Windows XP anyone?

[DOAADI]

Well, it's a matter of faith, I guess.

Just looking at the various hacks which have been offered reveals that some worked on one version but not on later ones, judging from the number of people who couldn't subsequently get them to work. Most of them have been around for many months (the Dutch link I gave is from pre-March 2012, and judging from the number of "likes" on Stardock, they've had theirs for a while).

I doubt that anyone offering what is effectively a registry hack (whether free or paid for) is distributing Microsoft-approved software - otherwise Microsoft would already have included what is ultimately a simple switch in the W8 user interface.

At any rate - one way or another it will be possible to turn off Metro and revert to a W7-like interface. But personally I'd wait until I had an official Microsoft disk in my hand before I parted with any cash.

[pauland]

I doubt that anyone offering what is effectively a registry hack (whether free or paid for) is distributing Microsoft-approved software - otherwise Microsoft would already have included what is ultimately a simple switch in the W8 user interface.

That did bring a smile to my face - it's essentially the situation we have now with Xara and XaraReg, isn't it?

[DOAADI]

Not quite.

There's nothing wrong with 3rd party software when it applies to stable, released applications. The industry depends on it.

The facts are there, though: some of the W8 hacks stopped working while it was in beta etc. The hacks can only be based on the latest pre-release version at best, and evidence suggests they often date from earlier than that.

Like I say, I wouldn't buy something like this until I had a fully-validated version up-and-running.

Disabling Metro is going to be possible. I think we all agree on that. It just remains to be seen how - and we'll only know for sure once W8 is released. I'm probably wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised if it will end up being possible from within W8 itself. Like I say, we don't know.