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Hate Metro? Get Classic Shell

Ocellaris

Ocellaris

Fully [H]
Joined
Jan 1, 2008
Messages
19,075
Free download, open source project:
http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/

Massive improvement to the Windows 8 experience for me. PC boots directly to the normal desktop, with a Start Menu including normal Search and Power options without jumping through hoops. Classic Shell works great and is easily customizable too.

I've dealt with Metro plenty at work, still don't like it. Now on my home PC I've only looked at Metro for about 5 seconds until I get the Classic Shell launched from a thumb drive :D
 
There's also Stardock's Start8 which isn't bad, will need to try the other ones because overall I'm still hating this O/S. And I've been running a few Win8 test machines since the earliest betas last year waiting for things to improve, waiting for a miracle. I've got a few weeks into the RTM now as a forced daily driver and only get more annoyed by the day, things just aren't improving. Gives me the kind of migraines I used to get trying to get to grips with OSX where you want to do one thing and it steers you toward another. Who knows maybe MS will disable the right mousebutton next.

I'll give it another week or two and then its back to Win7 and not touching it again.
 
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It works pretty well, and is very customizable. I tried Start8, but it was a little flaky. When I ran some windows updates, it froze the login process, so had to system restore it back prior to install. Classic Start Menu no issues at all (so far).

Yes, I've tried to get used to Metro as well. Hideous. I even created a VM to let some people log into a test account and let me know thei impressions- 100% universal- everyone hates it. The "hover" crap for the charms is ridiculous. But, we'll all just be labeled "haters" and "idiots". LOL. My prediction- huge blunder for MS. The option should be there for users to choose what interface they want. And no- the desktop is not the same as having the start menu. Period.
 
Whats funny is they went out their way to remove the start menu as it was there in earlier builds.
 
chrcoluk said:
Whats funny is they went out their way to remove the start menu as it was there in earlier builds.
Click to expand...

Well yeah they realized it was all-or-nothing, their grand and holy vision of dollars rolling in getting a cut of every Windows app sold in the mold of Apple's App Store has *clouded* their vision. And they decided if they didn't force Metro on people they had no shot at that grand walled garden future for Windows 9 when they saw how many people were removing Metro with the reg hack, they understood making it optional would essentially relegate Metro to just another Sidebar Gadget type of convention that nobody bothered with.

But they went about it completely backwards. Instead of forcing it on people and turning them off to the entire O/S in the process they should've made it optional but then compelled them with killer Metro apps that gave it purpose. Because as it stands right now the big third party windows developers are simply not developing Metro apps, they're sitting on the fence in wait-and-see mode fearing committing money and resources into something where adoption rate is going to be extremely challenging based on all the stats and tracking data thus far.
 
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BTW, I'm digging Pokki so far. I don't think anyone would disagree with Microsoft that the classic Start menu was outdated, but this seems a lot closer to what a desktop version of "Metro" should have been, rather than the square peg into round hole cramjob we got with the smartphone-on-PC layout.

https://www.pokki.com/
 
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I've been using Classic Shell for forever to have a nice, clean start menu on my Windows 7 Machine:

mystartmenu.png


Classic shell is great even if you're on a tablet. I just got an MSI WindPad to play around with Windows 8. For some reason the hot-corners don't like to work unless I use the thumb pointer. Does having a second mouse-type device installed change the touch screen behavior on the desktop? I can close/switch Metro apps without any problems, but when I'm on the desktop the corners don't work...

Anyway, Classic Shell gives me a start button and big touch-friendly buttons to get to my User folder/Computer/Network/Internet/Control Panel/Shut Down like you can see above. On the Windows 8 machine I also added a 'Start Screen' button for quick access to Metro.
 
there is also Start Is Back

Now an user called Tihiy has developed StartIsBack. According to him he has reinstated the Windows 7 start menu in Windows 8 without using any files of Windows 7. This was possible because, unlike what Microsoft said, there is still a lot of start menu functionality inside Windows 8. Parts of it were actually removed but the author of StartIsBack was able to re-implement them. Besides getting an original Windows start menu with drag&drop, search, theming etc. it will also allow you to boot Windows to the desktop. Other software made this possible, but they actually send fake key combinations that you else had to type manually in Metro during start up.
StartIsBack is in beta testing currently, and while you might think this is the ideal software to get your Windows 8 start menu, it also has a drawback, the author has announced that after the beta it will become paid software. It’s yet unknown what it will cost.
Click to expand...
 
DeathFromBelow said:
Anyway, Classic Shell gives me a start button and big touch-friendly buttons to get to my User folder/Computer/Network/Internet/Control Panel/Shut Down like you can see above. On the Windows 8 machine I also added a 'Start Screen' button for quick access to Metro.
Click to expand...

I've used the Start Menu on tablets for a long time and while a some people like myself that could get acquainted with touch on the desktop, the Start Menu just isn't considered touch friendly. The buttons on the side are ok but those cascading folders under Programs?
 
don;t forget about this one, it is more of a live start menu

https://www.pokki.com/windows-8-start-menu

haven't tried any of them yet as I am still waiting to see all the feedback on Win 8 before I put it on my rig, however metro seems compelling for my HTPC....so I may yet put it on sooner than later
 
Can I have the Start menu AND the Modern UI Start Screen? I don't miss the Start Menu, but curious as to the state of these things. I'm sure I will try them just for the sake of trying them, though (maybe review them).
 
Ur_Mom said:
Can I have the Start menu AND the Modern UI Start Screen? I don't miss the Start Menu, but curious as to the state of these things. I'm sure I will try them just for the sake of trying them, though (maybe review them).
Click to expand...

I believe that Start8 allows for both.
 
Does anyone know if there is a way to get rid of the hot corners and instead replace them with an icon? So accessing Modern UI with an icon.
 
Rusty4560 said:
Does anyone know if there is a way to get rid of the hot corners and instead replace them with an icon? So accessing Modern UI with an icon.
Click to expand...

I don't know about disabling but the hot corners have keyboard shortcuts so anything that can generate the keyboard shortcuts can control the UI.
 
Well I know classic shell allows you to turn off hot corners. All I would want after that would be a dock that had icons that ran those shortcuts I guess.
 
If only all of these third party tools didn't look like cheap knockoffs but actually looked exactly the same it would make it worth using.
 
I would be satisfied by this solution, however, purchasing the OS is still +1 for Windows 8 in Microsoft's eyes. I do not want them to think this OS is selling well.
 
heatlesssun said:
I've used the Start Menu on tablets for a long time and while a some people like myself that could get acquainted with touch on the desktop, the Start Menu just isn't considered touch friendly. The buttons on the side are ok but those cascading folders under Programs?
Click to expand...

Like I said, on the tablet I added a shortcut to Metro as one of the big start menu buttons along with User/computer/network/etc shown in the pic. The pic is from my Windows 7 desktop. I don't mind metro on the tablet, classic start just lets me put links to all the important stuff in one place and gets around the issue I mentioned where the hot-corners don't work.

On the rare occasion that I use the fly out programs menu it's worked fine. Even with the rather small default menu item size I haven't had problems accidentally launching the wrong thing.
 
DeathFromBelow said:
Like I said, on the tablet I added a shortcut to Metro as one of the big start menu buttons along with User/computer/network/etc shown in the pic. The pic is from my Windows 7 desktop. I don't mind metro on the tablet, classic start just lets me put links to all the important stuff in one place and gets around the issue I mentioned where the hot-corners don't work.

On the rare occasion that I use the fly out programs menu it's worked fine. Even with the rather small default menu item size I haven't had problems accidentally launching the wrong thing.
Click to expand...

Cool. The Windows desktop has been much maligned on Windows 7 tablets as very finger unfriendly and much of it is but it's not as bad as many make it out to be.

I guess in this last year of moving back and forth between a Windows 8 keyboard and mouse desktop, laptop and tablets I've grown to appreciate the Start Screen and having the same UI across the devices. Don't miss the Start Menu at all even on a keyboard and mouse desktop.
 
StartIsBack is awesome! I'll totally buy this if it's not outrageously priced. Pokki is cool, but not for me.
 
the only issue i have thus far is no start menu, but startisback takes care of the problem. i guess can live without aero :(
 
firas said:
there is also Start Is Back
Click to expand...

Okay, yeah StartIsBack is king right now. Gold. Have tried all of em, like this the best. Don't care if he ends up charging for it -- anything worth having is worth paying a few bucks for. And its a small price to pay for the under-the-hood performance improvements in Win8 which is all that most power users really care about anyway.
 
Of all the ones I've tried, I like Start 8 the best and decided it was worth the money. Its look and feel integrates well with Windows 8, options are good, menu is like Windows 7, and so on. Classic Shell is my favourite if free is the requirement.
 
myelin1 said:
where? the taskbar is transparent, but the tops of windows are not.
Click to expand...
Aero and Transparency are two different things. In Windows 8, Aero (GPU Accelerated GUI) is still present, the transparency has just been removed.
 
Rusty4560 said:
Does anyone know if there is a way to get rid of the hot corners and instead replace them with an icon? So accessing Modern UI with an icon.
Click to expand...

I believe you can completely turn them off. I have the charms bar hint turned off (so it doesn't display the transparent charms...I know they are there I don't need the hint).

You may be more interested in this though: http://www.downloadcrew.com/article/28076-skip_metro_suite
 
Yay. Windows 8.

I can stop using Ultramon but now I need another third party app to wrestle it into submission. *sigh*
 
What are people using for OOD drive software?
Or is it not needed to play DVDs?
 
wtourist said:
What are people using for OOD drive software?
Or is it not needed to play DVDs?
Click to expand...

Two choices:

1. Download VLC
2. Get the Media Center add-on (which adds back Microsoft's MPEG2 decoder which was native in Windows 7) which is free for Win 8 Pro until January and $9.99 thereafter. Just enter your email. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/feature-packs

I did both. For Bluray playback, Arcsoft TMT5 still reigns supreme IMO and latest patch added Win8 compatibility.
 
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Sooner or later we will all have to switch to linux ;). Windows will just be for the disabled with 1 big button in the middle of the screen in 1 color. Back to 286 days.
 
heatlesssun said:
"Return to Windows 7" would be a better name. I guess I don't get it. I would have just stuck to Windows 7 if this is the experience I thought was so great.
Click to expand...

Obviously you don't understand that other people use computers for different purposes than you.
 
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