If you want the Windows 7 start menu back in Windows 8, then we’ve got news for you. Some hackers have found a way to run the ‘explorer.exe’ from Windows 7 on Windows 8. The file is responsible for Windows search, file type associations and for displaying the desktop icons, the start menu, the taskbar, and the control panel.
When you would normally copy ‘explorer.exe’ from Windows 7 to Windows 8 the file doesn’t execute as it appears to know it’s no longer on a Windows 7 system. With the patch it does.
To get it working you will need to grab some files from your Windows 7 install or from the installation CD, then transfer the files to your Windows 8 system, and finally execute the patch.
Windows 7 desktop and start menu on Windows 8 - beta 7 - 11 sep 2012
Long story short, i made a wrapper to Windows 7 explorer.exe to run on Windows 8.
You can try it now in order to have native Windows 7 desktop and start menu experience, without immersive shell bits enabled, saving RAM. New Windows Explorer features like ribbon and file copying are present!
beta4.jpg
You need to have Windows 8 RP or RTM (32-bit or 64-bit) installed. It should work in Server 2012 too.
Installation: grab c:\windows\explorer.exe and c:\windows\en-us\explorer.exe.mui from windows 7 system or installation CD (with latest beta 7-zip from sources\install.wim).
It must be same bitness and same language (or en-US) version. You can use Server 2008 R2 too.
Extract them to directory like "c:\explorer7". Extact attached archive to that directory too. It should look like this:
C:\explorer7\explorer.exe
C:\explorer7\en-US\explorer.exe.mui
C:\explorer7\patchex7.exe
C:\explorer7\wrp32.dll
C:\explorer7\wrp64.dll
C:\explorer7\7.reg
C:\explorer7\8.reg
Launch patchex7.exe. It will patch windows 7 explorer.exe. Then choose "7" to set it as default shell in registry, terminate current explorer.exe and log you off.
After log-on you should see Windows 7 desktop.
To uninstall, launch patchex7.exe again, choose "8" to reset shell to default explorer.exe in registry. Do this if you're upgrading patcher too.
Download: patchex7-b7.zip
PLEASE READ: THIS PROGRAM IS PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS" AND I'M NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYTHING
LIMITATIONS:
- Metro programs won't run. Metro UI screens won't show as it's not loaded, cannot and won't be.
- You may get more UAC prompts since win7' explorer.exe is not in win8 UAC-approved whitelist.
- No default language input indicator. Enable language bar via Control Panel->Language->Advanced Settings-
Use desktop language bar.
- No multi-monitor taskbars. Maybe more multimon issues.
- No immersive hotkeys (Win+X, Win+PrtScr too).
Several UI bits missing:
- "You have new program to handle this stuff" toasts won't show. You need to use Default programs to change associations.
ALSO NOTE:
All Programs shown in explorer7 has the same shortcuts that explorer8 shows on Start Screen. So the changes you do reflect here and there; better backup desktop.lnk from start menu.
Windows Explorer which is pinned on taskbar is explorer8, so you must un-pin it and pin explorer7 and vice-versa when you uninstall.
Explorer Ribbon is still there, it's not explorer.exe related!
Using explorer.exe from Windows 8 DP or other Windows versions is not supported and won't be.[/url]
It’s interesting as Microsoft has removed the sourcecode for the start menu from Windows 8 to prevent exactly this from happening, Microsoft hoped hackers would not find a way to bring it back, if the actual code was removed. This trick simply puts the code back. The patch is work in progress and numerous improvements have already been made.
source:myce
