Chrysalis

Seems this 1.7.x branch activation is broken. I emailed the official support address and got no response. So I have had it installed for several years now on windows 8.1 v1.7.5. It somehow has deactivated so I guess activation is not honoured forever unless it can somehow reauthenticate, and when i try to manually reactivate, nothing really happens, also it says signature check failed.

OP why have you redirected the wp.me to a scam site?

can you please add an option to allow "this pc" to start expanded, when auto expand in windows settings is disabled? (like windows 7 behaviour).

I have what looks like a bug. Windows 8.1 Pro, all Hotfixes (not just win updates) installed. Start is back+ 1.7.5. I have noticed when right clicking to remove programs from the frequently used menu, they reappear some days later, this does not happen natively in windows 7.

mine also sticks, it sits at a completely black screen for at least 2 minutes before the login screen shows up, except I get no hdd activity.

1.3 will likely contain no new major features but important fixes. In 1.3RC0 start menu refresh logic was improved and involves much less I/O which should fix performance problems and icon missing situations. I suggest adding either a reboot prompt or warning box. When I updated from previous pre release RC to 1.2.1 so I could activate, all my pinned items were gone and "pin to start menu" was gone in menus, I assumed I just needed a reboot and I was right, all ok again after the reboot, but the app upgrade installer didn't tell me that.

I have brought 5 licenses now, I just hope is no issues me reinstalling VM's chewing up my activations.

Started this based on a post I seen in the start is back thread, someone stated they feel windows 8 has enhancements over windows 7 leaner faster etc. very vague terms which I cannot back up based on my experience on both VM's and physical machines. However if we take performance out of the equation. Metro out of the equation. What features does win8 have that win7 doesnt have, new technologies etc. am very curious thanks. I am already aware of 30+ functions removed in windows 8, so I am curious if new ones make up the difference.

In the purpose of keeping this thread-hijacking to a minimum I'm gonna ignore all of the rest and focus only on this. Because like I told you in the post directly above yours, Windows 8 introduces a pretty big number of improvements "under the hood". To put it as simply as possible, Windows 8 is faster than 7, more stable than 7 and supports technologies that, in the last 3 years have become the new standards in computing, out of the box. To set up Windows 7 on my PC I needed an hour for the installation of Windows and drivers alone, then another hour or two for the necessary tweaking. For Windows 8 I LITERALLY went for a drink of water and when I got back my PC was already in the log-on screen waiting to create a new user account, after which everything *just worked*. It indeed is your prerogative to think that the only choices are between an older and slower OS versus an OS that looks like it was designed by a 3-year old, however the rest of us here actually do know better. So, as it is clear that we can only agree to disagree, I would respectfully ask you to stop spamming a thread that is supposed to be about a specific piece of software whose sole purpose is to restore functionality that you appear to have no use for. Thank you. To be fair and to balance this out, windows 7 is the same for me all devices work out of the box. However the difference is for me windows 7 needs minimal work to get the GUI to my liking, windows 8 needs a 3rd party app such as start is back as well as other tweaks to get it to run as well as windows 7, and even then there is a lack of aero, lost functions which i think cant be patched back in and bits of metro in desktop windows, eg. try loading a file extension that has no app, you get what looks like a beta metro window. Over 30 functions have been removed from windows 7 to windows 8, the start menu is just the most publicised one. I am also curious what new SSD features windows 8 has over windows 7, leaner faster? very generic terms. On all physical machiones and VM's I have tested on windows 7 is faster. except in certian optimised situations win8 can boot very fast other then that it looks weaker to me no performance. I certianly have not found anything thats made me drop windows 7 to upgrade. hyper-v stuff looks 'interesting' but thats about it. If windows 8 is ready to use out of the box, why are you on this thread? if you using this app then windows 8 isnt ready for you to use out of the box.

didnt mean to offend sorry. I am sorry you feel that to feel satisfied you have to be making decent profits, and I am sorry I havent donated to you, I do utilise some of your addons made for windows XP and windows 7 so if you pm me your paypal addy I have no issue donating to you as well, in terms of the topic at hand I have said now I feel his pricing is very reasonable its just the activation for me is the sticky point, hopefully he will have a new solution in hand. I would probably pay 20usd for this app for unlimited activations. Which makes him more money because I will only ever have it active on 3-4 machines at the absolute most (3 physical and 1 vm). The issue I will probably be reinstalling the OS frequently hence my concerns. So yes my initial post did come on a bit strong I apologise for that.

That would only be true if you did not DEactivate the old hardware. If you deactivate the old piece of hardware (update the activation to the current specs thus pushing out the old) then you could not activate an unlimited number of machines. Instead a user could guarantee that THEY are always activated. It's call a round robin activation scheme. User first installs software License Key 1 - Activated to MB A and HDD A User changes MB License Key 1 - Activated to MB B and HDD A (MB A is no longer in the picture and HDD A was valid) User Changes HDD License Key 1 - Activated to MB B and HDD B (MB B was valid thus HDD was updated) User Changes entire computer License Key 1 - Activation Invalid (requires new key) which reminds me. alcohol 120% have a good activation system. You can register on a new pc. But it will refuse to activate until you login to their website and enter hardware key, then it will activate on the new machine, but the old activation is deactivated. This I feel is a good compromise. The alternative I feel is simply have to trust your customers and dont have activation. I am not a fan of over restrictive hardware ties on software and not keen on the prospect of paying 1usd everytime I reinstall the OS or install a VM. So the price is fine, the activation hardware tie is not.

I'll make a wild guess and say you aren't one. Because it's the *complete* opposite as far as I'm concerned. To me, Win8 is the beginning of the end. By itself, it's a good enough reason to abandon C# and the .NET framework for something that can also run on other OS'es which are still usable on a desktop (keeping support for Win7 obviously), and if mobile is attractive at all, even port easily to devices that actually sell i.e. Android or iOS based. With MS making the desktop a 2nd class citizen, and making WinRT incompatible with 100% of what we're using (all desktop and x86 apps) and making that laughable "replacement" model (Metro garbage, or whatever it's called this week) only work on Win8, it's a good reason to never bother with it. Doubly so when MS deprecates and abandons its newer development technologies so fast. I see zero interest in all other devs I know to make Metro apps either (in part because none of them want to be stuck using it on their desktop). And with MS making Win8 such a terrible OS on a desktop, I don't those sales exactly increasing either, which is just yet another reason to consider developing for iOS and Android instead. TL;DR: Win8 is a developer's nightmare. I hope you are right and I agree that they abandoning newer technologies ridicously fast as well. Unfortenatly windows 8 is having decent sales figures at the moment and sites like this I see various tech heads running windows 8 already on their desktops. Already also dev's making apps for windows 8 and going to profit from it as well, stardock with their start menu app and start is back.

aero is more than transparency, whats your comment on gradient colours and glowing buttons?

you're too paranoid yes devs will make apps for win8, win7 won't be abandoned for a long time the worst that can happen is that devs start massive making metro apps, which are actually very much crippled comparing to desktop/win32 which in other words again backfires to how win8 sucks and even if SP2 for win7 don't come out, hotfixes will hell win7 is proven to be next best OS after XP so why would they shoot themself in legg over tablet OS pfff hotfixes are not a great substitute it takes effort to find them all as well as installing them plus install media gets very big when integrating them. Dont get too confident on the 3rd party apps either. Asides from windows 8 been newer the other changes this time are also an app store and this will tie in with mobile devices, look at the huge developer support android has compared to windows. Windows 8 is a developers dream I think. Because they will sell much more software on it.

I feel thats quite reasonable actually. and is good you happy to listen to suggestions, I was just trying to make your app be an attractive pricepoint. I have also spread awareness to other places reccomending this app. The problem is like others have said how it idenitifes the hdd, eg. is this going to think its on a new PC everytime I do new installs in a VM? This is the major bug bear of tieing software down to PC's using activation. How about you do add a phone home as an alternative check that if the user agrees to so if eg. a 5 PC license, if you have 5 calling home already then a 6th cant activate. If the user tries to be clever eg. blocking in firewall then it deactivates. This obviously would be a online only version but an alternative to using hardware ID's.

I totally agree with that. If I were you (Tihiy) I would use a login system instead of serial keys... That way you would allow use on multiple machine and monitor how many are running using that account. ...Every program is crackable, no matter how many protection/obfuscation techniques you use there will always be someone to bypass them you know, there's a great chance that those people who want to use your product on multiple machine but can't without purchasing a new license will just download a cracked version somewhere... Just saying Man you guys are the RUDEST EVER... Just saying ... likewise I consider it rude for the comments you posted when we posting suggestions. You are a member of another forum I am on and you can see I donated to hotfix repositories as well as the win toolkit projects, so I find it odd you think I am a freeloader. I just respect not everyone can afford to pay, I usually actually donate large amounts to compensate for those that use apps free. I have donated 100s of euros to donationware.

... so in essence you want to use Tihy's program, but since MS decided to SCREW you, you want to SCREW him? Why pay for Win8 then? did you read the rest of my post? there are penty of people who have developed excellent free apps that restore lost windows functionality and accept donations. I have always donated to apps I use regurly. This may shock you but some people make programs to 'help' others and that is satisiaction enough. I will pay for this app if its reasonable however if it becomes too unrealistic to pay for it to be on 2 machines and test VM envrionments then I will avoid it as I wont have mix and match with it on some and not others. He also has the danger of people just cracking it if the price is unreasonable.

Basically I saved my win7 theme to a file and double clicked on it in windows 8 and it imported. The result was the darkest colour was used as a static colour for window borders, and so everything looked horrid. Its worth mentioning even windows XP had glowing buttons support as I remember been very happy I had a aero style theme on XP (without transparency). The design on windows 8 seems to be a serious regression. I really hope someone makes an app where one can simply import windows 7 themes, I will say ahead of time I would pay/donate for such an app. This combined with start is back could be enough for me to jump, but I need both not one or the other, I have got used to how well windows 7 looks now. I assume windows 8 has kept the actual hardware acceleration (wddm)?

1. StartIsBack is not freeware. RC version is due soon. Then you can purchase a key. Stay tuned for the first 2 posts in the first page of this thread. 2. You can use classic shell software along with StartIsBack menu without any conflicts. I use both too. In this case StartIsBack will override the start button, but you can invoke classic shell's menu with its hotkey. 3. Just right-click on the start button, start menu properties, and set the desired number of recently opened programs to display. That's it, just like the start menu in 7, nice, fast, and reliable. ok I can confirm its set to 10 recent programs. The only recent its showing is task manager (which was there before I ever ran it) and notepad I have started IE numerous times since installing start is back and it isn't showing up. However I just tested now with calculator and that appeared, is IE excempt from this? Also with pricing my concern is with donations I donate what I can afford at the time, it maybe 5 euros it may be 20 euros it depends what I can afford, but I always donate to free apps I use with any kind of regularity, eg. I donated to 7 taskbar tweaker. I am very hesitant to forcefully pay for apps that add features that really should be in the OS that I have already paid for, so all I ask is that you do price it reasonably and to allow use on multiple machines with one purchase instead of forcing activation per machine because then it can quickly become very expensive.

vista's problem was poor driver adoption at launch and poor performance at launch, the GUI was fine so as such it eventually got fixed as the issues were considered bugs, by that definition windows 8 is worse as Microsoft don't consider design choices as bugs (unless it sells poorly) early indications are tho is windows 8 will have good takeup. I am personally surprised how many people are taking it up as it doesn't offer much to desktop users over windows 7 at all, its a novelty gimmick for people to play with on the GUI changes. I am sticking with windows 7 but I do fear the fast drop of software support for the OS, Microsoft already indicating no SP2 for it, and 3rd party vendors I think will flock to windows 8. So for that reason incase I am forced to change OS I am already looking to make windows 8 useable with 3rd party apps like start is back although the start menu it recovers does not behave the same as windows 7, eg. I don't see apps I am launching appearing in the recently used apps list automatically. Plus is still other issues such as dumbing down of explorer, themes and so on. Couple of reasons I think windows 8 is getting better takeup than vista. 1 - Microsoft got the media onside, I rarely see a big media outlet saying something bad about the OS. 2 - Developers are onside by default as the app store be great for them to sell their apps and that it be used on phones also is another outlet for them. On my android eg. I can see 3rd party developers doing very well, most of development now days is on mobile apps. So clearly developers will consider windows 8 a good thing.

What I see is many people trying to make windows 7 look like window s8 and I think why? Aero is beautiful and takes advantage also of modern pc hardware. Windows 8 desktop feels like back on windows 95. What I want to do. Have gradient colour on window border. Option to make transparent (although I don't enable it usually on production machines) Boxes round minimize, maximize and close buttons. These buttons to glow when hovering over them. Basically windows 7 style. possible yes or no?

great app but cant find way to donate. I am still using win7 on main rig and have no plans to upgrade but am playing with win8 in a VM. This seems to resolve one major issue which is metro, the next is how to get my win7 theme working on win8, win8 desktop seems to have took away aero enhancements and replaced with some kind of retro look from 10 years ago. my concern is tho (not tried to do yet) how does this app play with classic shell as I use classic shell on windows 7 for various reasons and would on win8 for the same reasons but since that messes with the start menu on windows 8 would it cause problems? Also is the start menu fully featured, on windows 7 if I run an app it appears on the start menu on this apps don't seem to be appearing unless I pin.

ok guys first off good work in working on apps that restore win7 behaviour. However my question to the guys who like me clearly hate windows 8 UI. Are you using it as your main OS simply because its newer? I hate windows 8 and as a result I only toy with it in a VM, its not on any physical machines. Windows 7 isnt EOL and there is no real reason to stop using it, its only 2-3 years old, compatible with modern hardware features such as TRIM.

I already played with DSCP/TOS in windows vista/win7 and seemed to get nowhere, when I changed it in the policy editor it seemed to have no affect. However windows 7 seems to improve my networking a lot so I am happy with using the default value now.

guys I know its an old topic but I thought better to post here rather than new thread. Here is my experience with the gui performance it is a strange one. Few people will argue that certian desktop things are faster, such as moving windows around the screen when using aero the performance blows XP out of the water. However some legacy apps perform horrific in windows 7, something was evidently wrong when I noticed this. I discovered passmark (an excellent app by the way) seems one of few benchmark apps that takes 2D seriously. I discovered the following on 2d benchmarks when comparing to people with same gpu and cpu as me. XP approximately 250% faster on 2D (not as extreme as that youtube video says). Vista approximately 30% faster than Windows 7 on 2D. My lower spec machine with a 7600GT and weaker cpu was getting a higher score than this machine with a 8800GT. The latter was to me at the time a surprise to me as I assumed at the time aero is aero and why would vista outperform windows 7. After some research I read about wddm 1.1 some new feature in windows 7. I then installed driver version 182.50 (wddm 1.0 driver) on this machine and now I am about 10% higher than the comparitive vista benchmarks and on par with my 7600GT. I also found out the 7xxx cards dont utilise wddm 1.1 which explains why the 7600GT is faster with the new drivers. A possible reason for the worse performance is one of what microsoft calls an improvement over wddm 1.0 wddm 1.0 leaked memory with multiple windows open so every new window that opened required more memory than its previous window. wddm 1.1 this problem is fixed but microsoft say it is done at the expense of 'some' cpu usage, 'some' wasn't defined to an amount. Let me tell you that the impact on gdi performance vs XP was enough that I noticed it in my everyday apps, it is the only reason I discovered this thread and passmark. However something else I will add since I am a fair person and I am not out to attack microsoft. the wddm 1.0 drivers have noticeable screen update lag when switching a youtube video between full screen and normal, on the 1.1 drivers there was no lag whatsoever, XP had significant lag unless the taskbar was set to not always be on top, I cant do the same test in windows 7 as microsoft removed that option for the taskbar. However with 1.1 regardless of that there is no lag on youtube. When I was using XP the services.msc window was just as lagged anyway, mine was never smooth like those video show on his XP machine, so I can only assume for whatever reason the specific 2d functions for services.msc were not accelerated on my machine or his is smooth because he has a Q6600 vs my E6420. There is no doubt nvidia has some serious issues with windows 7 drivers at the moment, ironically I went to 182.50 to fix my nvidia scaling and I then at that point decided to do more tests. My WIE score on these drivers however took a nosedivs it went from 6.9 to 6.0, but bear in mind the scores are manipulated, I expect microsoft probably cap aero scores when they 1.0.