Windows 8, the upcoming Operating System from Microsoft is currently under development and a developer preview version was released some time back. The final version is expected around October 2012 and this version will come with many changes when compared to Windows 7 like new Start Screen, Explorer with Ribbon, new Task Manager etc. There are also many new customization features expected. Like Windows 7, we already have many tools to tweak Windows 8 and these tweaks are either available through different steps or might be registry based hacks. Here are some of the popular tweaking tools for Windows 8 to customize it your needs.
Please note that some of these tweaking tool’s features might be included in final version of Windows 8 when it is made available.
1. Metro Controller:
This is a simple and yet useful tool to quickly enable or disbale the new features in Windows 8 which includes, task manager, Explorer and also the start menu. The tool is portable and can be used with any issues on Windows 8. Check our review of the tool.
2. Metro UI Tweaker:
This is an awesome tweaking tool for Windows 8 developed by WindowsClub. This tool again is a portable one and comes with options which can disable or enable the new features in Windows 8 as well as option to add shortcuts to Start screen. Check out the review of Metro UI Tweaker.
3. Windows 8 Start Menu Switcher:
This tool allows you to quickly switch between the old start menu of Windows 7 or use the new start screen of Windows 8.
4. Windows 8 Start Tweaker:
This free tool allows you to tweak the start menu in Windows 8 by adding background ‘wallpaper’ and also background colors which is not possible otherwise from the settings of Windows 8. It works for Windows 8 WDP (build 8102) only.
5. Windows 8 Dev. Preview Tweaker:
This tool will let you change your Windows 8 start screen background image, enable good old start menu, and enable snap feature in Windows 8 Developer Preview.
6. Metro UI Colors Changer:
Metro UI Colors Changer a freeware tool that allows you to change the colors of many metro elements of Windows 8 including the start screen & logon screen background color, start screen tile background color, start screen tile font color etc.
Although many of these apps might become obsolete as Microsoft will be adding these features as native in final builds of Windows 8. We will update the post with new tweaking tools as and when it is released.