Everyone says that Windows 8 doesn’t have a start menu, and it’s true there’s no Start Button on the task bar like in the last several versions of Windows. However if you press <Windows>+W you’ll get a sort of start menu.
There’s an Apps button on that menu, which when pressed will give you the pretty classic looking Start Menu.
I’m sure that I’ll be using this feature pretty often as most apps don’t have a Metro icon.
Denny