xpclient

I have nothing against Linux, in fact I would rather dump Bob 10 and use any other OS so I tried Linux Mint briefly given how much attention it gets in the Linux world (Sorry Ubuntu GUI is a miserable failure). The USABILITY of Mint with Cinnamon (their flagship desktop environment), MATE or Xfce is close to the usability of Windows 95 beta builds (Codename Chicago).

Can you post your ultimate guide as a document, and not as a video?

No it is just a free app that complements the Explorer shell so many of the things Microsoft removed starting in Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8 are put back by it - parts of the shell such as Start Menu, Explorer features that were gone and some IE features. Tihiy here with OldNewExplorer and StartIsBack does something very similar. Every feature is configurable so you can add just the stuff you want. Started in Nov. 2009, now it crossed 50-70 million downloads obviously because it's free and fast, pays attention to getting usability right augmented by extensive customization. We don't track or care about exact download count because the goal is to make the user not feel s*** (which Microsoft constantly does to its user base). It has around 500,000 downloads per month now even after Windows 10 is out with a Start menu. It started as a Classic Start menu (Windows 2000-style) because Windows 7 got rid of that. Then it added an Up button and the rest is history. Over time it evolved to add all Start Menu features of Windows 7, Vista, XP, 2000, 95 etc. First it was hosted at SourceForge, then at MediaFire, now FossHub so we lost the exact count. Why I think it is popular amongst power users and IT pros is because of its customization, it puts the user in control of at least some aspects of his Desktop. Windows 8 gave it a massive boost in popularity.

Actually Classic Shell on Windows 10 doesn't matter. This OS is broken beyond repair. The rest of the UI and features are so broken that it's hopeless. Don't waste your time running Classic Shell on Windows 10. Stay with 7 or 8.1.

I think Classic Shell as an application won't break as long as other Win32 apps work because it is all Ivo Beltchev's code. It is a proper Win32 app, and it doesn't rely on any Microsoft Start Menu or Explorer code. But of course it does use tons of Windows APIs and Win32 controls and functions like all the other Win32 apps use, some of them are undocumented functions but most of them are proper APIs. What does repeatedly break is the integration of the Classic Shell Start Menu with Explorer in nearly every new Insider build of Windows 10. The menu EXE has to inject a DLL into Explorer to hook the Win key etc. But once that is fixed by Ivo for stable builds of Windows 10, it starts working again. Unless Microsoft starts removing the APIs intentionally to hurt Win32 apps like Classic Shell, but then many other apps will break, it will be like Vista where compatibility of many programs broke and everyone was p***ed off. If they have malicious intent, they can break anything really - like the shortcut creation system of the Explorer shell that's there since Windows 95. Or they can completely disallow DLL injection as a "security improvement". They can eliminate shell extensions citing low use. But Classic Start Menu can still be made to work as a standalone desktop app without hooking into Explorer.exe although to hook the Win key for example, some new tricks will have to be used. I don't think Microsoft break anything on purpose. They are just careless, they have very low standards, they are arrogant, visionless and they think everything they do is right, and cannot see the mess they made. I think they don't care at all about Win32 or desktop apps except for maintaining it. All their focus is on UWP-ing Windows and breaking or removing anything that stands in its way. Probably they do hate Classic Shell to some extent so they might be abusing their compatibility mechanism to flag the installer as incompatible. Or they might be making changes to Explorer.exe constantly and see that Classic Shell begins to crash it after they do that so they flag it as incompatible until Ivo updates it again. It's a cat-and-mouse game.

@JorgeA, keep an eye on Winaero's blog and you'll learn a lot about making Windows 10 like Windows 7. Sergey Tkachenko and I write the articles there. Btw, they broke the classic Date pane in Anniversary Update so it no longer works. Future of other keys bringing back classic functionality is uncertain.

I prefer uBlock Origin over Ghostery because 1. More ad servers blocked 2. Lightweight on memory like Ghostery but nicer UI 3. Custom ad block filters. For example my son-of-a-b***h Internet Service Provider inserts ads in the HTTP traffic of paying customers, I block them using uBlock Origin, besides the hosts file and in the router.

Just for note: self-healing NTFS (fsutil repair query) is supported since Vista. Windows Bob 8 introduced mainly spotfixing/offline scan & fix abilities to Chkdsk/NTFS.

XP x64 doesn't support hibernation if you have 4 GB RAM or more. Vista does. Windows 7 and 8 can even compress the hibernation file.

Even if you try to think from a tablet OS perspective (after all, it's for tablets that Microsoft completely destroyed Windows). MS Bob 10 is STILL not a good tablet OS either. Look at the important things a GOOD tablet experience needs to have: - 7 or 8 inch size is optimum because one can hold it in 1 hand & those tablets are lightweight. Windows tablets, including Surface or other 2-in-1s are large. Windows tablets in 7-8 inch sizes are a nightmare bcoz of mixture of Metro and classic UI. Classic UI while excellent on PC is too small at that high resolutions and dimensions to operate by TOUCH. Need to hold large tablets with two hands and operate by thumbs. - No tablets with 4:3 aspect ratio - important for web browsing in landscape orientation. If they exist, they have some other core specs wrong. Surface comes close with 3:2 but again it's touchpad is CRAP because it is missing physical buttons and you're stuck with the awful Windows 10. - Very poor quality cameras on Windows tablets, even worse than Android tablets - Store Apps suck. No good core touch-friendly apps for photos, web browser, keyboards, camera, media player, email, calendar etc. Google apps like Maps, YouTube missing. Microsoft apps are UTTER CRAP. High quality third party apps non-existent. App gap exists for YEARS? - General bloat of Windows updates and apps = storage hell. They are hiding update size of Windows Updates besides forcing them - No powerful SoCs. Intel just killed Atom!! NVIDIA's ARM SoCs on the other hand are amazing! - Update hell=bandwidth abuse, stuff getting reset, broken and bloated thanks to Windows Update - Display/DPI scaling is hell again due to mixture of classic and Metro UI. This is hell for PCs too because of some very incorrect decisions taken to improperly scale legacy Win32 apps. For example, MS lets developers incorrectly declare apps as DPI-aware via a manifest even if they don't scale. The user is again not in full control of DPI scaling at the individual app level. - UI and productivity hell because they keep starting over and over again, omitting features, forcing re-learning of the downgrade. No continuity in the next version, no trust left in Microsoft - Battery life hell due to aforementioned issues and general footprint of Windows being larger than mobile OSes Compared to this, consider a good tablet like Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9 which I own: - Perfect 8 inch size and lightweight, 4:3 aspect ratio. UI is touch-friendly. Missing SYSTEM level functionality can also be supplemented by apps from Google Play or F-Droid repository - Cameras are decent even if they can't match Android smartphone cameras - Android has the most diverse collection of apps. I even have an SMB server running on my tablet!! Or a fast launcher to open anything by searching or browsing. You name it and Android has a DECENT app for that. Android OEMs are doing a good job of fixing the crappy stock UI built by Google. If you don't like the UI, get a different launcher. Essential apps - photo viewing, camera, web browser, media player, touch keyboard, email, calendar, Maps, Youtube are all excellent on Google Play. For media consumption purposes, the apps are good. You aren't going to do serious work on a tablet anyway. - I don't mind having KitKat on my tablet. While there are technical improvements in later versions of Android, I don't see any big UX improvements. It's a BIG RELIEF not having huge bloated forced updates on Android. I even turned off automatic app updates except for the apps I use the most which are auto-updated. Yes, Android gives you MORE granular control over app updates and system updates than Bob 10. - NVIDIA Tegra K1 SoC in my Xiaomi Mi Pad is very powerful for gaming - Battery life is still excellent Microsoft still does not know how to build a good tablet experience and they've already destroyed the PC OS while TRYING to copy Apple and Google. And the most important reason for avoiding Windows, it's the only OS which takes huge steps backwards for no reason and deletes many features because they want to sell the newest hipster technology. The next version is always a downgrade in some way or the other.

I was an advocate of XP for a long time despite Windows Vista, 7 and 8 packing in significant improvements. Those improvements were simply not important to me than the user experience of the OS where XP shined. Over the years, I found suitable replacements or BETTER third party alternatives for almost all of the functionality that was lost from XP to Vista/7. Then I moved to Windows 7, quite late in its lifecycle, around the time Windows 8 came out. Windows 8 was a huge stinking pile of s*** again with too many things broken for no good reason but again, in the past 4 years, third party developers have built suitable substitutes for whatever functionality Microsoft broke in 8. I have again found replacements for almost all of the missing functionality of 7 -> 8.1 and except for a few things, 8.1 can be modified to make it work for you the way you want. Windows 10 is where I fear this too ends. Third party software cannot fix this broken OS given how badly designed it is right now. It feels broken at the core - the UX is a nightmare, UI is a big failure, and productivity, usability, manageability by the end user have all been destroyed. It's all in Microsoft's hands now - they think they can make the user their slave but they are mistaken. Against Android and iOS and Windows 7 (where the majority still is), I don't think Microsoft stands a chance. They can at the most force desktop users to downgrade to Windows 10 but they will never win over the mobile market. Even the desktop user base is tired of Microsoft's shenanigans which is why I think PC sales are down. People just want to avoid Windows 10 until it all blows over and the upper management at Microsoft changes again. Once Windows 10 adoption figures start going down, they will have yet another disaster on their hands - Vista, 8, 8.1 and 10. 4 failures in less than 10 years. Still there is no hope of the marketing people getting fired and the technical ones taking over. The technical people all seem to be worshiping and copying Apple because that is where the money is. They have no leadership qualities and no vision about sticking to what Microsoft did best. They are either far too stupid and deserve to lose their jobs. Or they are corrupt, and indeed working as Apple double agents, in which case they should still be fired.

Hahaha I couldn't resist posting this funny:

Classic Shell has toolbar buttons of adjustable size and full customization. You can ignore the awful Ribbon and everything else and only use its toolbar.

But things like USB 3.0, SATA/NVMe TRIM won't work on XP. There need to be drivers present for your hardware or you are screwed. The DPI scaling, ClearType rendering and memory management of XP are suboptimal to what Windows 7/8.1 has.

HarryTriwizard, I am curious what is removed in 8.1 that you miss? The one thing I definitely miss in 8.1 that 8.0 had is the scheduled and incremental backup. And compared to 7, I miss Previous Versions (Shadow Copies). For all other lost features, I found alternative replacements or third party fixes.

Ah abbodi1406 you are here too besides MDL. Your analysis of the Win7 Convenience rollup was superb. It helped me created the perfect updated install.wim and WU actually works after that with only 32 updates left to download (around 150 MB).

The "conning" started after Windows XP SP2. With Vista, the "conning" was well underway but Vista and Windows 7 did have a significant number of genuine improvements to offset the "conning".

Ah well with Classic Shell you can set a different color for the taskbar now which is not necessarily the one used by the title bar. But Classic Shell on Microsoft Bob 8.1 or Windows 7 is a much better experience really. Bob 10 will screw you some day even if you've "tackled" it for now.

No thanks, Bob 10 is a piece of garbage. I prefer XP, then Windows 7, then 8.1 and then 10. I can't use XP now on modern hardware but I can definitely use Windows 7 and Bob 8.1 (with MANY third party fixes to make it like Windows 7) for a long long long long time so I see no reason to downgrade the PC to Windows 10.

White window title bars are fixed in a later update to Windows 10 (November 2015 Update) but personally I think Windows 10 is a pile of garbage that's not worth using. Windows 7 and Windows 8 are better IMHO. The loss of control over essential settings like updates ruins it completely.

Classic Shell 4.2.6 Beta is out: Here is the detailed change log for Classic Shell 4.2.6: Major new features: ********************* ● Classic Start Menu supports fade, slide and random animations also in Windows 7 style ● New feature to select the text color for the taskbar on Windows 7, 8, 10 ● New feature to set a texture for the Taskbar and Start Menu for Windows 7, 8, 10! ● Settings to set taskbar color and transparency for Windows 7, 8, 10 ● Metro Settings in search results have a "Pin to Start Menu" right-click command ● New Explorer toolbar commands to toggle hidden files, system files, file extensions, open Folder Options and create a ZIP file ● New setting for the font of the Explorer status bar (Windows 8 and up) ● Many new skin features o Skins can use PNG and JPEG resources o Textures are supported in Start Menu skins, up to 4 with tiling pattern and a mask o Skins support logos/emblems drawn on top of the menu background, up to 10 emblems, first 4 can have a mask o Menu shadow can be disabled as a skin setting o All Programs tree in Windows 7 style can be completely transparent and use the background from the main menu o Skin options are completely rewritten and now support colors, bitmaps, and more o New "Metallic" skin that showcases the new skin features Minor new features and changes: **************************** ● Compatibility with Windows 10 Redstone 1 ● New setting to set hover sound for the Start button ● If a menu item's Label field has a user-defined accelerator key using an amperstand (&) character, it will be executed when you press the key, ignoring other items that begin with that letter ● You can hide All Programs item in Windows 7 style menu from Settings UI (previously only as a Group Policy) ● Some Start Menu commands are now available from cmd line. e.g. ClassicStartMenu.exe -cmd restart. Other commands include confirm_logoff, advanced_boot, update_restart, update_shutdown, hybrid_shutdown ● New setting to select the last item in the shutdown menu instead of the first ● The Shutdown menu has separate items for shutdown/restart without installing updates ● The Invert Metro Icons setting now works without a restart of the menu ● Metro icons correctly update their color when the system color changes (Windows 10) ● The search thread runs at normal priority instead of "idle" so even if the CPU is busy at startup or doing long-running tasks like video encoding, the search will be fast ● Corrupted/damaged Metro Apps are hidden from the Apps menu Bug fixes and minor changes: ******************************* ● Recent documents will not show redundant items with full path ● Fixed a bug where you can select two radio buttons in the skin settings Download at the official website. For technical support related to Classic Shell, kindly ask in the official forum. Btw if the location of this topic is not appropriate in the Windows 8 forum (as Classic Shell supports Windows 7, 8 and 10), some moderator is welcome to move this topic to the "Software Hangout" forum.

For every one who says WTH, there are 10 people who seem to find nothing wrong. They will silence the one critic. Even if we overlook the aesthetic angle, I find it completely unusable. I don't know what to click because everything is flat and hidden with symbols/icon-only UI. It is slow, non-responsive, requires a ton of scrolling because the UI is designed for touch and not mouse. Nothing much can be customized. It doesn't inform me anything about how to operate it - its user friendliness and intuitiveness is zero. Its mouse and keyboard operation is broken. Even Windows 8's UI was better than the crap in 10. I think they can force this crap on everyone but they can't make people buy new PC hardware. After a frustrating experience, everyone will avoid buying PCs altogether. That's the future I see.

Here's what I think is happening. Earlier computers were used for work+entertainment. Ever since devices arrived with the sole purpose of entertainment and less serious tasks, Microsoft has gone insane and now thinks the PC is just an entertainment device. That is why things like fashion design and form have taken over function and solid, objective improvements. Computer science is turning into one of the "arts" stream/field. Since the number of people who only want entertainment and instant gratification by any new crap is far far greater than those who care about things like progress and making it actually work better in all aspects, it is no longer computer science. Nobody seems to care even though in science, better things can be objectively proven. It is now "computer arts". What I don't understand is for someone who has studied computer science and system software and operating systems, those DEVELOPERS and IT PROs - do they not see how awful Windows has become? Those who cannot tolerate this (like myself) might change their line of work if possible to something that is meaningful and less stupid.