I for once have used windows 7 for a while until I downgraded to xp.
Just do what Badspot says and launch things normally.
Does it really matter if you see one more icon?
Just disable pinning I'm pretty sure that people who are used to older versions of
windows rather not use pinning,even though someone has made a program similar like that for vista and xp,I rather just use things like they are.
TL;DR Just play the game how it is and don't complain, its better than having Blockland not start up at all.