windows classic on win7 > aero

J

jcmuse

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 10, 2006
Messages
329
just switched to classic... so much better than aero on the eyes. i find my computing experience more pleasurable on classic than aero. also, font rendering looks better imo. it is all in the careful use of color contrast i think.
 
Cool. Thanks for letting us know your preference. I like to open links in new tabs when browsing the internet.
 
Personal preference, 'kay, but Classic in Windows 7 looks funky; there's a lot of wasted space and oddball miscellany because of UI elements you can't disable or hide.

Classic in XP was my go-to, but Windows 7 is made for Aero.
 
^

I agree with that. Classic in Windows 7 just isn't made well.
 
In the XP days, people didn't have big widescreen as well as high resolution monitors like we almost all do nowadays; the resolution and the 4:3 nature of most all of them meant the display aspects of the OS were going to be pretty compact. Hell, if I install XP on a machine nowadays for someone it almost seems "too small" in some respects, but that's because I get used to the "large" way of doing things with Windows 7 now which I'm acclimated to.

But, as soon as widescreen 16:10 and even the lackluster 16:9 monitors started rolling out in force (and the prices dropped to make them actually affordable), that's when things changed, and the OS changed to.

Nowadays, I have a 1680x1050 LCD panel in this Dell Latitude D830 laptop of mine, and for 2+ years now I've been using my Taskbar on the left side of the screen because Windows 7 - even more so than Vista did - allows for the Taskbar to actually be extremely useful "over there" on the side. With it "over there" I get the full top-to-bottom aspect of my LCD, and I have plenty of horizontal space given than the Taskbar is about 64 pixels wide which leaves me 1600+ pixels to play with if needed.

And it just works better for me that way. I even changed the regional settings to show the date as MM/DD/YY to save another 4 pixels. :)

When people ask me "Why widescreen?" I show 'em. I'd rather have the Taskbar on the left (or even on the right as some folks do) than have it running the entire width of the screen top or bottom - that just doesn't sit right with me anymore. I never liked the Windows Taskbar defaulting to the bottom with the release of Windows 95 anyway... but with Windows 7, the Taskbar on the side of the screen "just works" for me and many other people.

And that's "Why widescreen..."
 
I have my laptop set to classic on battery power. It still looks fine.

I was using GNOME 3 most of the day yesterday and the only thing I could think when I booted back into Windows 7 was, LOL GNOME 3 is garbage.
 
I like Aero, love it visually. Just my preference though.
 
pxc said:
I was using GNOME 3 most of the day yesterday and the only thing I could think when I booted back into Windows 7 was, LOL GNOME 3 is garbage.
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Please don't even get me started on how bad it is :D
 
I can read that just fine. It also depends on the color of your background. Mine is black so the black shows through more. Aero is tinted. Change the tint.
 
 
Only reason I left XP was because M$ refused to fix the ATI alpha blending issue... and I love windowed gaming. <3 Classic + theme hack + hacked aero skin :D
 
I actually prefer the look of Classic myself. I know there was an Aero accelerated theme that looked like classic for Vista, but alas, nothing for Windows 7 yet.

My kingdom for a Classic theme with Aero glass
 
If you don't want grouping, disable it in the taskbar properties. "Never combine"

Only reason I left XP was because M$ refused to fix the ATI alpha blending issue
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What issue?
 
I prefer anything that utilizes Direct2D (not only Aero Glass) like Windowblinds type themes. The classic looks is quite 2000ish & below. No, thanks, I'll pass on the archaic GUI forever.
 
The best feature of Aero is the 3d acceleration, which makes the interface so much more fluid and responsive IMO. The overall aesthetics? Meh. Classic is even more meh though.
 
I use windows XP with the classic style every day at work but didn&#8217;t really like the classic style in win7, something just felt wrong, but you just reminded me to use it temporary (or at least disable the fade effect) when I finally decided to sort my files, because it&#8217;s all about sniping the folders and files with a quick double click/ctrl+x/c/v and the extra effects add some lag.
 
khaki said:
The best feature of Aero is the 3d acceleration, which makes the interface so much more fluid and responsive IMO. The overall aesthetics? Meh. Classic is even more meh though.
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I've found it to be the opposite case. With aero on, vsync is also forced on and makes for a lot less fluid experience than when I'm in classic and vsync is off.

I like the way aero looks though and wish there was a way to disable vsync with aero on.
 
SirMaster said:
I've found it to be the opposite case. With aero on, vsync is also forced on and makes for a lot less fluid experience than when I'm in classic and vsync is off.

I like the way aero looks though and wish there was a way to disable vsync with aero on.
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You want tearing?

Anyway, you can force it in the nVidia drivers...
 
rampantandroid said:
You want tearing?

Anyway, you can force it in the nVidia drivers...
Click to expand...

I don't really notice any tearing when in classic so that's never really been a problem for me. Also you can't force off vsync for aero in nvidia drivers or with any registry hacks.

I have never seen anyone who has been able to do it.
 
I'm a fan of this ferrari commercial:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4lKsU7QMUI"]&#x202a;Best FERRARI Commercial Ever! [720p HD]&#x202c;&rlm; - YouTube[/ame]
 
I've tried using classic theme on W7, but the damn thing has too many glitches. Like when dragging an icon across the desktop, it disappears or glitches in the UI of windows explorer, and distortion in the color scheme. So I switched back. I wish Microsoft would add better/more customizability to their user interface.
 
SirMaster said:
I've found it to be the opposite case. With aero on, vsync is also forced on and makes for a lot less fluid experience than when I'm in classic and vsync is off.

I like the way aero looks though and wish there was a way to disable vsync with aero on.
Click to expand...

Not sure why vsync would result in a less fluid experience. Is your framerate dropping or something?

Anyways, I'm one of those people who hates tearing and can always see it. I always enable vsync when I can in games. To each their own ;)
 
khaki said:
Not sure why vsync would result in a less fluid experience. Is your framerate dropping or something?

Anyways, I'm one of those people who hates tearing and can always see it. I always enable vsync when I can in games. To each their own ;)
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Agreed. VSync should mean a more fluid experience. I certainly see no issues with it.
 
Let me get some popcorn...

I have to use XP Classic at work because my computer is a piece of crap. I much prefer Aero.
 
I actually never realized how ugly even XP was until Vista & 7 came out.
 
nOrVow said:
I've tried using classic theme on W7, but the damn thing has too many glitches. Like when dragging an icon across the desktop, it disappears or glitches in the UI of windows explorer, and distortion in the color scheme. So I switched back. I wish Microsoft would add better/more customizability to their user interface.
Click to expand...

Classic has pretty much been a broken neglected mess since Vista. The explorer windows look cluttered, and the whole UI feels like some kind of experimental throwback from the Chicago beta days.

I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft cuts the Classic skin from Windows 8 and onwards.

rive22 said:
I actually never realized how ugly even XP was until Vista & 7 came out.
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Haha, this! I remember when people described XP as "Windows Fischer Price Edition." It's a shame that Microsoft decided to cut those clean-cut Watercolor skins from the early Whistler builds (example), though you could always patch themeui.dll and download an unofficial knock-off.
Keep in mind that Vista could've easily looked worse than XP.
 
pxc said:
I have my laptop set to classic on battery power. It still looks fine.

I was using GNOME 3 most of the day yesterday and the only thing I could think when I booted back into Windows 7 was, LOL GNOME 3 is garbage.
Click to expand...

Thank god I'm not the only one...at first I was like "ooo this gnome 3 UI is minimalistic and clean"...immediately followed by "where the fuck are all the basic tools that Ubuntu has always had...why are my fonts broken and fucked up..."
 
rampantandroid said:
Agreed. VSync should mean a more fluid experience. I certainly see no issues with it.
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I think the whole VSync should be off is just logic that's a hold over from when 3D video card were new and it was a struggle to get 60fps in just about anything you played due to the technology limits. Problem is, people still think this way.

Anyhow, to the people who think Aero is slow, do me a favor and go into Advanced System Settings and performance and turn off the options that deal with fade or slide, like Fade, Animate or slide tooltips into view. I've found that a lot of people who make that statement are just reacting to the effect and not realizing that you don't need it.
 
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