Windows 8 Registry Windows 7 Style Desktop

Windows 8 Registry Hack to Get Windows 7 Style Desktop

The scenario: you have the Windows 8 Metro-style UI but you wish to disable it and revert to the Windows 7 style desktop and Start menu. Here are instructions to edit the Windows 8 registry.

Update 1: While this worked in the Developer Preview, it is not working in my Windows 8 Consumer Preview.

Update 2: The latest plan is to create a shortcut to Explorer in the startup folder.

Windows 8 Registry Hacks

How to Enable the Old Style Desktop in Windows 8
Windows 7 Style Start Menu
Windows 8 April 2011 Pre-Release Enable TaskUIEnabled
Windows RibbonUI Registry Hack
List of Registry Tweaks for Windows 8

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How to Enable the Old Style Desktop in Windows 8

Launch the Windows 8 regedit.exe. Either use Windows Explorer and Search for regedit, or else launch Task Manager go to the File menu and select New Task (Run…)

Once the registry editor opens, drill-down to this path:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer

Now change: RPEnabled from 1 to 0 (zero). See screenshot below.

The old Windows 7 style Start menu and desktop appears immediately in Windows 8. However, if you change RPEnabled back to 1, then you need to logoff / logon before the Metro UI returns.

Note: Unlike the Developer Preview, this did not work in the Consumer Preview.

Warning:
The big mistake is navigating to the wrong hive in the registry, people go the HKLM when they should start in HKEY_Current_User, as shown in the above screen shot.

Here is another take on getting the old style desktop.

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Windows 8 April 2011 Pre-Release Enable TaskUIEnabled

I read with interest of the registry hack TaskUIEnabled. However when I got the September 2011 Build version, I could not get this setting to work.

Conclusion: This is one registry hack not worth bothering with.

Registry Instructions to Enable the Modern Windows Task Manager.

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\TaskUI,

Create a new DWORD 32-bit value called "TaskUIEnabled"

Setting its value to "1" enables the ribbon. Zero would turn off this feature.

Another Registry Tip: Exporting Selected Branch

My favorite technique for recovering from registry disasters is to export the registry section before I start experimenting. To follow my example, launch regedit then click on the File menu, Export, Selected Branch.