Windows 8 Start Menu Toggle

Since getting my hands on Windows 8 this past week, I (like many others) have really grappled with the constant accidental returning to the metro tiles every time I try to search for something in the new neutered Start Menu that appears in the Developer’s Preview of Windows 8.  To say I hate that would be an understatement. 

Today, a colleague forwarded me a link to a blog entry that showed the magic registry key to get my beloved Start Menu mostly back the way it was.  Apparently, there is a small GUI app on CodePlex that will take care of this as well. 

I decided I didn’t want to see anything, I just want to toggle.  So, I threw together a quick Console App to take care of this.  I can place this app on my desktop in Windows 8 classic mode and just toggle back and forth without having to see anything but a quick flash of the console. 

Here’s the code:

  1. using Microsoft.Win32;
  2.  
  3. namespace ToggleStartMenu
  4. {
  5.     class Program
  6.     {
  7.         static void Main(string[] args)
  8.         {
  9.             var rootKey = Registry.CurrentUser;
  10.             var subKey = rootKey.OpenSubKey(@"Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer",
  11.                 RegistryKeyPermissionCheck.ReadWriteSubTree, System.Security.AccessControl.RegistryRights.FullControl);
  12.  
  13.             if (subKey != null)
  14.             {
  15.                 var value = (int) subKey.GetValue("RPEnabled");
  16.                 subKey.SetValue("RPEnabled", value == 0 ? 1 : 0, RegistryValueKind.DWord);
  17.             }
  18.         }
  19.     }
  20. }

 

Here’s the source

This entry was posted in Windows 8. Bookmark the permalink.

Comments are closed.