Classic Shell no longer in development, and now open source

Wynona said:

But, but, but . . . That's exactly how it's supposed to be. For as long as I've been using Windows, beginning with Windows 3.0, there have been third party apps out there. It's called free choice.

Look in the Microsoft Store and you'll find a plethora of third party apps, most of which Microsoft doesn't do. Microsoft built the Store and has allowed third party vendors to sell or give away their wares; thus, giving us a choice.

You can save a file as a PDF in MS Office and even read it in Edge; however, if you want to do much more than that, you gotta have Adobe Acrobat DC or something similar.

Cyberlink has an assortment of graphics programs that Microsoft doesn't even try to match. Then you have your financial programs such as Investment, tax, and checkbook, to name a few.

Can Microsoft create the programs that run our electrical, water, sewer, gas, etc. utilities? Nope! Neither can they create programs that will run our financial institutions.

OK, got off the personal level there for a bit, but you see what I'm talking about . . .

In the end, Microsoft is not a be all/end all company and is limited in what it can include in Windows.

And that is where choices come in. There are things I wouldn't want to change in Windows, and there are things I can do better with a third party app.

I guess the question that should be asked is . . . Why should Microsoft be forced to duplicate an app I can get from a third party vendor? Of course, the other side of that coin is . . . Why should I be expected to use a particular Microsoft app when I can do better with a third party app?

The real question is why does Microsoft force apps on users that they do not want nor need or use?

Isn't GitHub now owned by MS? They should consider this app as one of Microsoft's, shouldn't they?

JohnBurns said:

Isn't GitHub now owned by MS? They should consider this app as one of Microsoft's, shouldn't they?

No, they own the site and not it's content.

f14tomcat said:

My remembrance, and experience, is it installs fine, works the first time you click it, then fails second time and subsequent. Re-boot brings it back to working order, one time. Maybe I will try to duplicate what Wynona has found.

Results of testing CS 4.3.1 (IVO) on Skippy 18214:

I had partial success. It installed, I loaded my saved XML, rebooted. Still came up. In and out of it several times. No crashes. Several more reboots. All the same results.

Bad news: I could not pin or un-pin anything to the main body (left pane area) of 4.3.1. The option wasn't there for un-pin. Only pin, which did not work. That's about as far as I went.

Uninstalled it and re-installed 4.4.109. Loaded my XML. All worked as before. All functions available and worked. Rebooted several times and all remained working fine with 4.4.109.

Have not tried any of this on Fast 17735. Have 4.4.109 on it and works fine.

Josey Wales said:

The real question is why does Microsoft force apps on users that they do not want nor need or use?

They don't force 'em on you, Josey. They include 'em and it's up to you whether you use 'em or not.

Edge is included, but I don't use it except for the first time in order to get Firefox. A dozen games are included and I'm at liberty to play 'em or not, as I choose.

You can look at as Microsoft is forcing apps we don't use on us. Or, you can look at it as Microsoft is including apps to make our lives easier.

Remember, you have a choice . . . I've yet to see Microsoft punish anyone who doesn't use everything included in Windows.

Wynona said:

They don't force 'em on you, Josey. They include 'em and it's up to you whether you use 'em or not.

Edge is included, but I don't use it except for the first time in order to get Firefox. A dozen games are included and I'm at liberty to play 'em or not, as I choose.

You can look at as Microsoft is forcing apps we don't use on us. Or, you can look at it as Microsoft is including apps to make our lives easier.

Remember, you have a choice . . . I've yet to see Microsoft punish anyone who doesn't use everything included in Windows.

I do have a choice. The problem is I do not use EDGE and do not want it but I can't remove it. I currently use only the mail and Weather apps but one can remove most of them but you are really only hiding them. They take up space on an expensive SSD. The apps that come with Windows 10 make my life and many others lives harder and not easier. So in a way MS is forcing stuff onto your PC that you may not want, need or use. It is my feeling that a user should have a choice of what is installed on his/her PC. In Windows 7 I did not use IE so I removed it, But we digress from Classic Shell or what I have now installed as Open Shell.

Clintlgm said:

Well, Classic Shell was around before Window 8, we all just got interested in it when MS took away our start menu the GUI we all have used all these years for something that was more like a cell phone GUI. That's what brought Classic Shell to the popularity that it is today. Actually, even if MS were to put their original start menu back in I would still want Classic Shell for all general tweaks and settings it contains, that were never really easily available previously

My point exactly, Clint. We should be able to use Classic Shell if that's what we want to use. And, if we don't want to use it, that should be fine too. Along with any other app, whether it be a MS app or a third party app.

Like I've said before, I tried Classic Shell way back when, and found I didn't like it very much. I've been watching and reading this thread, and finally decided to see why everyone has given it such glowing reviews.

I put version 4.3.1 on Skip Ahead Build 18214 but didn't go further than the default installation; thus, I thought it would work. It looks like the default without any changes works, but @f14 tomcat went a little deeper and it's not there yet. So, I may go back to the one that will work, if I can find it.

I will say that I like what I've seen, and come to think on it, maybe I'll just leave well enough alone and see if it continues to be viable if I don't change anything.

Wynona said:

I guess the question that should be asked is . . . Why should Microsoft be forced to duplicate an app I can get from a third party vendor? Of course, the other side of that coin is . . . Why should I be expected to use a particular Microsoft app when I can do better with a third party app?

I think the question is, why does MS constantly (every 6 months) break/remove features that people have used, without issue, for many years?

Occasionally they reintroduce something they'd previously removed and they expect users to be grateful.

Edwin said:

Perhaps I should reiterate...

A lot of Windows 10 users use 3rd party software just to make Windows 10 usable!!!

I agree with @Edwin.

I'm willing to bet that (proportionally) more W8 & W10 users use Start Menu replacement software, than W7 users.

Windows always used to be highly configurable with built-in OS GUI tools and as a result people customised their installs to suit themselves.
After W7, MS started to restrict what users could easily do using the OS' built-in GUI tools.

Remember when W10 first came out and you could have any colour you liked, as long as it was blinding white?
If you wanted a coloured Title Bar, you had to create a special theme to do it.

FWIW, I use the default Start Menu in XP, W7 & W10.
However, I do use Process Explorer on all of my Windows installs and VirtuaWin on my W7 installs (virtual desktops).