Discussion on:

Make the Windows 8 Start Screen work like the Start Menu

It doesn't replace the start menu. It only makes you go an extra step to get to a screen full of icons. There doesn't seem to be any way to arrange except manually. It would be better just to put the shortcuts on the desktop so you wouldn't have to click the unhandy start menu to get to them every time.

I would rather leave the Metro screen alone and add the start menu toolbar to the Taskbar. It works great for me and the rest of my staff. I think Windows 8 is definitely a step up for Microsoft into a much leaner, smaller and faster operating system.

i used win transformation pack to get preview of how win 8 will look like. So that you can choose for yourself before actually installing it.
I have using it for more than a month on my laptop and i find it pretty stable ,,, read more
http://receivetipstricks.com/make-win7-looks-like-win8/

What...are you still doing with Office 2003. I know it's great, but it's nearly 10 years old!

Just get a copy of Classic Shell from Sourceforge, it will let you change it all with a couple of mouse clicks.