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:
- using Microsoft.Win32;
- namespace ToggleStartMenu
- {
- class Program
- {
- static void Main(string[] args)
- {
- var rootKey = Registry.CurrentUser;
- var subKey = rootKey.OpenSubKey(@"Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer",
- RegistryKeyPermissionCheck.ReadWriteSubTree, System.Security.AccessControl.RegistryRights.FullControl);
- if (subKey != null)
- {
- var value = (int) subKey.GetValue("RPEnabled");
- subKey.SetValue("RPEnabled", value == 0 ? 1 : 0, RegistryValueKind.DWord);
- }
- }
- }
- }
Here’s the source.