How to Reset Windows 8 Start Screen to its Default

How to reset the start screen in Windows 8.1

It is not so hard that it sounds! A couple of simple DOS commands can get this done for you.

Start by opening the elevated command prompt. You can do this either from the Start Screen or the Desktop. To open elevated command prompt from the start screen, place the mouse pointer at the right-hand corner and click the ‘Search’ option when it appears.

Simply, type ‘CMD’ and hit the ‘CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER’ combination from keyboard.

This will open the elevated command prompt. To do the same from desktop, press ‘Win key + X’ and click ‘Command prompt’.

Both of the above will open the command prompt for you. Now run the following commands one-by-one.

1. del %LocalAppData%MicrosoftWindowsappsFolder.itemdata-ms

2. del %LocalAppData%MicrosoftWindowsappsFolder.itemdata-ms.bak

Finally, execute the following.

3. Tskill explorer

You could avoid the third command and simply reboot your computer. however, the above commands will revert your start screen back to its default state – exactly same as you seen just after installing Windows 8.