Open-Shell (Formerly Classic-Start)

[I've finally given in and started using Windows 10 Start Menu instead of Open Shell]

Ah, John Burns. Hi. I recognize your slightly different jb avatar design when you were on Classic Shell.
It's aka juniper7 here. :)
I used to learn how to make start menu skins for people and myself on the Classic Shell forum,
which I think has been turned off as Ivo said would happen,
though he originally said he would leave it up for one year, ended up as two years. I can't complain about that.

Yes, now that's gone, I'm tending to use Windows 10 start menu for longer stretches as well
until I get tired of 10 and revert back to Classic Shell menu due to ease of use and with muscle memory effect.

I don't think Open-Shell cares too much about the skinning or new features.
The limited amount of people there who volunteer are concerned mainly to just keep it working.
Start menu skinning and theming have had their day.

Hi folks

For a lot of things - why bother with the menu at all --it's so simple to make a desktop short cut -- simply open the file location of the program you want to pin to the desktop, right mouse click in File explorer and choose send to desktop (create short cut) -- job done. --AND for those who are endlessly going on with the finer points of "Iconmania" you can choose alternate icons or create them yourself if you want.



Cheers
jimbo

The standard menu suffices for me, now that search works half decently!

dalchina said:

Depends how many programs you have installed and whether you want them categorised.
Plus it adds a search box- more configurable than Windows'
And you can add shortcuts to files and folders
Plus it can expand and list the Control Panel applets
Plus it lists UWP Apps

One search box for all those...

Of course if you only use 4 or 5 programs... well...

Hi there
I use about 10 - 12 regularly --mainly office suite, Photoshop, VMWare, etc --those are easily managed on the desktop without too much clutter

For other stuff now that the search is "half way decently working" then the "bog standard" Windows menu is just fine.

Actually I don't think most people realize just how difficult it is to design an EFFICIENT full (plain - not encrypted or abbreviated) text search algorithm. Sounds and looks simple enough but it's actually very difficult to do properly -- just imagine designing such algorithms for massive databases like say at a place like International Patent Office where there must be millions of requests daily from people to ensure they aren't copying someone else's patent etc.

So I'm not blaming Ms totally for the search function --I know that's not an easy one to get 100% right quickly.

Still how people configure their desktops etc is a matter of personal choice though so what's wrong if people still want to use "add ons" etc -- but then they can't really complain if these things break on new versions of Windows --particularly Insider releases.

Cheers
jimbo