Windows 8.1 May Not Allow Users To Skip Metro, After All

The upcoming Windows 8.1 is said to bring a lot of changes and improvements to the core Windows 8 operating system, and the past few days several rumors have surfaced hinting a lot of new features.

As things stand, the reports we heard a day or so back are not exactly related to the Start Screen bypassing option. Instead, they were related to the “Kiosk mode” that is said to be a part of the upcoming update to Windows 8.

A detailed post on the My Digital Life forums sheds more light on the matter:

“twinui-CanSuppressStartScreen is related to a “kiosk mode” and I didn’t find any other feature that it controls, at least in this early build. You’ll have to set twinui-CanSuppressStartScreen to 1 in the ProductPolicies key (via ProductPolicyEditor from wsservice_crack) and create a DWORD key “KioskMode” in HKLMSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExp lorerStartMenu with value 1.

Any user without admin rights then gets a blank screen instead of the start screen (it does not switch to desktop automatically, you can start any desktop or store app with the search charm though).”

So then, if we go by this report above, the Start Screen still may very likely be the first thing Windows 8.1 users will see after they boot into the operating system.

As usual, nothing concrete on the matter yet. Microsoft does not comment on its future projects, and it is futile to expect anything from the software company, at least until Windows 8.1 nears release.

Nevertheless, an option like this should come in handy for a lot of users — surely for those that have installed third-party applications to bypass the Start Screen and get directly to the desktop every time they boot up their machine.

For now, though, it is wait and see.