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Tried using the Win 7 download with my Retail Upgrade key (from the 3 PC Family Pack) as my x64 Disc is missing but it failed with “ERROR We encountered a problem with the validation request. Please assure your product key is for a product supported by this site and was entered correctly, then try your request again.” So not all retail packs are supported.

In Australia a handy magazine comes out monthly called APC (Australian Personal Computing). In November’s issue they have provided a link to an app they developed to hobble the Metro interface using a bypass, or a Metro killer (FxxkMetro) and also to provide a Start button using either Classic Shell or Start8. The link to their app is apcmag.com/fix8.html. They have an article in the magazine about the various options this app provides (the options are pretty self explanatory) but I am loath to copy it due to copyright issues. However if you live outside of Australia I am sure you could persuade one of your friends over here to send you a copy or you could contact the publisher to request a copy and if you have an ipad you could subscribe to APC through it. In this issue they also tackle the shutdown and restart of Win8 by creating Metro shortcuts. Hope this is of some help.

Just a quick note to let you know of another program that allows you to look at and edit startup items, it is called Runalyzer and is available from Spybot Search and Destroy’s site. It is quite comprehensive and even lists the Winsock LSPs, Host file entries, Installed software, Process list and Services.

Hi Dave

As the previous reply warned changes you make particularly to your registry can have the effect of making your Windows unbootable or severely unstable so making a backup of your registry before you start is highly recommended.

If the Folder exists in Program Files but you can’t delete it due to the folder/file being used/locked “Cannot delete file: It is being used by another person or program. Close any programs that might be using the file and try again” or something similar, then you can use a free tool to unlock the file so you can delete it. The tool is called Unlocker….WARNING This program will list the process/es using the file. You may find Windows becomes unstable after unlocking the file. When you restart Windows after deleting the file you may get a warning about a failure to load that file, you can proceed into windows and then you may have to use Runalyzer (see the second paragraph below) or a similar tool to find the entry and delete it.

If you have taken note of the full file name before deleting it you can also use Regedit to search for the file name…to do so start up regedit then click on “Edit” on toolbar menu then click on “Find” then enter the file name (you shouldn’t need to enter the “.dll” part of the name then click “Find Next” (you will notice 3 boxes with ticks under where you enter the file name…you can safely leave them ticked.), Regedit will start to search the registry. When it finds a match it will stop at that spot and you will need to delete or modify the entry to cut the offending data out (be very careful in doing this…if at all unsure about what you are doing get advice before proceeding) once you have cleaned that entry press F3 button and Regedit will continue to search for that name again and will stop at the next entry if it exists at which point you clean that entry….just keep repeating with F3 etc until regedit advises it has searched the entire registry.

I use a couple of different tools to locate stubborn entries. Firstly I use Safer Networks Spybot Search and Destroy in Advanced Mode and click on the System Startup icon in the tools section (only see this entry when you use Advanced Mode). It has many of the entries that the first reply included and also a few others eg from the System.ini file. I also look under the BHO and Activex area of the Tools section to see if an entry resides there. If that doesn’t work you can try another tool from Safer Networks called Runalyzer. It is much more in-depth and needs to be used extremely carefully. It has all the services, processes, BHO’s etc that run on your machine in various tabs. Using Runalyzer look for the entry after it does its initial startup search…you will need to go through each section looking for the errant entry from Google. If you locate it’s entry/entries delete them but make sure you are deleting the right stuff. There are other tools out there that will do a similar job to Runalyzer and I am sure you could do a search for them on the web if you don’t wish to use Runaylzer.

Hope this helps you out