Classic
Shell puts XP Retro back into Win7
Windows Secrets Newsletter • Issue 238 • 2010-04-01
By Woody Leonhard
<http://tinyurl.com/WinSecrets238>
Windows Secrets Newsletter • Issue 238 • 2010-04-01
By Woody Leonhard
<http://tinyurl.com/WinSecrets238>
If you've made the jump from Windows XP to Win7 and are asking yourself, "Why did I do this?" perhaps you miss familiar XP controls.
Well, take heart — there's an excellent free application that will give you back some of the better features in XP's Start Menu and Explorer.
Put XP-like Start Menu and new tools in Win7
In his February 11 Top Story <http://tinyurl.com/Feb11TopStory>, Windows Secrets contributing editor Scott Dunn talks about several free products that extend Vista's and Win7's capabilities. Among them is Classic Shell, a free download on SourceForge's product page: <http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/>.
Ace programmer Ivo Beltchev (whose primary occupation is programming games) has just released a new beta version (1.9.0) of Classic Shell. I put the beta through its paces and came away quite impressed.
Classic Shell works with both Vista and Win7 and comes in two pieces. You can install and run either piece independently.
The first piece brings back the old XP Start Menu, along with a handful of interesting extensions — for example, a customizable title on the left of the Start Menu, as shown in Figure 1.
The second piece of Classic Shell enhances Win7's Explorer, including an extremely useful toolbar (circled in yellow in Figure 2).
Figure 2. Classic Shell adds an XP-like group of icons to the Windows 7 (and Vista) Explorer toolbar.
For productivity, you'll probably want to download the current and more-stable version 1.0.3 of Classic Shell. But if you're just shopping, beta version 1.9 adds enhancements to the overall look of Classic Shell through a new skin engine (see below).
Classic Shell's start menu offers many options
I've heard all the arguments. Yes, Vista's and Win7's Start Menu is superior to XP's in many ways. But I also know that my dad used XP for years, and he's quite intimidated by this new double-column Windows 7 thingy. It doesn't work in quite the same way as the old Start Menu, and it gives him too many confusing choices.
Inertia isn't the only reason why many folks prefer the XP Start Menu. They've told me they don't like the extra clicking that's necessary with the newer Start Menu. In my experience, the old XP menu works faster and is more forgiving of my mousing foibles.
For example: To run MS Paint in XP, you click Start, roll up to Programs, roll over to Accessories, roll down, and click Paint. It's very fluid. And if you're in a hunting mood, you can roll around a bit to explore alternatives.
By contrast, to run MS Paint in Windows 7 (or Vista), you have to click Start, then click All Programs, then click Accessories, then roll down to Paint, and click. If you change your mind at any point, it takes a couple more clicks to get back to the start.
Ivo's Classic Shell Start Menu's capabilities go beyond XP's. For example, you can add the following:
- Customizable 'skins.' The skin
in Figure 1, for example, is called Smoked Glass. It maintains Win7's
Aero styling but uses high-contrast, white-on-gray text. (JohnEdwa has
posted a collection of striking custom skins you might want to peruse
on his Deviant Art site <http://johnedwa.deviantart.com/art/clrSharp-Classic-Shell-Skin-155201674>.)
- Customize with drag-and-drop.
Just as in Win7, you can drag-and-drop applications, files, folders,
and other items to the Start Menu and rearrange them as you like.
- Hot-switch Start Menus. If you want to use the standard Win7 Start Menu instead of Classic Shell's, just Shift+Click on the Windows Start Orb.
Figure 3. Classic Shell's easily accessible settings give you options not available in XP.
Click the More Settings link (in the lower left corner of Figure 3), and you can select large or small icons, change the Start Menus' caption text (as shown in Figure 1), set the delay time when mousing over submenus (a favorite old-timer trick for advanced XP users), incorporate menu-related sounds, add or remove menu items, and add many other capabilities.
Enhance Win7's Explorer with CS extensions
Even if you love the Windows 7 Start menu, you should consider installing Classic Shell's Windows Explorer extensions. Foremost among them:
- Yes, Virginia, there "is" an up arrow.
I sorely miss the up-arrow button when using the standard Win7
Explorer. Yes, I know that in Win7 I can go up one folder level by
holding down the Alt key and pressing the keyboard up arrow, but it's a
pain in the neck when I'm navigating via my mouse.
Classic Shell's Explorer adds not one, but two, up-arrow buttons, as shown in Figure 2. That alone makes Classic Shell worth installing.
- Classic Shell Toolbar. The shell
puts useful icons on Explorer's main toolbar and lets you customize
them — add new ones or move them around endlessly. I find the
simple Copy and Paste buttons most useful because they're easy to click
— much easier than scrolling through a long, right-click
context menu, and almost as easy as Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V.
- Simpler copy prompts. The third
change to Windows Explorer is a bit more obtuse. In Win7, if you copy a
file into a folder containing a file with the same name, you get the
dialog shown in Figure 4. I've always found the dialog box verbose and
confusing.
Figure 4. Windows 7's warning about file conflicts can be confusing.
If you install the Explorer part of Classic Shell, you get the older (and, I think, better) XP version of the file conflict dialog box, shown in Figure 5. If you click the More link in the lower left, you go back to the Windows 7 conflict dialog box shown in Figure 4.
Figure 5. Classic Shell brings back the simpler XP version of the conflict dialog — and lets you use the keyboard to make the choices.
Classic Shell Explorer packs a load of custom settings, some of which are shown in Figure 6.
Figure 6. Classic Shell lets you control the appearance and behavior of its extensions to Windows 7 Explorer.
Asking myself why Microsoft didn't do this
As I went spelunking through the depths of Classic Shell, I found myself wondering over and over again, "Why didn't Microsoft do this?" Here's a case where one guy — albeit a very talented guy — improved Microsoft's latest interface, just for the fun of it.
Microsoft had the retro XP menu as an option in Vista. But it's nowhere to be found in Win7. And the Explorer up arrow? Somebody, somewhere decided to banish it, no doubt as the result of a million-dollar usability study.
The 'Softies should realize that user-interface backward compatibility is important for some folks, regardless of what their studies may say. Don't get me started on the ribbon in Office 2007.
Until Microsoft gets a clue, I thank my lucky stars that people like Ivo are out there slugging it out for the little guy, running rings around Microsoft's efforts. Bravo.
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