Vannice is using Windows 8 and misses her start button
My computer uses Windows 8. In your last InfoAve Premium newsletter you said: “Right now there are a few good apps that can bring back the start button on Windows 8 — some free and some not.” I have been surfing the web for those apps–still not much out there. Are there any apps to bring back the Start Button that you would recommend? I REALLY MISS the Start button! Thanks, Vannice.
Our answer
Hi Vannice. Right now our favorite start button replacement is called Pokki. Pokki allows you to add 32 programs to its start menu plus it has a super-fast search, links to Control Panel, Computer, Documents and more. It’s free and it’s really easy to set-up and use. Plus Pokki has an “App Store” where you can get many free apps. We don’t use many of their apps, so we cannot make any recommendations about the Pokki Apps. We have used the Google Calendar App from Pokki and it works very well. Pokki is much more than just a start button / start menu replacement. It has many other features we like as well.
If you’re interested in learning more about Pokki, please visit this page.
The most popular start button replacement (by far) is Stardocks $5 Start8. While it’s selling like hotcakes, it never impressed us. Still Stardock has a great reputation, and many people like its start button replacement. If you feel like spending $5 for a start button you can check it out here.
Classic Shell is another start button replacement. It’s very minimalistic. If you like minimalistic, you might like Classic Shell. You can learn more about Classic Shell here.
One of the newer start button replacements is StartMenu8 by IObit. We haven’t tried it, and it’s still in beta, but if you’re adventuresome and want to try it, you can learn more about it here. We’re not big on anything by IObit, but it’s an alternate free start button replacement.
We use Pokki on our Windows 8 computers and we’ve installed it on several other computers with our Cloudeight Direct Computer Care Service. But everyone has their own preferences, so we’ve given you some other alternatives as well.
And of course, there are rumors that Microsoft may include a start button in a future update or service pack. But no one knows for sure but Microsoft. I really doubt Microsoft would add a start button right away, that would be admitting a mistake by leaving it off in the first place, right?