prathapml

Update: The folder preview issue was partly solved by MS itself. Since a few months, the betas of what is set to become win11 22h2 have brought back that feature. Though the previews are still awful, at least it is better than none at all.

If some colour is all we're losing, I'd be fine. The app may need to follow the track MS is taking because: maybe some relevant functions are being dropped from DLLs in 22h2, and to keep compatibility/stability. Then count me a sycophant, lol ? Your recommendation of Classic Shell was no good, for my needs. Other offerings in the space didn't help me either. Sure, you can argue that SAB is basically a collection of mods. And I'm fine by that, the dev is actively maintaining and updating it, instead of suggesting forum links for a disparate collection of mods that may not play well together as versions keep changing. I don't know what "harsh criticism" you are talking about. Is it from the same "experts" who propose migrating to Mac/Linux every few weeks? Is it from the same experts who suggest deep system tweaks and service removals, and then cry when that results in a buggy experience? What i do know, is that SAB is the ONE tool that made Windows 11 tolerable. It was worth the simple $5 license, and I think discouraging the developer with such posts is wrong. Quoting below, my post from back when I found this near-miracle of an app! It is still awesome and will be required, as even win11 23h2 does not seem to have any intention of fixing the dumbed-down UI.

It is indeed, solves a major problem for me, I am your fan now! In case my testimony helps: Even as MS kept dumbing down different parts of the OS, I was glad to find ways to adjust and adapt. Though the changes in 11 have been... %#^%#^%@#@! If the issue was only about Start Menu, I'd have used Open-Shell and been just fine. But force-combined taskbar buttons and removal of custom toolbars broke my workflow. No other _actively maintained_ app (including Start11) addresses this important part for me. StartAllBack has single-handedly made Win11 tolerable, preventing me from running back to win10. I did the easy part - buying. Hoping enough people do that, to motivate you to keep up with the constant UI-style breakages that win11 will surely throw at us all. One thought though, for when I will format and reinstall. I see that some of the settings (not all) reside in the registry at HKCU\Software\StartIsBack. There is no inbuilt way to backup/restore settings. What would I need to do, to manually backup/restore all settings myself?

I'm glad to note that a beta build of StartIsBack solves the first problem that i had mentioned. See this screenshot! So now the only annoying thing left is folder previews.

So Windows 11 has not been... the best. But I've adjusted to the changes, to the point where only two real issues remain. 1. Taskbar replacement completely (not tweak) Application windows are now grouped in the taskbar. Yes, it feels like pre-win95 days. But that behaviour won't change. So is there a 3rd party taskbar replacement, to show open windows? (just like there is a 3rd party app for Start Menu.) 2. File Manager folder thumbnail previews Movies/photos/PDFs/etc within a folder aren't visible as a preview anymore, when browsing through a folder of folders. I hoped it would get fixed before release, but again, this looks like a permanent change as well. Is there any way to go back to the old folder previews? Or any 3rd party file manager app, which works just like Windows Explorer of win10 days? (light-enough, reliable, uncluttered, has folder previews in 256x256 icon size) Every file manager i tried so far, has depended on Windows Explorer itself, to show file and folder previews. So when win11 removed this feature, the same got reflected in 3rd party file managers as well.