Bill Detwiler: IT pros and confirmed geeks tend to develop strong feelings about their favorite technology, whether it's an OS, an application, or even an icon. So it's no surprise that many long-time Windows users were pretty ticked when the Classic Start Menu disappeared with the release of Windows 7. Some people even refused to upgrade over it!
I'm Bill Detwiler, and during this episode of TR Dojo, I'll show you a program that lets you get the Classic Start Menu back in Windows 7.
When we asked the TechRepublic community to name their favorite user Windows interface, a whopping 48 percent responded with old favorite Windows XP, followed by just 35 percent for Windows 7.
Luckily, for the many who miss the Classic Start menu, there's a free, open-source program called Classic Shell, which lets you get your favorite old-school Start menu features, including the Windows Explorer Toolbar, in Windows 7.
Classic Shell works on both 32- and 64-bit versions of Windows 7 and appears to work in all editions.
First, you'll download Classic Shell from the SourceForge.net site. Just double-click the ClassicShellSetup.exe file and follow the onscreen instructions.
When you are prompted to select the features that you want to install, be sure that you leave both check boxes selected if you want to revive the classic version of Windows Explorer as well as the Classic Start menu.
As soon as you complete the installation procedure, you'll immediately find the Classic Start menu in place.
Reviving the classic version of Windows Explorer requires a bit more configuration some configuration.
First, you have to enable the menu bar. To do so, launch Windows Explorer, press the [Alt] key to display the menu bar, pull down the Tools menu, and select the Folder Options command. Then, in the View tab of the Folder Options dialog box, select the Always Show Menus check box and click OK.
With the menu bar in place, you can right-click on it and select the Classic Explorer Bar command. If you disable the Lock the Toolbars setting, you can position the Classic Explorer Bar under the menu bar like in Windows XP.
In addition to the Up button, you have the Cut, Copy, Paste, and Delete buttons back. You also have a Properties button, which displays the selected item's properties dialog box, and an e-mail button, which allows you to attach selected items to an e-mail message. The last button is the Settings button, which displays the available configuration settings.
If you want to tweak your new Classic Start menu, right-click on the Start orb and select the Settings command.
The dialog box here allows you to change a host of options you can even apply several different skins, including a classic Windows 9x/2K colored skin.
You can tweak the Classic Explorer Bar by clicking the Settings button. In the dialog box you can change a host of options. You can even select the type of navigation pane that you want to use, such as Windows XP Classic or Windows Vista.
Now for everyone out there who's wondering why anyone using Windows 7 would want to go back to XP's Classic Start menu, I suggest you check out Ivo Beltchev's list of complaints about the Windows 7 Start menu. Ivo, the creator of Classic Shell, cites several annoyances with the new Start menu. For example, activating menu items with keystrokes is difficult, if not impossible, because the search box steals all text input. This means that sequences such as the Windows key followed by the U key don't activate the Shutdown command as they did in the Classic Start menu.
I also encourage you to check out Greg Shultz's original article on Classic Shell, in which he covers several bonus features, which I didn't have time to cover in this video. I'll link to both the Classic Shell Web site and Greg's article in blog notes.
As always, for more teachings on your path to becoming an IT Ninja, visit trdojo.techrepublic.com, or you can follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/billdetwiler.
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