Classic Shell for Windows XP - a set of tweaks to customize and extend the functionality of the operating system. The application allows you to add third-party desktop themes, integrate additional commands for interacting with files into the context menu of the explorer, configure the start button, change the display principle in the All Programs subdirectory.Most every longtime Windows user knows the sad saga of the lowly Start menu. Born as a button in Windows 95, modified in XP and Vista, and blossoming into its most usable form in Windows 7, the Start menu anchored the Windows UI until Microsoft foolishly discarded it with Windows 8, sparking an entire cottage industry of third-party replacements. Now two of the leading makers of Start menu alternatives for Windows 8 have released counterparts for Windows 10.Actually, Classic Shell brings plenty of settings to tweak and customize Windows 10.
Classic Shell concentrates on providing a close-to-exact replica of Windows 7, and it’s free (formerly open source, now freeware). Many Windows aficionados yearn for the Windows 7 Start menu, and the two products reviewed here strive to give it to them, pasted on top of Windows 10. Now two of the leading makers of Start menu alternatives for Windows 8 have released counterparts for Windows 10.Do you need a replacement Start menu for Windows 10? Some users will find the Windows 10 Start menu to be good enough, but many won’t. Born as a button in Windows 95, modified in XP and Vista, and blossoming into its most usable form in Windows 7, the Start menu anchored the Windows UI until Microsoft foolishly discarded it with Windows 8, sparking an entire cottage industry of third-party replacements. Most every longtime Windows user knows the sad saga of the lowly Start menu.
You can’t move the entries or slide them underneath other header entries. What you see here is basically what you get.Finally, the All Apps list on the left is an unmanageable one-dimensional mess, as you can see from the shot of Office 2013, as installed on a bone-stock copy of Windows 10 (Figure 2). You can create tiles for programs or folders among the tiles on the right (right-click and choose Pin to Start), but changes on the left side are limited to a list of items that can be added to the bottom of the menu: Start, Settings, Personalization, Start, Choose which folders appear on Start. The All Apps list keeps going and going and going.Second, there is a woeful lack of customization. The Win10 Start menu can be resized, but only in fixed-size blocks.Figure 2. You can unpin all of the tiles (right-click), but when you do, you’re left with an ugly black strip that can’t be removed.
You can pin additional programs to the top of the left side of the Start menu, just as you can in Windows 7, by simply dragging the program (or folder) to the top left and releasing.Figure 4. The Classic Shell Start installation menu.The entries on the left should be immediately obvious to most Windows 7 users, although there’s a quick link to the stock Windows 10 Start menu on top. You get a screen (Figure 3) with options to bring back a Windows XP-style Start menu and intermediate two-column menu, or the full-featured Windows 7 look-alike.If you choose all the defaults, you get a Windows 10 Start menu that’s very similar to the Windows 7 Start menu, sitting on top of the Windows 10 taskbar. It was once an open source product, but Beltchev converted it to freeware after he discovered people were selling it with little or no modification.Installing Classic Shell couldn’t be simpler. Heaven help you if you forget that Paint is listed under "W" for "Windows Accessory."Developer Ivaylo Beltchev and his team have put a lot of effort into Classic Shell since its release in 2009.
Microsoft Edge, for example, “pins to Start” in all the usual ways. But if you type a search string in the “Search programs and files” box, you get a real, live, old-fashioned search of your computer, not a far-flung Cortana/Bing-fueled search of every matching bit of flotsam on the Internet.Remarkably, you can pin universal tiled apps to the top of the Start menu. The Windows 10 search bar/Cortana still sits at the bottom, to the right of the Start icon, and it’s fully functional.
Once you move an entry somewhere, it stays put, so you can have Microsoft Office 2013 open up to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, in any order you pick, and stuff all the lesser Office thingies into a rarely opened subfolder.The Windows Universal apps are all there, too. You can create new folders in the All Programs section (right-click any folder, choose New, Folder), then move apps from one folder to another. You can drag and drop them anywhere pin them to the Start menu itself or to the taskbar or rename or delete them. All Programs shows a full, customizable hierarchy.The entries in the All Programs menu have all the smarts they had in Windows 7.
The Start10 Start menu on a clean Windows 10 machine.Start10 offers many more customization settings, while Custom Shell gives you most of the customizations without asking. The most used list in Start10, for example, draws on the old Windows 7 most used programs, whereas Custom Shell draws on the existing Windows 10 most frequently used apps list.Figure 7. Take all of the defaults, and you get a Start menu that looks like Figure 7.Comparing Figure 7 to Figure 4, you can see a number of differences in the way the Start menu has been implemented. Click on Classic Shell, click Uninstall, reboot, and it’s gone.Start10 is very similar to Custom Shell, but there are important twists.The main setup screen (Figure 6) includes alternative Start menu layouts that include a Windows 10 style with tiles, and a Modern style that’s something of a hybrid between Win7 and Win10.When you install Start10, it first asks if you want to hide Cortana (the taskbar search box). Click Start > Control Panel > Programs and Features, and you end up in the old-fashioned (and still fully functional) “Uninstall or change a program” Control Panel applet. Or you can search for them in the Search bar.Much to Classic Shell’s credit, you can uninstall the app in the usual way.
Searching for items in the Start10 “Search programs and files” box bypasses Cortana. Start10 supports very detailed customizations.In many other respects, the two programs are quite similar. In Start10, you can’t reorder items by drag and drop.Figure 8.
The Start10 All Programs list looks like Win7’s, but it doesn’t work the same way.Start10 is clearly the more sophisticated Start substitute, with lots of settings and customizing capabilities. Universal/tiled apps are always at hand, and Cortana is cut out of the mix - permanently in Classic Shell, optionally in Start10.Figure 9. Both offer a Start experience that’s fairly similar to Windows 7, though both have shortcomings.
Start10 has a 30-day free trial, if the $5 price tag presents a deterrent. The ability to create my own folder hierarchies and easily move programs and folders among them, sorting in the way I prefer, puts Classic Shell ahead of Start10 in my book.Give them both a try. The $5 price tag will pay for itself in the first two minutes.Nevertheless, I have to admit that the tinkerer in me prefers the full-on All Programs maneuverability built into Classic Shell.
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