Let’s face it. No matter how much Microsoft would beg you to fall in love with the Metro interface, you’re still not going to be a fan of it. You can try as hard as you want, and sometimes the chemistry just isn’t there. What are you going to do? Are you going to skip the other awesome features of Windows 8 just to stick with your old OS? Why can’t you just skip Metro altogether and boot straight into the desktop, making it an optional component of Windows 8? We already discussed how you can modify the operating system so you don’t have to switch constantly into Metro. It’s time to tell you how to completely bypass it, turning it into an accessory rather than an imposed necessity.
Besides pressing “Win+D” whenever your computer boots into Metro, you can also do the following:
Open up Notepad. Type the following into the new document:
Click “File” and “Save as.” Save the file as “Deskboot.scf.” You can name it anything you want as long as you keep the “.scf” at the end. This tells Windows that it’s a script that it must run. Don’t forget to choose “All files” under the file type. Saving it with “Text file” will still save it as “Deskboot.scf.txt,” which won’t be interpreted as a script.
Go into the Metro interface. Type “schedule.”
Click “Settings” underneath the field that appears with your typed text.
Click “Schedule tasks,” which will appear on the left.
Click “Task scheduler library” on the left side of the new window.
Right-click on an empty space on the list on the top right side and click “Create New Task.”
Call the task whatever you want. You probably won’t have to edit this again anyway. Name it something like “Boot into desktop.”
Click the “Triggers” tab and click “New.”
Click the top dropdown box that currently says “On a schedule” and select “At log on.”
Click “OK.” You have nothing else to do here.
Click on the “Actions” tab and click “New.”
Under “Program/script,” browse to the script file you made earlier and select it. Click “OK” after you finish. This tells the scheduler to run this script. The trigger tells it to run it when you boot the computer.
If you have a computer that runs on a battery, follow this extra step:
- Click on the “Conditions” tab and clear the checkbox next to “Start the task only if the computer is on AC power.”
After you’ve finished everything, click “OK” and restart the computer. It should boot up straight to the desktop after you log in (if you have more than one user account and/or a password assigned to an account). On my computer, it takes a few seconds for the task to run, meaning that you should see the Metro interface for at least 5 seconds before the desktop shows up.
Final Thoughts
This is as good as it gets now, unless Microsoft has an epiphany and makes Metro an optional part of the desktop experience instead of making it take center stage. This probably wouldn’t be immensely difficult and still could happen until the release date. Leave all your thoughts in the comments section and don’t forget to read our other material on the latest and greatest in technology!
Miguel has been a business growth and technology expert for more than a decade and has written software for even longer. From his little castle in Romania, he presents cold and analytical perspectives to things that affect the tech world.
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