While some of the Windows 8 users are trying to add the Start button in their copy of Windows, some other users of previous Windows versions might want to know how it feels to live life without a Start button in Windows. And this is where the freeware program Start Killer comes in. It can temporarily remove the Start button from Windows taskbar and make more space in the taskbar available for other applications.
Start Killer is available in form of a setup installer. During the installation it installs a hook in your system through ashook.dll which is required for the Start Killer to work. After the installation, you can choose to run it from its desktop shortcut. As soon as it runs, the Start button in the taskbar disappears. But you can still open the Start Menu using the Windows logo key on your keyboard or by using the key combination Ctrl + Shift + Esc. A knife like icon is placed in the notification area, right-clicking on which you can open the Start Killer settings.
In the Settings window, you can choose options like automatically starting it with Windows, displaying icon in the system tray, turning off Start Menu completely and replacing it with True Launch Bar (a commercial product from the same developer). If you decide to remove the icon from the system tray, then you can still open the settings with the Ctrl + Alt + Shift + F12 key combination.
It is interesting to note that even though the websites says Start Killer version 4.0, the settings window displays version 3.2 – perhaps the developers became a little careless. If for some reason, you want to get rid of the Start button in Windows, then Start Killer can easily help you out. It works in all versions of Windows starting from Windows XP to Windows 8.1. It works on both the 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows.
You can download Start Killer from http://www.tordex.com/startkiller/.