It has been a little under a week since I got my new Windows 8 PC. So far, I am impressed with Windows 8 as far as performance as concerned. Boot-up is quick and resuming from hibernation is fast, about 10-seconds from power-up to desktop. It mounts USB Flash drives almost instantly. The User Interface on the other hand, not so great. A couple weeks ago I had installed Windows 8 in a virtual environment on the system I just replaced. This gave me a chance to play with Windows 8 a bit before the time came (a lot sooner than I expected) that I would be getting a computer with Windows 8. Based on my experiences with Windows 8 in Virtual Box, the first thing I did was install Classic Shell to get my ‘Start’ Menu back.

A colleague pointed me to the Windows 8 Power User Menu app. For those who are not familiar with the Windows 8 Power Menu (including myself) it is kinda, sorta, maybe like the Start Menu. It can be accessed via WinKey X and does have a lot of direct short cuts such as Task Manager, Programs and Features (add/remove), Control Panel, Command Prompt (both as user and as Admin). While Classic Shell does restore some of these short cuts such as Control Panel, the power menu provides quick access to a lot of features that are either buried in the control panel or not as easily accessible in the Windows 8 UI. I really haven’t had a chance yet to play with this app, but it allows you to customize the Power Menu and could create your own ‘Start Menu’ with a little tweaking.

Thanks for the tip Gareon.