Disabling Metro in Windows 8

Addictive Tips that let me in on the secret to disabling Metro, and now its my turn to show others. The great part about modifying Windows Developer Preview is that it isn’t permanent and if you desire you can always bring Metro back. If you aren’t comfortable doing some basic registry hacks, then this probably isn’t for you. That being said, if you took the time to install Windows Developer Preview than this should be a piece of cake.

1. First, press Start +R buttons to open up the Run menu.
2. From there, enter into “regedit”.
3. Scroll to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE” and double click to expand the folder.
4. Now expand the “SOFTWARE” folder, search for “Microsoft”, and open it.
5. Navigate to Windows>CurrentVersion>Explorer
6. Look for the value “RPenabled” and change it from 1 to 0.

Just like that, Metro will be gone and you will have a traditional start menu again. Don’t want to keep it that way? Just change the value back to 1 and Metro will greet you once more. So why would you want to do this if the primary feature of Windows 8 is Metro? The reason is probably your own, such as testing the stability of the desktop side of Windows Developer Preview. We know its pre-beta but some curious folks want to see how stable a pre-beta is. Overall, Metro is likely here to stay and getting used to it now is my recommendation. At the same time, considering it’s so simple to disable, Microsoft could eventually make this an option. The question is should they? I’m still not 100% sold on Metro, and likely won’t be until I see a wider girth of apps once the Beta is here. That being said, Windows is trying to bridge the gaps that have developed among technology and not require multiple different experiences for all our technology needs. I think this is actually a wise idea and allowing easy disablement of METRO ultimately will hurt this goal.]]>