in Metro during start up.
StartIsBack is in beta testing currently, and while you might think this is the ideal software to get your Windows 8 start menu, it also has a drawback, the author has announced that after the beta it will become paid software. It's yet unknown what it will cost. More information and downloads can be found here...
