how to make windows 8 look and act like windows 7

I just have to say that as far as I'm concerned 8 is a JOKE.  I'm a bit old school and tend to use key strokes to do everything.  I never kept icons on my desktop, just used the flag key and single letter strokes to get my programs started and work in them, rarely even touch the mouse or touch pad.  My computer is a TOOL not a TOY.  I use it strictly for work and communication.  I've worked with a new win8 POS for 3 days now and I'm boxing it up and returning it.  I don't care who manufatured it, they didn't program the OS.  this OS is garbage, the sales people all touted it because it's just like the "Xbox" but that doesn't help because I don't use one of those and I don't use a "smart" phone either.  How 'bout Microsoft taking people like me into consideration?

That's why the Desktop is still there. That's why all the keyboard shortcuts still work. That's why even more keyboard shortcuts were added and everything can still be done with a mouse and keyboard.

Hi,

I'm not happy with the new Metro\Modern UI either. However, I found an app that returns most all, if not all of Win 7's and previous features...

I'm actually surprised that I didn't see it mentioned in any of the other replies..unless I missed it.

StarDock has an App called Start 8 that simply gets the job done without any BS...

It returns the start button, All Programs, and etc., as well as booting directly to the Desktop if desired.

It's a whole $5, and has a 30 free trial...This is precisely what Microsoft should have made available..

Then they would be getting applauded instead of criticized...

I fixed the problem... I bought a new windows7 OS, whiped the hard drive clean and loaded it on. Problem solved!

I would have gladly sent the computer back that had the Windows 8 on it, but I spent too much time trying to figure the OS out and over stepped the warranty by 2 days.

"Click the Desktop tile on your Start screen. That's the "Windows 7 interface"."

After trying Windows 8 for a couple of months I decided to unistall and go back to Wiondows 7.

There were so many things I needed to be able to do that vanished in 8.  Just because you can see a desktop does not mean you still had access to all the tools that used to be there.

Control panel was gone, access to msconfig vanished, notepad no longer existed and many others just went bye-bye for no reason I can see.  Add to that the insanity of using a touch screen format for computers that did not have a touch screen was the icing on the cake.

I recommend anyone who is using a non-touch screen machine would be well suited to stay with 7.

Tablets will probably be the only platform able to use this OS best.