I was looking around for a better start menu for Windows 7 a while ago and landed on the FREE and open source Classic Shell. One of the earliest is this one in 2011, which seems to be referring to an early form of CS, in the thread: Re: Start Menu X now in beta An older/more useful Windows Explorer GUI.ġ.2 Historical note: There are several references in DCF discussions to 'Classic Shell'.The latest stable version of Classic Shell is 4.3.0Ĭlassic Shell has been in active development for 6+ years and has tens of millions of downloads.ġ.1 Shell includes the options to install three components: As you might anticipate, here on The Reg's FOSS desk, we try to use Windows as infrequently as is possible, but Start11 does help.- developer of Classic Shell announces he is quitting, and releases the last version of the program. There's a free one-month demo to give you a taste. Stardock's Start11 rides to the rescue, as Start10 did seven years before it. It's a proprietary OS, and for now, a proprietary tool remains the more complete solution. Microsoft patches the patch that broke VPNs, Hyper-V, and left servers in boot loopsīut by all means give OpenShell a try, leave some feedback, and encourage the team in its efforts.Running Windows 10? Microsoft is preparing to fire up the update engines.Unless you use Teams, in which case you have our sympathies.) (While you're in there, you can disable the Chat button, too. We also experimented with the tweaks that modify Explorer's sidebar, and they work well – but they don't pick up Windows' dark mode, which looks weird. The Aero version is too small and the Microsoft button peeks out from underneath, whereas the Classic button is too big and overlaps the Search button. A custom button does what you'd expect, but the snag is that they don't line up with the integrated button. Until we picked a custom button, it only opened in response to the Windows key clicking Microsoft's Start button got Microsoft's Start menu. We tried it, and with some limitations, it does work. Changes to the desktop in Windows 11 have not set the world alight

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