51Cards

I will continue to use Open Shell as a replacement until it no longer works.

beloch
It is still being updated here:

https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu

I'd love to hear about other alternatives people are enjoying, but this has reliably shielded me from what MS has done to their start menu for several years now.

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Edit:

I just wanted to add that I'm a little shocked that a discussion of Open Shell or other alternatives to the default Windows menu isn't higher in this thread. Windows has always been an OS that was meant to be customized. If Microsoft makes a poor choice for the default start menu, then change it. This isn't OSX.

Yes, Linux is great, but Windows is highly customizable too. MS may be trying to look more like Apple these days, but the roots are still there. Graft whatever you want onto them. Sometimes you need to use Windows, so you might as well learn how to make yourself comfortable with it.