Classic theme on windows 10

[Red Squirrel]

What is everyone doing to make the UI more like classic windows these days? Since MS removed that option in 10. I googled and found a few possible solutions but they all seem to involve hacking DLL files.

I can't stand the white theme, just too much white everywhere, and gray hard to read text. The font they use is also fuzzy and hard to read and just ugly. I want to get black text on gray or similar, and crisp characters, and less bulky dialogs. Is there anything like Classic Shell that would do that? I don't understand why MS keeps making their OS less customizable and so ugly. I can't even find a place to change the colours of each individual component. I could at least do that.

Classic Shell does help for the start menu though, and also the control panel and some other places are better now.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I downloaded Classic Shell and tried it with Win 10 on my laptop.

It seems to work fine and offers some few options so you can access the default Win10 start menu.

It DOES give you the classic desktop, and I found that I actually was annoyed here and there because I was starting to get used to the Win 10 UI.

 

[Hugh Jass]

...and gray hard to read text. The font they use is also fuzzy and hard to read and just ugly.

Makes me wonder if your setup is jacked as I do not have this problem.

The only issue I have with the font is the fact that lowercase Ls look exactly like uppercase Is unless you look at them in a super zoomed in magnification. Was the same in Windows 8.

 

[nerp]

The anniversary update coming this summer will include a "dark mode" so you might prefer that if you abandon efforts to reproduce classic shell.

 

[Compman55]

Try applx os x 10.11.4 El Capitan. Its also ugly.

 

[JimmiG]

The white-on-white theme can get a little tiring. One thing you can do is go into Color Settings and enable color on the title bar of windows. Unfortunately this will also color the task bar, which might not be what you wanted.

There seems to be a trend currently to have the ugliest user interface possible. The goal seems to be to emulate the original 1984 Mac OS as closely as possible. I guess it's a knee jerk reaction to the overly flashy and glossy Windows Aero theme from Win7.

 

[Magic Carpet]

The anniversary update coming this summer will include a "dark mode" so you might prefer that if you abandon efforts to reproduce classic shell.

What else is coming, GUI wise?

 

[nerp]

Some improvements to the action center, notifications, more cohesiveness with settings menu and old control panel, the new windows ink system, some new icons, some updates to the start menu and new cortana stuff. This is the release that also comes with bash. A lot of the stuff is spelled out a bit on Thurrot.

Oh, it will also better integrate with Android phones and will give you text notifications on screen, similar to what iPhone users experience on OSX.

The dark theme will also let you fiddle with colors for the start, taskbar, action center, and menu and title bars more.

More from How To Geek: http://www.howtogeek.com/248177/whats-new-in-windows-10s-anniversary-update/

 

[Magic Carpet]

Bash is coming, amazing. That was unthinkable only a decade ago

Thanks for the update, nerp :thumbsup:

 

[JackMDS]

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-10-with-a-Classic-Theme-Still-Looks-Eye-Candy-461156.shtml

 

[bruceb]

Classic Shell
Ultimate Windows Tweaker 4.0

Between those you can get it pretty much like XP or Windows 7

 

[xpclient]

Everyone is staying on Windows 7 or 8. Also there is Winaero Tweaker which is the new "Ultimate" tweaker.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I already installed Classic Shell, and it's an improvement on the start menu, but does not really touch the overall GUI from what I've seen. I'll check Ultimate Windows Tweaker 4.0 as well. Though from reading through that I don't see anything involving GUI. It's own GUI looks better than the other ones in 10 though, even if I could get everything to look like that it would be a slight improvement. At least the text is gray, and there are outlines around different elements like tabs.

If it was my say I'd convert this PC to windows 7 but they really wanted to keep what it came with.

 

[bruceb]

Also, right click on the Desktop, Personalise ... you can pick some themes in there as well or you can get others from the link posted by xpclient ... not sure if I used them or not as I use Webshots for my desktop background. (with my own preferred photos)

 

[Magic Carpet]

I already installed Classic Shell, and it's an improvement on the start menu, but does not really touch the overall GUI from what I've seen.

Windows 10 start menu is fine as it is (not perfect, but okay), it's everything else (integration with the other bits and pieces of the GUI itself, colors, etc) that pisses me off. Classic Shell can't fix that. Hopefully, the summer build will fix a lot of these things. Personally, I uninstalled all the shells to reduce start-up clutter and use keyboard shortcuts instead. Got more or less used to the bland colors, etc. Not happy, but I am not thrilled about the idea of running 3rd-party apps just to please my eyes/habits. There are ways to make the whole Windows 10 / Explorer Shell look like Windows 95/2000/Vista/7/Glass but that requires editing a lot of system files. Again, not recommended.

I'd rather use small tweaks here and there and leave the OS clean. For example:

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah I saw a video of someone that actually had it looking like windows 98, but I'm not a fan of modifying DLLs and stuff like that. 98/2000 GUI was the better one, they started to screw it up from there, but at least they left the option to go back to it.

I found the personalize options but it's laughable what you can do, and changing the theme just changes the background.

 

[lupi]

The anniversary update coming this summer will include a "dark mode" so you might prefer that if you abandon efforts to reproduce classic shell.

Unless the different color themes are as useful as in the office products.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Classic theme? Like, straight-from-the-90s Windows 95 look?

....Why?

 

[Elixer]

Some improvements to the action center, notifications, more cohesiveness with settings menu and old control panel, the new windows ink system, some new icons, some updates to the start menu and new cortana stuff. This is the release that also comes with bash. A lot of the stuff is spelled out a bit on Thurrot.

Oh, it will also better integrate with Android phones and will give you text notifications on screen, similar to what iPhone users experience on OSX.

The dark theme will also let you fiddle with colors for the start, taskbar, action center, and menu and title bars more.

More from How To Geek: http://www.howtogeek.com/248177/whats-new-in-windows-10s-anniversary-update/

You can also do dark mode now... http://www.howtogeek.com/222614/how-to-enable-windows-10’s-hidden-dark-theme but, it isn't as refined as the anniversary update will be.

 

[bruceb]

On my Toshiba Laptop (win 10 Home 64) I am running the following:

Classic Shell
Ultimate Windows Tweaker 4
7 Taskbar Tweaker
Webshots for my desktop wallpaper
I had also downloaded UXStyle .. it lets you add custom themes
but I am not sure if I actually used it.

Between the ones mentioned above, it looks almost as good as XP
with the ""normal type" of Start Menu ... Now if only there was a way
to remove the Shield that Windows puts on certain Icons that are set
to "Run As Administrator" (and this is with the user account set to
minimum UAC nagging)

 

[xpclient]

Forgot the link to Winaero Tweaker: http://winaero.com/blog/the-list-of-winaero-tweaker-features/ It's pretty impressive the number of tweaks it can do - especially the ones that are applicable to Windows 10, 8 and 7.

 

[bruceb]

My Toshiba Laptop with Win 10 Home 64 and Webshots as Wallpaper looks like this
(with Classic Shell and Ultimate Windows Tweaker and Win 7 Taskbar Tweaker)

 

[nerp]

Bash is coming, amazing. That was unthinkable only a decade ago

Thanks for the update, nerp :thumbsup:

I know it! Not only that, people have even figured out how to run xwindows and do all kinds of stuff.

 

[Hugh Jass]

Everyone is staying on Windows 7 or 8.

Not even close to being true.

 

[Hugh Jass]

My Toshiba Laptop with Win 10 Home 64 and Webshots as Wallpaper looks like this
(with Classic Shell and Ultimate Windows Tweaker and Win 7 Taskbar Tweaker)

Sorry...but that looks...ummm...how do I put this...oh I know...I'll let Sir Charles say it for me...