[andreaborman]

I have just found out,classic Shell has been updated today with better support for Windows 8. In this new version of Classic Shell 3.5.1 it now boots straight to the desktop,by passing the Metro start screen.

See here Classic Shell forums-My link

As you know previously on Windows 8, you had to click on the desktop tile to get to the desktop. Not anymore.

Now if you have Classic Shell 3.5.1 installed,you are now taken straight to the desktop on every start up and log on. And another thing that's new in this version of Classic Shell 3.5.1 is that now,when you click"search files and folders." You are taken to Windows Explorer just like on Windows 7. Where as in previous versions of Classic Shell you got taken to the Metro start menu. Which did not suit everybody or me.

So before when you had Classic Shell installed on Windows 8,you hardly dealt with the Metro theme and Metro start menu. But now if you have the new version of Classic Shell installed,you don't deal with it at all. As now all of your work is done from the Windows XP or Windows 7 start menu on Classic Shell in Windows 8.

So it looks like we are winning the battle to see less of the Metro theme on Windows 8. As Classic Shell works on all versions of Windows 8,including Windows 8 RP. And if you install classic Shell you can now boot straight to the desktop on Windows 8 RP and Windows 8 CP. So now no more hacks if you have got Classic Shell installed.

So,time to upgrade to the new version of Classic Shell 3.5.1. Andrea Borman.

[tsampikos]

That's DEFINETLY the best news! And a good reason to turn to Windows 8! It seems that even the worst limitations can be worked around!

[tsampikos]

I just tried it! It works excellent. Windows 8 boots beautyfully directly on desktop. . And it gives you the best start button and start menu ever! The classic Shell! Still there is the sidebar which gives you te possibilty to use the metro if you like to do so! I can say that I am very very satisfied with this new development and now the major reason not to upgrade to the newest OS is not only gone but thanks to Classic Shell the whole situation is now better than ever!

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

tsampikos, on 01 July 2012 - 03:03 AM, said:

That's DEFINETLY the best news! And a good reason to turn to Windows 8! It seems that even the worst limitations can be worked around!

In the same sense that one can drive around the potholes on a really bad street but given the choice every day it might be more sensible to just use a different street.

There is still the uglified Aero transparency. And there is still the low budget amateurish icon set that looks like it was stolen out of a public bus or airport terminal. Lots of people will be angry with the decapitated multimedia functionality which is designed to make you ignore the piles of optical media you already purchased and instead become a dumb terminal for internet based content and advertisements. There is a lot of freedom of choice that has been deprecated and that is the point really. To breed a whole new category, a stable of consumer Microslaves who are one click away from buying stuff.

Frankly I think this thing is one of the biggest insults ever perpetrated on a company's existing customer user base while simultaneously a wild flailing stab for the non-users currently comfortable on their iPhones and other rival devices. See what they did there, designing one product for two completely different audiences.

Metro should have been a self-contained simple add-in available for any Windows version, a VM-like protected sandbox building upon previous ideas like DosBox and Sandboxie that runs in a Window for developers or end-users on demand. Not smashed like a square peg in a round hold onto everybody's system that may be interested in the minor updates to the OS core between Windows 6.1 and Windows 6.2.

[andreaborman]

Not only that. But in the new version of Classic Shell you can now change the start button or create your own custom button on Windows 7. This is the first time we have ever been able to change the start button in Windows 7. But although Classic Shell now has the added feature of being able to change the start orb on Windows 7,you cannot change the start orb on Windows Vista. in Classic Shell.

So the feature of being able to change the start orb in Classic Shell has been added to Windows 7 but has not been added to Windows Vista. I don't know why that is. Maybe the feature that enables Classic Shell to change the start orb in Windows 7 is not compatible with Windows Vista. So it has not been added to Windows Vista. But Classic Shell will give you both the Windows XP start menu,the Windows 7 and other customised start menu's on Windows Vista. just like it does on Windows 7 and Windows 8.

The new feature of being able to change the start orb or create your own custom button on Windows 7 in Classic Shell is a new and interesting one. As in the past you could not change the start orb on Windows 7,Windows Vista or Windows XP,without editing the shell files.Which is risky as you can break Windows.

The only other start menu software's I know that can change the start orb on Windows 7 and Windows XP are Start Menu 7 and Vi Start. But that's not very well done as it looks like the start orb is placed on top of the old start orb.

But not on Classic Shell as you can see in my picture of my Windows 7 with my Windows XP start orb,thanks to Classic Shell. Andrea Borman.


 Windows XP start button on Windows 7..JPG (81.57K)
Number of downloads: 12

[JorgeA]

andreaborman, on 30 June 2012 - 04:30 PM, said:

I have just found out,classic Shell has been updated today with better support for Windows 8. In this new version of Classic Shell 3.5.1 it now boots straight to the desktop,by passing the Metro start screen.

This is great news! If I can avoid Metro altogether, then the Win8 experience goes from intolerably annoying to boringly mediocre (because of the removal of Aero and other interesting 3D screen elements). Odd as it may sound, that's a major step forward.

Wouldn't it be ironic if Start Menu restorers like ClassicShell ended up helping to rescue Microsoft from the consequences of its folly?

--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

JorgeA, on 01 July 2012 - 09:43 AM, said:

Wouldn't it be ironic if Start Menu restorers like ClassicShell ended up helping to rescue Microsoft from the consequences of its folly?

I would like better a "conspiracy theory"

What if everything till now is a bluff?

Let's imagine that the good MS guys could not find a suitable way to to remove some bloat form the "core" and have an "external" classic menu app.

What would have been a clever move?

Make independent peeps so angry at it that someone would brainstorm until he/she finds a solution.

Then buy either the program or hire the programmer (in this case the good Ivo Beltchev ) and have something working with relatively little effort.

After all - more or less - is it not what they did with Mark Russinovich?
I mean, had they made logical and documented implementations in the NT OS's, and produced directly the useful tools that Winternals/Sysinternals made over the years, how many chances were there that someone like Mark could have matured into a better expert on MS thingies than MS itself?

jaclaz

[submix8c]

nuhi comes to mind...

[JorgeA]

jaclaz, on 01 July 2012 - 11:05 AM, said:

JorgeA, on 01 July 2012 - 09:43 AM, said:

Wouldn't it be ironic if Start Menu restorers like ClassicShell ended up helping to rescue Microsoft from the consequences of its folly?

I would like better a "conspiracy theory"

What if everything till now is a bluff?

Wow, jaclaz, that would be devilishly clever. It makes sense in a twisted way, but I'm not so sure anymore that the bigwigs at MS are THAT smart.

Another smart "bluff" strategy: Make everyone p*ssed that they removed the Start Menu/Button, and then bring it back in the RTM so that everybody is SO relieved and thankful that they run out to buy Windows 8. They could even frame the move as, "We heard you!!"

--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

JorgeA, on 01 July 2012 - 02:05 PM, said:

Another smart "bluff" strategy: Make everyone p*ssed that they removed the Start Menu/Button, and then bring it back in the RTM so that everybody is SO relieved and thankful that they run out to buy Windows 8. They could even frame the move as, "We heard you!!"

Yep that would be a perfect example of a "Kansas city shuffle":
http://en.wikipedia....as_City_Shuffle
http://www.imdb.com/...es?qt=qt0441407
Just think about it:

Quote

No small matter. Requires a lot of planning. Involves a lot of people. People connected only by the slightest of events. Like whispers in the night, in that place that never forgets, even when those people do. It starts with a silly UI.

If you think about it everyone is criticizing the Metro interface and only it, or, if you prefer, all attention is on this particular botched interface and very few people are looking for (or actually finding) anything else "wrong" (which does not mean that there must be something wrong, nor that everything is perfect exception made for Metro )

jaclaz

[Fredledingue]

That was an interrresting article to read about the Start Menu, an article posted on the "Deeper Impression" thread.

"Poeple stopped using it"
...until they do.

Myself I didn't use it for ages (at least for opening a program) until I needed an application I didn't have on my desktop.
The fun part of it was that it wasn't on the Start Menu neither, so I had to fetch it in the Programs folder.

My point is that you always got to have a way to find things where you could find them.
Typing a search box is not necessarly the best way since you may not remeber how the program is spelled exactly.
Start Menu may not be used often but it comes handy when you need it.

[Tripredacus]

I use the start menu often. I don't typically use desktop icons, except for programs in which I need to have a clean desktop or minimized windows to use. For example, RDP shortcuts or games that launch into a shell mode. While I do have some things in the taskbar (apps that are not in the start menu) I use the Start Menu for everything.

[JorgeA]

Tripredacus, on 03 July 2012 - 07:05 AM, said:

I use the start menu often. I don't typically use desktop icons, except for programs in which I need to have a clean desktop or minimized windows to use. For example, RDP shortcuts or games that launch into a shell mode. While I do have some things in the taskbar (apps that are not in the start menu) I use the Start Menu for everything.

Yeah, except for the number of desktop icons that's pretty much the way I do it too. The Start Menu is my main to-go place for launching programs. I use mostly the "recent programs" list and the pinned programs, and then drill down into All Programs if I need something else. The right panel with "Computer," "Recent Items," and "Control Panel" is pretty handy, too.

Programs that I use once in a while but whose names I'm liable to forget, I keep as desktop icons -- it's clumsy to have to grub around the All Programs list when you're not sure of the name of the program or its publisher. (For Win8 fanboys: The Metro Start Screen doesn't solve that issue, either.)

--JorgeA

[MagicAndre1981]

Tripredacus, on 03 July 2012 - 07:05 AM, said:

I use the Start Menu for everything.

same here. Startmenu is my starting point to use Windows.

[tomasz86]

I use Start Menu only for rarely used applications. The rest is in Quick Launch (I use a double lined taskbar so there's enough place for ~50 shortcuts in it @ 1400x1050 screen resolution). I'm probably one of the few people that don't really care for Start Menu that much

This post has been edited by tomasz86: 03 July 2012 - 03:18 PM

[Fredledingue]

Interresting how everyone is different (please somebody send it to MS telemetry -LOL-)

I may not use Start Menu often to launch programs but I do press the Start button at least once a day: to shut down the computer.
Other use of the Start Menu for me are: "Control Panel", "Find" and "Run...".

There was a time when I used a lot of different programs, I sorted all programs in a tree with categories, with one category with only "uninstall" and another one with all the "readme" shortcuts.
It was only boring that everytime I installed a new program I had to sort the new shortcuts again. So I ended up too lazy to reproduce it after I reinstalled windows.

But I remember when everything was tidy and sorted, it rocked. It was very good. I could find any program instantly.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

tomasz86, on 03 July 2012 - 03:18 PM, said:

I use Start Menu only for rarely used applications. The rest is in Quick Launch (I use a double lined taskbar so there's enough place for ~50 shortcuts in it @ 1400x1050 screen resolution). I'm probably one of the few people that don't really care for Start Menu that much

Yep. Double row rulez! And it is even better at 1920 pixels.

I like to think of QuickLaunch also as QuickDrop. Nice place for shortcuts to programs and batch files that accept file(s) and/or folder(s) dropped onto them. Kids nowadays just don't understand such complicated uses for Windows..

This is how most of my systems end up looking like after a few days of screwing around. Lots of drop icons on an always visible taskbar (I just wish I could figure out a way to use that dead space below the Start Button). The VisualStyle is from one of the nice Royale themes, but I might have edited it though.

The Opera skin is a modified version of an old one from the version 9 era. The newer skins are getting too minimalistic for my taste. Notice the "Identify" and "Author" toggles in the bottom right, an easy and very useful tweak.



Edit: Image was full size 1920x1080. Now it is smaller ( probably from PhotoBucket )! updated image URL

This post has been edited by CharlotteTheHarlot: 17 March 2013 - 05:35 PM

[tomasz86]

Fredledingue, on 03 July 2012 - 03:52 PM, said:

I may not use Start Menu often to launch programs but I do press the Start button at least once a day: to shut down the computer.

True. The funny thing is that in Win8 the fastest way to shut down the computer from the desktop is to click on it and use Alt+F4 (or just press the power button).

CharlotteTheHarlot, on 03 July 2012 - 04:47 PM, said:

Yep. Double row rulez! And it is even better at 1920 pixels.

I like to think of QuickLaunch also as QuickDrop. Nice place for shortcuts to programs and batch files that accept file(s) and/or folder(s) dropped onto them. Kids nowadays just don't understand such complicated uses for Windows..

QuickDrop is a very interesting idea. I'll need to try it sometime. As for the resolution then in this case the wider, the better... but I still prefer my 22" CRT with the "unpopular" 4:3 screen aspect ratio.

This is how it looks like on my desktop:

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

tomasz86, on 03 July 2012 - 05:07 PM, said:

QuickDrop is a very interesting idea. I'll need to try it sometime. As for the resolution then in this case the wider, the better... but I still prefer my 22" CRT with the "unpopular" 4:3 screen aspect ratio.

One good use of QuickLaunch as QuickDrop is for unknown files. At the moment I have Mitec EXE, Merijn FileAlyzer and Nirsoft ExeInfo in there (and shortly PEexplorer and a few others to be added). Any of them will give some good info on an unknown file just for an example.

It looks like you have IrfanView in yours as do I. It also doubles as a quasi-FileSniffer like the others I mentioned since it examines files based upon strings in the header rather than using file extensions. IrfanView will prompt to rename when you drop a file with an incorrect extension. Of course the main purpose is for dropping images and multimedia files (or folders) which it does such an excellent job at displaying, converting and even light editing.

SendTo is pretty much the same thing since it is also a folder of shortcuts that functions the same way, but using QuickLaunch can save time because the delay for the Context Menu is dependent upon the number of Shell Extensions you have installed, and dragging file(s)/folder(s) through the Context Menu is also subject to secondary delays when you drag them past Shell Extensions with flyouts unless you move the mouse quickly and adeptly. If the Taskbar is set to be always visible then QuickLaunch really becomes the quickest method for drag/drop processing of files and folders.

I should point out that it is rather easy to mess this up though. If you drag a bunch of files onto an icon in QuickLaunch, *but* you make the mistake of releasing the button to either side of the icon, then you wind up with a mess of shortcuts or even the actual 'moved' files in the QuickLaunch bar! Undoing this can be difficult. So it takes a steady hand, a bit of practice and a feel for the responsiveness of a given system and mouse before it becomes 2nd nature.

EDIT: typos

This post has been edited by CharlotteTheHarlot: 03 July 2012 - 07:19 PM

[CoffeeFiend]

Tripredacus, on 03 July 2012 - 07:05 AM, said:

I use the start menu often

I use it fairly often too. There's just not enough space to pin everything I use on the taskbar. So I pin a few extras in the start menu (expanded to 20 items too) which also gives me access to jump lists in there (unlike Metro). And I also use it to search for stuff fairly often -- stuff which Win8 doesn't find (not without unnecessary extra keystrokes). Instead of improving things a lot like Vista and 7 did, Metro just made starting software (the main interaction we have with the OS on daily basis) and getting to things harder.