How about a 'cage match' of the various ways to get the Classi

[bizzybody]

Let's have a knock-down, drag out battle royale of every program and method that can be found to restore the good old Classic start menu to Windows 7. Assign points for how close it is to the real deal, stability, automatically adding newly installed programs etc. If it causes error messages, crashes, any sort of thing that shouts out it's not like the original, then knock off points. Of course free methods should get an automatic point bonus because we're just trying to get back what Microsoft should've left in.

If you think the scrolling menu is the bees knees, Microsoft's gift to all mankind, goody for you! Go forth and use it in happiness and love - just don't tell those who don't like it they should embrace the new because *you* think it's better.

Looks like there's far more people out there who hate the new start menu in 7 than who despise the unchangeable and nearly invisible "highlight" color in Vista's and 7's Windows Explorer. (I'm still looking for a way to change that color.)

These are people who, if they used Win Me, the first thing they did was disable single-click and the scrolling/personalized Start menu and the first thing they do in Vista is to enable the Classic start menu, if not going all the way with disabling Aero.

As for myself, on Vista I use the Classic start menu but leave the rest alone. Microsoft managed, somehow, to make the rest of the Classic UI *wrong* in some fashion in Vista that bugs me to no end.

If you think the scrolling Start menu is super duper, have you ever seen Vista or 7 with 100+ different programs installed? That's one loooooooooong scrolling menu. When I work on someone else's PC with Vista, I'll temporarily switch it to the Classic menu so I can get things done. Most of them want to know how I did that because they HATE the scrolling menu, so for them I show them.

But for 7 MS expects everyone to be good little robots and do it their one and only, focus group approved way. (Such group carefully 'weeded' of anyone who'd tell them to go push a rope!)

P.S. If anyone just posts New Start Menu GOOD, Classic Start Menu BAD proselytizing posts in this thread, could the moderators just delete them? As I said before, anyone who likes the New Way is welcome to it. You don't need to waste your effort trying to force those who don't to follow your path.

[braindedd]

http://sourceforge.net/projects/classicshell/

[Tripredacus]

Its still better than Windows 95 or Windows NT with 100 programs installed.

[cluberti]

Note that Windows has always been able to run under alternate shells since Win95 and NT4, so if you don't like the non-classic shell/start menu, you've always been free to replace it. I do personally like the new menus, but there are alternatives for the classic lovers out there - ClassicShell is probably the most comprehensive of the free ones, though, and it is pretty good.