Ah... I've also always simplified my Start Menu structure. No "most recently installed" or "favorite" programs, just an alphabetized top-level (that's important) list of installed apps. So I see "Microsoft Office" but not every single app within Office, unless I want to.
The other thing I do in Win7 is make a new shortcuts folder that lives on the taskbar, over on the right end by the SysTray, giving me the equivalent of XP's QuickLaunch icons.
Man, writing all this, I realize I'm a Luddite. Dang, what do you mean I'm not 22 any more??? :)
Funny thing is, my over-30 users love that setup, anachronistic though it is. Nothing like familiarity, I guess.
The Start screen can be completely customized. I dragged a bunch of my network engineeers over to Server 2012 just a few weeks ago. Despite initial trepidation, they love it now.
Absolutely, and particularly in cases like mine: Mechanical/Aeronautical/Manufacturing Engineer, with ten years or so working with Naval Aviators as an instructor on various jet fighters/bombers.
That computer is a TOOL for me, it helps me earn a living and I have grown to depend on certain inputs resulting in clearly defined outputs from the basic program, because my CAD (Computer Aided Drafting) programs demand so much of my attention I simply don't have the time or faintest inclination to play around with the latest programming whim or merchandising tactic to come down the pike from Windows.
I would react in exactly the same manner if I were pointed at an aircraft and told that the "Operator Interface" (i.e. controls and instruments) had been "updated" making all of my past experience obsolete and I could now begin to learn to fly all over again.
....or maybe I'd just go look up some of the folks who made those "improvements" and invite 'em to go flying with me. (Sure, I'd be the only one with a 'chute.....)
Okay, it isn't an airplane, I don't have to go back to E School to learn to run Win whateverthehell (even if my choices have long been limited to Windows by my peers and employers) and no, I'm not going to learn yet another new Apple/Linux/fill-in-the-blank base program just so I can flip the bird to Windows after all these years. I'd be lucky if I could recover all of my past data and get it talking to a "new" system before I got too old and feeble to give a sh**.
What I will do (and long have done) is identify the Windows platform that works for me, make a few adjustments that I deem necessary (dump IE, any bundled "security" softwear and all but the absolutely vital Win support programs) and go my happy ol' dinosaur way. That's precisely why I hung on to XP for as long as I did, why I (and apparently a whole bunch like me) rejected Vista as unacceptable and viewed Win 7 and especially 8 as Vista-with-ribbons-in-its-hair until forced into a Win 7 Pro setup only just this last year.
Had to fool with it a bit, but I do think that I'll keep W7P around for a while. Almost like running XP again, only faster.....once I got "my" Start screen and all those icons back, that is.
....plus being able to wonk around with iCloud and our collection of iPhones/iPads on this rig is kinda neat, too.