If you’re not a fan of the default menu style there are Classic and Two Columns variations on offer. Once installed it will give you a convincing Windows 7 Start menu with all of the features you’d expect to see. If you want to revert back to the 8.1 Start screen at any point, you can just right-click the Start button and exit Classic Shell.Updated to version 4 at the start of October, and offering improved compatibility with Windows 8.1, this is the Start button and menu combo recommended by most, and for good reason. Once set up, clicking the Start button will open a menu just like in earlier versions of Windows, and you need never see the Modern UI again (although there’s an option to launch the Start screen at the top of the new Start menu). There are 13 settings tabs to explore, including Controls, Main Menu, General Behavior, Search Box, Menu Look, Skin, and Windows 8.1 Settings. You can replace the default Start button with alternative options and make lots of configuration choices. This last one is automatically selected for you. From here you can choose a style for the Start Menu - Classic, Classic With Two Columns or Windows 7 style. Once installed, clicking the Windows 8.1 Start button will open the Classic Start Menu settings. For ease, you could just install them all, and remove any unwanted items later. You can choose which elements to include, depending on your views on Windows 8 or 8.1. When you install Classic Shell you’ll be presented with the option to install four features - Classic Explorer, Classic Start Menu, Classic IE and Classic Shell Update.

New feature allows administrators to modify the default settings without locking them.

Improved hovering functionality for the Start button.

Added status bar for Explorer in Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 to show the total size of the selected files and the free disk space.

Added animated menu transitions for the Windows 7 style.

Other changes in the 3.9.5 release candidate include:

Classic start menu on windows 8.1