Classic Shell is dead. Long live Classic Shell!

[mxnerd]

The author just decided to stop further developing for Classic Shell after 8 years.

http://www.classicshell.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8147

But he open sourced it on GiHub & Sourceforge

https://sourceforge.net/projects/classicshell/

https://github.com/coddec/Classic-Shell

 

[BonzaiDuck]

This really sucks. And I don't know anyone who is all that happy with Windows 10, or its dumb, commercialized "tablet style" menu.

This all sucks so bad, I could pop a blood-vessel or have a stroke. Creators 1703 is working perfectly -- just fine. Why does MS have to do this? Why can't they implement their own "Classic Shell?"

 

[whm1974]

Damn shame as Classic Shell made using Windows 8 a great deal more tolerable. If I was forced to use Windows 10 Classic Shell would be the first program I will install.

 

[mxnerd]

Hope someone can take over the project or we are doomed!

 

[Anubis]

there is always Start10 from stardock, its not free, and does less then classic shell but it fixes the start menu which TBH is what most people want

 

[RLGL]

This really sucks. And I don't know anyone who is all that happy with Windows 10, or its dumb, commercialized "tablet style" menu.

Yeah..........well.....meet one right here

 

[Charlie98]

I bought my daughter a new Dell laptop with W10... first thing I did was install Classic Shell.

 

[repoman0]

Guarantee the project gets picked back up. Using Windows 10 without Classic Shell sucks.

 

[balloonshark]

Thanks for the heads up. I downloaded the latest version since I was a version behind.

It's nice of the dev to make it open source. Kudos to him/her for giving it a chance to continue it's life.

 

[corkyg]

there is always Start10 from stardock, its not free, and does less then classic shell but it fixes the start menu which TBH is what most people want

It's so cheap it's almost free.

 

[Nashemon]

This really sucks. And I don't know anyone who is all that happy with Windows 10, or its dumb, commercialized "tablet style" menu.

This all sucks so bad, I could pop a blood-vessel or have a stroke. Creators 1703 is working perfectly -- just fine. Why does MS have to do this? Why can't they implement their own "Classic Shell?"

I'm the opposite. The Start Menu is tolerable, but 1703 and beyond pisses me off.

 

[bruceb]

I use it on Win 10 V1703 and it does a very nice job. Not sure if it will continue to work when later versions of Win 10 come out or not. If not and it does not get updated, then I might have to try some other alternative to get back the old style classic look.

 

[whm1974]

I use it on Win 10 V1703 and it does a very nice job. Not sure if it will continue to work when later versions of Win 10 come out or not. If not and it does not get updated, then I might have to try some other alternative to get back the old style classic look.

Well I hope that someone(s) will pick it up in case I'm ever forced to use Windows 10 for any reason.

 

[WelshBloke]

Yeah..........well.....meet one right here

The search sucks!

 

[Puffnstuff]

I too hate to see CS go away. If MS updates and the current version stops working I'll have to buy start10. MS should buy him out and just make it part of windows 10.

 

[bruceb]

But that would make sense and we all that Microsoft's is where the sun don't shine. If they had any at all they would be listening to what the real users (not the sheep who just take what is forced on them) want. This type of addon would not have been needed if they just give us the option of how we want it. The code for Classic look and also to fully control updates is in there, you just can't get to the option to select it. Same for changing certain Windows 10 fonts, you need a small utility to be able to change certain areas.
A lot of useful gadgets are here: https://www.wintools.info/index.php

 

[William Gaatjes]

there is always Start10 from stardock, its not free, and does less then classic shell but it fixes the start menu which TBH is what most people want

That is interesting. And i can pay with paypal as well.
I am sure going to give it a try since microsoft is making more and more a mess of windows.
Windows is going into a direction i was hoping it would not.
It is slowly turned into a typical app with weekly updates to get bugs out and with useless new half finished features.
Not reliable. MAC and linux might get a serious chance now.
Microsoft want to ditch win32 applications. There is no longer any need for windows.

 

[bruceb]

No reason to ditch 32 bit applications. Quite a few programs only need that much to work. Very few really need 64 bit applications unless they are heavy into things like Autocad or some other memory intensive usage. For the home user most will do just fine as a 32 bit application.

 

[William Gaatjes]

No reason to ditch 32 bit applications. Quite a few programs only need that much to work. Very few really need 64 bit applications unless they are heavy into things like Autocad or some other memory intensive usage. For the home user most will do just fine as a 32 bit application.

I was more talking about the win32 api.

 

[bruceb]

What exactly does that mean for the computer users ? ? ? As long as we can still install 32 bits programs on any OS be it 32 bit or 64 bit, that will be fine.

 

[William Gaatjes]

What exactly does that mean for the computer users ? ? ? As long as we can still install 32 bits programs on any OS be it 32 bit or 64 bit, that will be fine.

Well, in all honesty it is the application programming interface that programmers use to create a program.

For example if you want to create a window with a button in it, you can write your own window manager and write your own functions that access the gpu and check if the button is pressed to draw a window and button. For general use it is easier to just use the win32 or win64 api. Of course there is some limitation because as a programmer you adhere to the win32 api. Some programmers need all the computing resources they can get and thus do write everything themselves. For games this often is the case.

To draw a button you can call a win32 api function to draw it, for example like the code example below which uses CreateWindowEx:

g_main_window.hWnd_mainbtnproject = CreateWindowEx    (NULL,
                                      TEXT("button"),
                                      TEXT(""),
                                      WS_CHILD | WS_VISIBLE | BS_OWNERDRAW,
                                      16 * i_cxChar,
                                      i_cyChar,
                                      27 * i_cxChar,
                                      10 * i_cyChar / 4,
                                       g_main_window.hMainWnd,
                                       (HMENU) g_main_window.id_mainbtnproject,  
                                      hInstance,
                                              NULL);

To be honest, Win64 seems to be very similar to win32 but of course with (i hope) improvements to security and reliability.

For the differences see here :
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb496995.aspx

I am a bit worried when it comes to .net and such.
But as it seems to me, these are just wrapper libraries that internally still use win32 or win64.

Let us hope that win64 will really be that much better.

 

[jkauff]

I've been a very satisfied user of Stardock's Start8 and Start10. I think I paid $2.99 for Start8 and upgrading to Start10 cost nothing. The best thing about it is that it's a product of a company that understands the inner workings of the MS UI code probably better than MS, and it always works with every Win 10 update.

Classic Shell is a great product, but it was overkill for my needs, and had the disadvantage of relying on a single talented developer.

 

[William Gaatjes]

I just bought start10 through steam for 4.99 euros (yes, less than 5 euro).
It works great that windows 7 style startmenu.
My windows is becoming normal again.
I hope this will continue to work when microsoft comes with those dreaded updates again.

This is great.
Seeing a proper startmenu again on windows makes me so happy, it is as if i am having an orgasm.

 

[bruceb]

For me, for now, Classic Shell is working on 1703 .. When and if I need to replace it I would probably try Start10 .. It is certainly inexpensive enough. How does it look compared to Classic Shell ? ?

 

[William Gaatjes]

For me, for now, Classic Shell is working on 1703 .. When and if I need to replace it I would probably try Start10 .. It is certainly inexpensive enough. How does it look compared to Classic Shell ? ?

I have never tried classic shell, i can not say.
I do have noticed that the advanced windows search button on the taskbar is gone and can be turned on again if desired.
And while there is a search function in the startmenu, i noticed it is not the general win10 search.
But that is not an issue because when needing for example the troubleshooter, all one has to do is open the win10 settings menu and type troubleshooting there in the search box and it works fine.

edit,
actually it still works, it just uses the old windows 7 alike layout of options.