Please try to keep the Metro love/hate out of this thread. For those who don't like it, here's my list of tweaks and apps to fix Windows 8 and make it behave like earlier versions, please feel free to add your own and I will add them here. Personally I love Windows 8 for it's improved boot times and performance in games, but I know of plenty of people who are avoiding it for fear of having to deal with Metro. I imagine this will also be useful to people who are in the market for a new PC.
1) Start Menu Replacement
Free: Classic Shell (3rd Party, open source)
Paid: Start Is Back (3rd Party, $3 for two computers, $5 for five computers, uses mostly Microsoft code.)
DIY: Manually disable the new start screen then pin your apps to the taskbar.
Personally I prefer Start Is Back as the author of this actually found the Windows 7 start menu code still buried inside of Windows 8 and simply activates that. Classic Shell is a recreation from scratch and not quite as swish.
There are a few other start menu replacements out there. Start8 is another recreation, and is overpriced, although it does have a neat feature where you get the Metro UI in the start menu rather than fullscreen. ViStart is another free recreation but contains adware. If you want these feel free to Google for them.
2) Window borders
Free: Tiny Windows Borders (3rd Party)
DIY: Manually edit the settings in the registry
The big thick windows borders are probably designed to make desktop mode usable on a touchscreen. Run this and you can make them small again, just set border width and border padding both to zero. All this app does is change the same two registry keys described in the second link. You can delete it once you have set the borders how you like them.
3) Outlook Express, Windows Mail and MSN messenger
Free: Windows Essentials 2012 (Microsoft)
If you're used to OE or Windows Mail, you'll be glad to know these still exist. They are now called "Windows Live Mail" (not to be confused with the Windows Live website, that also offers a webmail service) and are obtained as part of the Windows Essentials 2012 package. This package also includes Windows Messenger which is basically MSN messenger and a few other optional extras such as Windows Movie Maker. Obviously those of you who previously used Thurnderbird or AIM or whatever should continue to use those.
4) Windows Media Centre
Free for a limited period: Windows Media Centre (Microsoft)
Windows Media Centre was included in certain editions of earlier Windows versions. It's now a cost option but free until 31st January. Simply fill in your details on that site and you will be sent a product key, though it may take up to 72 hours.
This is a pure cost cutting decision by Microsoft, since they have to pay licence fees for DVD playback abilities and many Windows 8 devices wont even have a DVD drive.
5) Alternatives for DVD and media playback
Free: VideoLan (VLC) (3rd Party, Open Source)
Free: Shark 007 codecs (3rd Party, Warning: The installer will present you with various "offers", make sure to untick them as they are adware. The app itself is clean however.)
VLC is the easiest option, it's a standalone player that will play pretty much anything. Shark007 is a nicer, though more complicated option, it supports all the same formats as VLC but enables them to be used in Windows Media Player, Windows Media Centre and any other player you might install. It also makes video files show up as thumbnails rather than VLCs traffic cone icon.
6) PDF Reader
Free: Sumatra PDF (3rd Party, Open Source)
Free: Foxit Reader (3rd Party, Warning: Make sure not to accept any of the adware offers)
Free: Adobe Reader (3rd Party, Warning: Untick the McAfee Security Scan option before downloading)
Pick whichever reader you were previously used to. Personally I find Sumatra to be the best choice as it does not support all the fancy scripting you get in modern PDFs that is so frequently used to exploit Adobe Reader.
I realise none of these came with earlier versions of Windows, but if you don't install a PDF reader then the next PDF you click is going to bump you back into Metro.
7) Microsoft Security Essentials
This is now built into Windows 8 and re-named to Windows Defender. Unlike the Windows Defender in Vista, it is both antivirus and antispyware. If you used to use Security Essentials you do not need to take any action after installing Windows 8.
8) File Associations
Now that you have all your software installed, this last stage needs to be done by hand, but doesn't take too much if you attack it on a case by case basis. Basically if you open a file and it opens up in a fullscreen metro app, close it (alt+f4 a few times) right click the file, open with and pick a non-metro app. It's easy to spot the metro ones as their icons are big solid colour squares, just avoid those.
If you want to do them all at once read this.
Note: I have tried to avoid making this a general app recommendation post. The only reason 5) is there is because whatever codec pack you were using on your earlier version of Windows will probably not work on 8, and the only reason 6) is there is because Windows 8 ships with a Metro-based PDF reader, so the only way to de-metro this is to install a third party reader.
After you have followed these, your Windows 8 should be pretty much identical to Windows 7, apart from cosmetic differences such as the window theme being flat and solid coloured instead of transparent and a few dialogue boxes that state "tap here" when they mean "click here".
Last thing, most people won't care about this.
9) Windows XP Mode (not to be confused with compatibility mode settings)
This was only ever available in Windows 7 Pro, Ultimate and Enterprise and is not available in Windows 8. If you intend to use this then it may be necessary to stick with Windows 7, however if you happen to own a separate licence for Windows XP then you can use this licence with an alternative Virtual Machine product, which will likely have significantly better performance anyway
Free: Hyper-V (Microsoft, does not work on Core2 or earlier)
Free: VirtualBox (3rd Party, Open Source)
Free: VMWare Player (3rd Party, needs a bit of fiddling to make it work)
Configuring VMs is somewhat beyond the scope of a post like this. If you were using XP Mode previously then hopefully you know what you are doing. VMWare is, however, very very good. I've been able to run full screen 3D games with hardware acceleration and get better frame rates than those games got on the XP hardware they originally came from.
If your copy of XP has an OEM licence (i.e. a sticker on the case) then the licence agreement is supposedly non-transferable to new hardware, and a virtual machine counts as new hardware. Apparently this clause was overruled in the European Courts, but you might have fun getting Microsoft to activate it.
Also note that if your XP licence was upgraded to Windows 8, you no-longer have an XP licence to use for this purpose, unless you have another XP machine somewhere.
Edit:
10) Windows 7 explorer for Windows 8:
1) Start Menu Replacement
Free: Classic Shell (3rd Party, open source)
Paid: Start Is Back (3rd Party, $3 for two computers, $5 for five computers, uses mostly Microsoft code.)
DIY: Manually disable the new start screen then pin your apps to the taskbar.
Personally I prefer Start Is Back as the author of this actually found the Windows 7 start menu code still buried inside of Windows 8 and simply activates that. Classic Shell is a recreation from scratch and not quite as swish.
There are a few other start menu replacements out there. Start8 is another recreation, and is overpriced, although it does have a neat feature where you get the Metro UI in the start menu rather than fullscreen. ViStart is another free recreation but contains adware. If you want these feel free to Google for them.
2) Window borders
Free: Tiny Windows Borders (3rd Party)
DIY: Manually edit the settings in the registry
The big thick windows borders are probably designed to make desktop mode usable on a touchscreen. Run this and you can make them small again, just set border width and border padding both to zero. All this app does is change the same two registry keys described in the second link. You can delete it once you have set the borders how you like them.
3) Outlook Express, Windows Mail and MSN messenger
Free: Windows Essentials 2012 (Microsoft)
If you're used to OE or Windows Mail, you'll be glad to know these still exist. They are now called "Windows Live Mail" (not to be confused with the Windows Live website, that also offers a webmail service) and are obtained as part of the Windows Essentials 2012 package. This package also includes Windows Messenger which is basically MSN messenger and a few other optional extras such as Windows Movie Maker. Obviously those of you who previously used Thurnderbird or AIM or whatever should continue to use those.
4) Windows Media Centre
Free for a limited period: Windows Media Centre (Microsoft)
Windows Media Centre was included in certain editions of earlier Windows versions. It's now a cost option but free until 31st January. Simply fill in your details on that site and you will be sent a product key, though it may take up to 72 hours.
This is a pure cost cutting decision by Microsoft, since they have to pay licence fees for DVD playback abilities and many Windows 8 devices wont even have a DVD drive.
5) Alternatives for DVD and media playback
Free: VideoLan (VLC) (3rd Party, Open Source)
Free: Shark 007 codecs (3rd Party, Warning: The installer will present you with various "offers", make sure to untick them as they are adware. The app itself is clean however.)
VLC is the easiest option, it's a standalone player that will play pretty much anything. Shark007 is a nicer, though more complicated option, it supports all the same formats as VLC but enables them to be used in Windows Media Player, Windows Media Centre and any other player you might install. It also makes video files show up as thumbnails rather than VLCs traffic cone icon.
6) PDF Reader
Free: Sumatra PDF (3rd Party, Open Source)
Free: Foxit Reader (3rd Party, Warning: Make sure not to accept any of the adware offers)
Free: Adobe Reader (3rd Party, Warning: Untick the McAfee Security Scan option before downloading)
Pick whichever reader you were previously used to. Personally I find Sumatra to be the best choice as it does not support all the fancy scripting you get in modern PDFs that is so frequently used to exploit Adobe Reader.
I realise none of these came with earlier versions of Windows, but if you don't install a PDF reader then the next PDF you click is going to bump you back into Metro.
7) Microsoft Security Essentials
This is now built into Windows 8 and re-named to Windows Defender. Unlike the Windows Defender in Vista, it is both antivirus and antispyware. If you used to use Security Essentials you do not need to take any action after installing Windows 8.
8) File Associations
Now that you have all your software installed, this last stage needs to be done by hand, but doesn't take too much if you attack it on a case by case basis. Basically if you open a file and it opens up in a fullscreen metro app, close it (alt+f4 a few times) right click the file, open with and pick a non-metro app. It's easy to spot the metro ones as their icons are big solid colour squares, just avoid those.
If you want to do them all at once read this.
Note: I have tried to avoid making this a general app recommendation post. The only reason 5) is there is because whatever codec pack you were using on your earlier version of Windows will probably not work on 8, and the only reason 6) is there is because Windows 8 ships with a Metro-based PDF reader, so the only way to de-metro this is to install a third party reader.
After you have followed these, your Windows 8 should be pretty much identical to Windows 7, apart from cosmetic differences such as the window theme being flat and solid coloured instead of transparent and a few dialogue boxes that state "tap here" when they mean "click here".
Last thing, most people won't care about this.
9) Windows XP Mode (not to be confused with compatibility mode settings)
This was only ever available in Windows 7 Pro, Ultimate and Enterprise and is not available in Windows 8. If you intend to use this then it may be necessary to stick with Windows 7, however if you happen to own a separate licence for Windows XP then you can use this licence with an alternative Virtual Machine product, which will likely have significantly better performance anyway
Free: Hyper-V (Microsoft, does not work on Core2 or earlier)
Free: VirtualBox (3rd Party, Open Source)
Free: VMWare Player (3rd Party, needs a bit of fiddling to make it work)
Configuring VMs is somewhat beyond the scope of a post like this. If you were using XP Mode previously then hopefully you know what you are doing. VMWare is, however, very very good. I've been able to run full screen 3D games with hardware acceleration and get better frame rates than those games got on the XP hardware they originally came from.
If your copy of XP has an OEM licence (i.e. a sticker on the case) then the licence agreement is supposedly non-transferable to new hardware, and a virtual machine counts as new hardware. Apparently this clause was overruled in the European Courts, but you might have fun getting Microsoft to activate it.
Also note that if your XP licence was upgraded to Windows 8, you no-longer have an XP licence to use for this purpose, unless you have another XP machine somewhere.
Edit:
10) Windows 7 explorer for Windows 8:
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