Classic Shell: Forum

Is there any way to bypass the metro start screen for new users who have never logged in to a machine (new profile)? I've already set the "Skip Metro" setting in HKLM along with other settings I have hardened for each workstation.

The issue is I want users who are deployed to never see the metro UI on first login. Otherwise, for users that have logged into the PC before I installed Classic Start Menu or when the new user logs out and logs back in, the behavior is as desired.

It is possible on Windows 8 because Classic Shell is the one activating the desktop. Look at the Administrative Settings section in the help for more info on how to apply settings to all users.

On Windows 8.1 this is done by the OS, and as far as I know there isn't a global setting that applies to all users. The setting is stored in HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StartPage and the value is OpenAtLogon (it means - open start screen after logon). If you have a way of initializing the registry for new users you may set that value to 0. You may also try setting the corresponding value in HKLM on the off chance that Explorer looks there first and it takes priority over the per-user registry.

Thanks for the quick response. I should have clarified, this is Windows 8 (not 8.1). I have already applied the "SkipMetro" in HKLM as in the Admin guides but it doesn't seem to take effect until the user has logged in once. I'm trying to have it so that it skips the Metro UI on first login (profile creation). We're also using local profiles, not roaming profiles.

It may not work for first login of profiles because Windows 8 takes an unusually long time to set up each new profile as it has to copy all the apps from the default user profile into that user's profile.

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I am a Windows enthusiast and helped a little with Classic Shell's testing and usability/UX feedback.

In my testing, it works for a new profile / new user login if I am logged in as a user and do a "Switch User" and login with the new ID. I presume that's because the process is already running for the other logged in account? There's gotta be a way to automate this, I'm going for a zero touch (or as close to it as possible) approach and would like to bypass the Metro UI for first login.

I may be seeing this with my 4.0.4 install on a fresh Dell XPS 13 just delivered this week.
I have used the local group policy settings to configure CS as I desire.
I have set the skip metro setting.

New users login (this will be a mult-user laptop) and it stays on the Metro screen indefinitely.

The only way this can be fixed is if I go into the desktop, go into CS settings and just back out--without changing a thing.

Once that is done it works perfectly. It appears like it requires the user one time to go into settings and then exit before the skip metro setting will work. Everything else set with the Group Policy settings worked.

This is not a show stopper but just thought I would mention it.

I am willing to further troubleshoot as I have a second XPS 13 to work with that has yet to be configured.
Thank you.

Are you using Windows 8 or 8.1?

In order to fix the issue highlighted above, I've included the following key in my classic shell package. This way, new users aren't prompted for default settings when they click on the start menu for the first time:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\IvoSoft\ClassicStartMenu]

"MenuStyle_Default"="Win7"

I am running Windows 8.1 pro.

On Windows 8.1 the booting to desktop is controlled by a Windows setting. Classic Shell's setting to skip the metro screen is tied to the Windows setting.

For new users the setting is off by default. You can turn it on either from the Classic Shell settings (the Windows 8.1 tab) or from the Taskbar properties (the Navigation tab).