Classic Shell developer hangs up his hat, turns the project to open source

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Ivo Beltchev, who started Classic Shell in 2009, announced yesterday that he’s giving up on the project, releasing the source code to SourceForge. Obi
[See the full post at: Classic Shell developer hangs up his hat, turns the project to open source]

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AJNorth, Elly, HiFlyer, Noel Carboni, wdburt1

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That’s sad.  There’s a guy who produced something useful.  And all because Microsoft insisted on change for the sake of change, vandalizing stuff that worked to have something new to sell.

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AJNorth, Ascaris, Elly, HiFlyer, Noel Carboni, Bill C.

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Shame, REALLY lovely product.

The amount of Customisation and so on is fantastic. Makes me wonder that if one guy can make something like this, WHY CAN’T MICROSOFT? Just WHY can’t they give us customisation too? instead of forcing their ****, “trendy” tablet UI down our throats.

My productivity is through the roof with classic shell. Takes me yonks to find anything with the standard menus, especially on Win10 at work.

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BobT wrote:

Takes me yonks to find anything with the standard menus, especially on Win10 at work.

Since Windows 8 the only sensible way is: press Win and start typing…

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IMO it’s not that Microsoft CAN’T produce something useful like this, it’s that they DON’T WANT TO. I’m sure that they’re technically perfectly capable of fixing/improving the Start Menu, but for whatever unfathomable reason, they’re wedded to the idea that the new, less useful menu is the way to go, and they have no desire to abandon it.

 

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Make Windows 10 look and work like Windows 7

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Cybertooth wrote:

IMO it’s not that Microsoft CAN’T produce something useful like this, it’s that they DON’T WANT TO. I’m sure that they’re technically perfectly capable of fixing/improving the Start Menu, but for whatever unfathomable reason, they’re wedded to the idea that the new, less useful menu is the way to go, and they have no desire to abandon it.

Of course they’re capable of doing better!  Just look at Win2k, Vista, 7 start menus.  The reason they don’t want to, I’m nearly certain, is branding.  Ever since Windows 8 arrived, they’ve pushed the multicolor mosaic of the mobile-oriented tiled interface so much that they could erect a billboard with just the colored tiles, no text at all, and people would know it’s Microsoft.

This, I think, was part of a broader plan to sell Windows phones. Every time someone opens the start screen in 8, they’re seeing an advertisement for Windows mobile.  It would be a constant reminder that Windows mobile exists as an option, so maybe when it was time for a Windows user to pick up their next phone, they’d feel that Windows 8 was already familiar and go that way.  If they had any Metro apps that would also work on the new phone, all the better.

Right now, I am watching Parks and Recreation on a Netflix account that someone I know got as a promo deal of some kind, and I noticed that in at least one episode from 2013, a computer in the office prominently displayed the 8 start screen.  I noticed that in the closing credits of that episode, Microsoft was mentioned.  I didn’t feel like going back to look it up, but it looks like it was product placement.  All they had to do was show the tiled start screen… the text on the screen was (of course) illegible.

When Windows 10 came along, it was a second try at everything Windows 8 was supposed to be.  People didn’t like the start screen, so it was shrunk down into a start menu, but the tiles were non-negotiable.  They were too important to Microsoft’s goal of getting into the mobile market to let people NOT see that Windows Mobile ad a hundred times a day.

It’s just one of a long series of examples of Microsoft putting their own needs before those of the user, something that has become the norm since Windows 8 arrived, and made much worse since Windows 10 came along.  Again and again, when Microsoft has had to choose between serving themselves or serving the user, they’ve chosen themselves.

An operating system has only one job, and that is to facilitate whatever the user wants to do with the computer upon which it runs.  Every single thing an OS does should, in some way, enhance its ability to assist the user in doing whatever it is that he wants to do with his computer, and its fitness as an OS hinges purely on how well it accomplishes that goal.

As such, an OS can only have one master, and that’s the user (or the owner, but for now let’s assume they are the same thing).  The OS determines the look, the feel, and the behavior of the computer hardware that the owner purchased to serve his own needs (and not the OS vendor’s), and it’s too close to the metal to even countenance the idea that there can be more than one master to serve.  An OS that fails that fails as an OS.

Some people say that those of us who rail against Windows 10’s telemetry are paranoid or that we fail to understand what it’s about.  The point I try to make is that it doesn’t matter.  If I want telemetry off because my invisible talking dog that only I can hear and see told me that if I leave it on, space aliens will come and abduct me and perform unspeakable medical experiments upon me, then that’s good enough reason.  It’s my computer, so only my opinions count.  It makes no difference if some other person or corporation thinks my reasons are stupid or invalid; it’s my hardware, and having sole control over that hardware is one of the privileges of ownership.  The OS has a big responsibility toward the owner of that hardware!  Its job is to help me do what I want with that hardware, and nothing else.  If an OS can’t accomplish that, it’s not suitable for use.  Any use.

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I had originally posted, and then deleted this, thinking it wasn’t relevant.  It might be, if you’re looking for a Start menu alternative . . .

You may want to consider Start Menu X.  After being so used to Win XP’s Start menu, I did not like Win 7’s at all.  After finding out about Start Menu X in 2015, I’ve been using it ever since.  It works on Win XP through Win 10 (32 and 64-bit), and there are Free and Pro versions: http://www.startmenux.com/registration.html.

[No, I’m not associated with this product :)]

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HiFlyer

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I don’t use Windows 10 anyway, so it doesn’t matter for me personally. I do use Windows 8.1, and Classic Shell works for it, so I’m good.

There’s always StartIsBack and Start 10 (from the Start 8 folks).

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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HiFlyer, Noel Carboni

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Windows 10 is a complete non-starter for me without Classic Shell.

The same would have been true with Win 8.1, which currently powers my daily driver workstation to great benefit. I even used Classic Shell on Win 7 going all the way back, and it’s been great to have the continuity of the same, timeless way of working all through those versions.

The well-organized hierarchical menu presented by the “classic mode” of Classic Shell is better than anything that has come out of Redmond. Even their original hiearchical Start menu was never as good as what Classic Shell became. Classic Shell was ALWAYS a better-implemented menu than Microsoft’s efforts – you could tell by its consistently better responsiveness AND configurability.

Classic Shell did no less than keep Microsoft successful as their implementations drifted further and further from the ideal of what a desktop could be at its best.

Thank you Ivo and Gaurav and others who contributed so much to the success of Classic Shell.

-Noel

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AJNorth, SueW, Elly, AlexEiffel, Ascaris, HiFlyer, Cybertooth

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Noel Carboni wrote:

The well-organized hierarchical menu presented by the “classic mode” of Classic Shell is better than anything that has come out of Redmond. Even their original hiearchical Start menu was never as good as what Classic Shell became. Classic Shell was ALWAYS a better-implemented menu than Microsoft’s efforts – you could tell by its consistently better responsiveness AND configurability.

Now, ask yourself a question – what would be more important for an OS – a working, seamless, useful interface or Paint 3D and emojis menu?

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AJNorth, SueW, Elly, Noel Carboni, Ascaris

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You’ve nailed it: It depends on who you ask.

When I ask myself the answer is obvious, but I’m a reasonably skilled and intelligent user who needs the system to facilitate my serious computing and business usage.

It seems clear to me that Microsoft doesn’t feel they need to court smart business customers but rather the folks who walk across busy streets entirely absorbed into Twitter or Facebook. Perhaps they want the presumably larger group of such people to open their wallets year after year to buy a shiny gadget they don’t really need, and it is almost certainly easier to pass off junk to them.

I felt a pang of nausea at the low IQ Microsoft TV commercial with the elementary school teacher who paints 3D sharks on her Surface.

-Noel

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Elly

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To get catharsis, you can read Dedoimedo’s just release FCU update review.

His description on the plebeian approach to OS development is funny. He doesn’t skip using harsh words to describe what he doesn’t like.

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Elly

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Noel Carboni wrote:

It seems clear to me that Microsoft doesn’t feel they need to court smart business customers but rather the folks who walk across busy streets entirely absorbed into Twitter or Facebook.

Regarding those – apparently, they were not sold by Windows 10 Mobile and, I can tell you, after switching from W10M to Android 8.0 last week (reluctantly, but I was forced to), that Microsoft Outlook and Skype for Business on Android are plain terrible. I have no idea what is MS’s concept on playing significant role in the mobile world.

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Microsoft doesn’t have to give us that choice; they could give us BOTH a seamless interface AND 3D Paint.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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SueW, Elly

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Apparently, their resources are too limited for that. Each W10 version promised features are moved to next release (People icon from 1703 to 1709, Timeline from 1709 to 1803), but get useless things like the ones I mentioned.

How does W10 interface look like – I do not have to mention.

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Not to mention that the number of processes to support an empty desktop has doubled or tripled (depending how you look at it). It should be at least twice as good with all that new software hung all over it, right?

-Noel

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You can install the PortableApps launcher on your c: drive. It is a start menu on the lefthand side – I have Firefox 52 ESR and Firefox 57 as well as so many other great apps on it. It updates all your software. No worrying about Firefox profiles with portable apps. Better to have applications portable on Windows. Thanks to the great people at Portable Apps.

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A pity. I have been using Classic Shell on both Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 with the classic start menu, as I like the classic menu over anything that comes later.

Will continue to use it for the foreseeable future as I don’t plan to use Windows 10 for quite some time.

The one problem I have with it is that it will sometimes cause Windows Explorer to stop working. The problem seems to occur randomly with no predictable pattern. Otherwise I am quite satisfied.

Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.

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What is available out there that would work like Classic Shell to give you the older start version?

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Stardock Start10.
iObit may also still have one.

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Start10 is available as a free 30-day demo (after that you have to buy it for $4.99 to keep it)

IOBit has a free start menu but still calls it Start Menu 8 but it works under Windows 8.x and Windows 10.
I ditched the IOBit Start Menu8 app more than a year ago since it caused open running application windows to randomly minimize without any user input. Hopefully the latest version has fixed that annoying problem.

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