[madbadgalaxyman (Robert)]

This post is partly in reply to the recent post in this computing forum called "Windows 8 - A question before I buy"

A lot of us who have tried Win 8 would feel great delight in utterly exterminating and blowing up the Windows 8 interface....... it is absolutely a 'varmint' of an interface that greatly impedes productivity and ease-of-use on a laptop/notebook computer.

The other alternative is to modify the Win 8 interface and the software so as to make Windows 8 work more-or-less like Windows 7 or Win XP.
Here are some suggestions for sending Win 8 to a 'reform school' so as to make it work more like Windows XP or Windows 7.

All of these software solutions have worked well for me; not too buggy, no spyware or unwanted software installed, and closely replicating (or even improving on) Win 7 and/or Win XP functions;

(1) Windows Explorer (File Explorer) has got steadily worse, with every successive release of Windows; it is pretty tough to remove it from win 8 , so I adopted another option.....
The file-explorer/windows explorer File Management Utility under Win 8 has become so complex and has so many options displayed in an over-busy & super-complex interface that it impedes productivity.
A stable freeware product with a much better interface is:
EF Commander Free , Version 9.00
You have two clearly laid out file/folder trees visible at one time (side by side) so as to be able to easily copy files from one to the other, in this software. Also, this file management utility is highly configurable; but the complexity and the many options are well hidden and do not interfere with basic operations. In fact, this file management utility is much better and easier-to-use than the standard Windows XP and Windows 7 explorers.

(2) Zonealarm used to be the recommended free Software Firewall for Windows, but the Win 8 version of Zonealarm can be a problem, trying to install all kinds of unwanted things on your computer, and also it is bloatware.

So I recently installed this freeware firewall, which is highly configurable, free, and seems to work well:
Privatefirewall , Version 7.0.29.1

(3) I have investigated several available options for getting rid of the truly horrible interface of Windows 8.
I use this product that does a good job of making Windows 8 look like Windows 7 or Windows XP :
Classic Shell, Version 3.6.7

Cheers,
madbadgalaxyman