Here is a simple trick to bring back the “new” Start menu

Jan 26, 2015 10:17 GMT  ·  By

In Windows 10 Technical Preview build 9841, Microsoft officially brought back the Start menu on the desktop, rolling out a new design that mixes the original design in Windows 7 with live tiles that debuted in Windows 8.

This design, however, has evolved to become a much more complex feature that now serves as the foundation of the Continuum feature, which allows users to switch from the desktop to the Modern UI without interrupting their work on a 2-in-1 PC.

Basically, the Start menu now becomes a Start screen when used in full-screen mode, so the new design is a bit different from the one we saw in the first Windows 10 Technical Preview builds.

Few steps to bring the original design back

Basically, all you need to do is create a new registry key that would disable the existing Start menu and bring back the previous design in Windows 10 build 9926.

First of all, launch the Registry Editor from the Start menu by typing “regedit” in the search box. Navigate to the following path in the editor:

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HKEY_CURRENT_USER>Software>Microsoft>Windows>CurrentVersion>Explorer>Advanced
Now simply right-click in the right side of the screen, create a new DWORD value and call it "EnableXamlStartMenu” (it's better to copy and paste the name from this article to make sure that you type it correctly).

Now simply sign out, reboot your computer, or kill explorer.exe to see the new Start menu. To shut down Explorer, just press CTRL + Shift and right-click the taskbar to get to the “Exit Explorer option.” Once the taskbar disappears, press CTRL + ALT + Del, click on Task Manager, go to File > Run, type “explorer” and hit Enter.

The new Start menu should now be there, without the new features implemented in build 9926. If you want to go back to the new design, just delete the “EnableXamlStartMenu” key you created earlier.