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[Tip]Classic Shell - Get back classic features of the Windows UI(Classic Start Menu)

newtekie1

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You can get Classic Shell Here. It is open source and free.:rockout:

When installing, do note that you can install the Classic Explorer and Classic Start Menu features seperately, so if you don't have use for one or the other don't install it if you want to save a little hard drive space. Though the total install only takes about 4MB with both features installed.



Now there are so many tweaks that Classic Shell offers there is no way I will be able to go over each one. But I do suggest if you are missing a UI feature from an older version of Windows that was removed from Win7, try Classic Shell, because I haven't seen a feature yet that wasn't in there. But I'm just going to go over a few features that I use and like for now.

First of all, the Classic Start Menu. It is pretty self explainitory. Right when you finish installing Classic Shell, the Classic Start menu will be active by default. Now you can set different keys to open either the Classic Start Menu or the Standard Start Menu. Personally, I usually have it set to that clicking on the start button opens the Classic Start Menu, while pushing the Windows key on my keyboard opens the Standard Start Menu.



Also, with the Classic Start menu Shutting down goes back to the classic Windows XP style.



You can access all of your settings for both Classic Explorer and Classic Start Menu by going to the program folder in the start menu.



Some of the features I use for Classic Explorer are the Up Arrow(which is enabled by default) along with disabling breadcrumbs. If you aren't sure what breadcrumbs are, look at the screenshot, breadcrumbs are the new way the address bar works in Win7, I think it was a way to eliminate the up arrow. Anyway, now that I have an up arrow again they are pretty worthless. So I disable them so that the actual path is dislayed in the address bar.



One last thing I like to do is disable the Alternate File/Folder conflict dialog boxes. I actually prefer the new style that came with Win7. By default these options are enabled, which brings up the classic style dialog box whenever you are trying to copy over a file/folder that already exists.



There are hundreds of little UI tweaks available in Classic Shell. So I would suggest you try it. If you don't like it, uninstalling it removes all the tweaks and returns everything to normal. And you can pretty much turn off every tweak you don't want, I know some people that use it just for the Up arrow in Explorer.

:toast:
 
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installed this yesterday, been screwing with the settings. I like the new start menu, but with the old pop out style for all programs, and it works well with that customization... too cool :)
 

qubit

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This is awesome NT. :) I really missed the flyout menus and the up arrow from XP.

The double Start menu is important to me though and I will switch it back on.
 

Cold Storm

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I love using classic shell. I use the extra skin so my system looks like



 
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