Are you a Windows 1 in 10 (1809)? Or a mighty 80 percenter (1803)? (Windows10 Update roll-out)

The Register ^ | Jan 30, 2019 | Richard Speed

[dayglored]

> Here’s one for you... What make of vehicle was I describing? If you have ever owned one you would relate with no problem. lol

The car I learned to drive on was a '65 VW bug. Some years later I had a little Fiat. I know what you're talking about.

[Openurmind]

Ours is a 67. :)

[dayglored]

I should preface by saying that Windows, from 3.11 through 7, was my primary professional working environment. I enjoyed 95, loved 98. Hated ME but so did everyone else. Loved Win2K and XP, hated Vista (but so did everyone else), and was head-over-heels about Win7. Best OS ever for Windows-centric activities, and not half-bad for Linux stuff if you get X11 going on it.

Win8 was a disaster, everyone admits that now. Win8.1 was still a poke in the eye with a stick but at least it wasn't as sharp as Win8's. Win10 -- could have been great, but was hobbled by the fact that Metro and its stupid graphical elements suitable only for mobiles were glued in place and weren't coming loose. And even that couldn't save Windows Mobile.

Okay, caution, neo-Luddite rant alert.

> Classic Shell was abandoned second half of last year. It does not work properly with 1809 and causes all manner of strange problems.

Yeah, I remember reading credible reports that Microsoft had gone out of their way to break Classic Shell (presumably because BY GOD MICROSOFT WANTS USERS USING WINDOWS 10 THE WAY THEY MADE IT). The original developer gave up because keeping up with the stuff Microsoft was breaking under the hood was too much work.

Mind you, Microsoft has every right to break stuff under the hood with impunity. I don't begrudge them that right.

But why couldn't they give users an obvious, simple way to configure the UI: "Make this UI look, feel, and work like the Win7 UI instead of the Win8 UI"? It's just a d@mn UI, it's not the operating system. But NO-O-O-O.... the Marketing focus groups that came up with Metro would not allow themselves to be second-guessed.

At least, that's the story.

> First and foremost, DONT USE SHELL CHANGERS.

And pray tell, why not? Back in the day, Windows was the system you could tune to your own likes, and Macintosh was the system where you were forced to use Apple's idea of a good time. My how things have changed.

If you have some way to make Win10 look, feel, and act like Win7, spill the beans. You'll be a major hero. Not "right clicking on the start button gives a menu that’s better than anything Windows 7 offers" -- how about those of us who actually LIKE what Win7 offered and looked like?

Frankly I'd be using Win10 instead of Win7 for a lot more things, if it didn't feel like a poor, Metro-ized, crippled shadow of what was in Win7 a really nice, quick UI.

/rant

[dayglored]

I should thank you in all sincerity for this:

> Classic Shell ... does not work properly with 1809 and causes all manner of strange problems.

I'm a Sr. SysAdmin and half our users are engineers on Windows workstations (the rest have Linux or Mac). Over half of the Windows users are migrated to Win10 and more migrate every week.

Every one of the Win10 users installed Classic Shell some time ago because they prefer it. The 1809 upgrades are starting to roll in....

Thank you, you have answered a growing concern of ours. I owe you one.

[Still Thinking]

Are you a Windows 1 in 10 (1809)? Or a mighty 80 percenter (1803)?

I'm in the Win7-till-they-pry-it-FMCDH camp. What number is that?

[dayglored]

>> Are you a Windows 1 in 10 (1809)? Or a mighty 80 percenter (1803)?

> I'm in the Win7-till-they-pry-it-FMCDH camp. What number is that?

Well, the TOTAL number of Win10 users (all 100% of the above) is roughly equal to the number of Win7 users.

So I guess that makes you "100%" !!

(Like me, LOL)

[daniel1212]

The post about Classic Shell is incorrect. Classic Shell was abandoned second half of last year. It does not work properly with 1809 and causes all manner of strange problems.

That is not my experience, and though though I know of warnings to upgrade to OpenShell, and some having problems with 1809 (including other issues) that has not been my nor apparently most users experience. And another testifies :

This is a nice surprise. :) CSM version 4.3.1 still works ok, even with Windows 10 October 2018 update 1809, build 17763 This is from the standard public Win 10 update release: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/softwar ... /windows10 not from any of those beta insider versions.

First and foremost, DONT USE SHELL CHANGERS. Win 10 already looks and works like Windows 7 if you just take a few minutes to find the file explorer icon and look over the start button. Also right clicking on the start button gives a menu that’s better than anything Windows 7 offers. Almost every menu you need to manage the system can be had by right clicking on the start button. It’s great.

Thanks for your input, but I have had no issues with Classic Shell that I can recall since W/8, nor now under Classic Shell 4.3.1 with W/10 update 1809.

And no amount of minutes changes the Start menu and toolbars the way I like them, nor will right clicking on the start button provide me with almost every menu I like to quickly manage the system. As for simply "need," I could just use the run command more if not for my stiff arthritic finders (more like search and destroy vs. hunt and peck) Thus I use AutoHotKey to reduce much typing, including remapping CapsLock to ctrl+c (copy) and Esc to ctrl+v (paste) and NumLock to Esc. (I do not play games) and ScrollLock to a Sleep shortcut. Thank God for such tools./

That said, if you still must have Classic Shell, it was taken over by an open source development team and it’s called Open Shell now. You can get it directly from github but that page confuses a lot of people. The old school site MajorGeeks keeps it updated also: http://m.majorgeeks.com/files/details/classic_start.html

Thanks. I like majorgeeks.com (and FileHippo, SnapFiles.com). Windows would only be about half as good without safe 3rd party apps.

[Advil000]

Hey, I’m not saying your opinion is wrong, but I wasn’t lying about the right click. I’m faster working on systems in Win 10 than I ever was in Win 7.

The best thing MS did was get rid of Windows 8’s charm bar. That thing was truly a messed up piece of workflow.

But as for the differences... if you do a clean install of Win 10 without all the bloated crap from 3rd party vendors like HP or DELL loaded then everything is pretty clean and Win 7 like.

The start button, when you just take a deep breath and LOOK at it, provides everything in about the same configuration 7 did. The power button works the same, the settings button is the new primary control panel, the user icon is right there to log off and switch users. That’s essentially the same workflow as Win 7. The programs list has a different visual style but the alphabetized rolodex of installed programs isn’t functionally much different than the massive list of program folders that popped up in Win 7. This is all the same functionality in roughly the same place Win 7 puts it.

The file explorer is always right there in a yellow folder on the task bar. I have come to love that as I punch it all the time when I’m in another windowed full screen program and need to get into my files. If you want a “My Computer” icon on the desktop that works identically to old versions of windows you can drag a shortcut to the desktop from “This PC” in a couple of seconds.

I don’t need to access the regular control panel under normal circumstances anymore thanks to the right click on the start button.

I tell everyone essentially the same thing: Windows 10, if you just just use it like Windows 7, looks and works mostly like Windows 7. Much of the knee-jerk hatred for the UI is (rightfully) a remembered reaction to the Windows 8 interface which was a disaster.

No matter how long I used it that dang charm bar and full screen app list in Win 8 pissed me off. The day 10 launched it was instant comfort with the UI.

What we need is for MS to drop the whole app thing and remove it. Also they need to remove about 50% of the “features” no one wants. Beyond that though, it has been better than Win 7 overall in performance and function.

[Still Thinking]

I’ll go you one better. I actually turn Quick Launch toolbar back on in W7 (small icons), and ignore all that pin stuff to the toolbar business. Tres XP, yes?

[daniel1212]

Still prefer the most classic, esp. over W.10 (image):

I can quickly send any program to desktop as an icon or Pin it to task bar. That is more convoluted in W-10.

You can do that all with ClassicShell/OpenShell . Here is a composite shot. You can pin shortcuts, or point to SendTo>Desktop create shortcut.

I make a shortcut to the Send To folder, which is in (paste in Run command) %UserProfile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo, and place shortcut in the SendTo folder, and then you can send other shortcuts to it, including to the buried Start up folder (Main one is in %UserProfile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup), And by placing shortcuts to apps/programs in the Send to folder you can send files to them. Faster than the default Open With option.

You can also get the Quick Launch menu back. Right click on Task Bar & hit Toolbars and navigate to (or copy and paste) %UserProfile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch. Or create and navigate to your own Quick Launch. And make a shortcut to it and send it to the SendTo folder so you can send more items to it.

BTW, note that you can even paste links like http://www.freerepublic.com in your Ruin command. And amonfg other nifty things, if you want some info on your PC, Run msinfo32. Then there are other commands like control.exe /name Microsoft.DevicesAndPrinters

[daniel1212]

Hey, I’m not saying your opinion is wrong, but I wasn’t lying about the right click. I’m faster working on systems in Win 10 than I ever was in Win 7.

"Can your old PC run Windows 10? The answer will surprise you ... https://www.pcworld.com/article/2951112/hardware/can-your-old-pc-run-windows-10-the-answer-will-surprise-you.html.

But as for the differences... if you do a clean install of Win 10 without all the bloated crap from 3rd party vendors like HP or DELL loaded then everything is pretty clean and Win 7 like.

You might like Autoruns, ", which has the most comprehensive knowledge of auto-starting locations of any startup monitor, shows you what programs are configured to run during system bootup or login, and when you start various built-in Windows applications like Internet Explorer, Explorer and media players.

What we need is for MS to drop the whole app thing and remove it. Also they need to remove about 50% of the “features” no one wants. Beyond that though, it has been better than Win 7 overall in performance and function.

Yes, but about now we can expect a "switch to Linux" (630 flavors ) post.

[Advil000]

I’ve loaded Windows 10 on some insanely old systems and it works very well.

One interesting tidbit is that for the most part you can figure it out like this: If it will run Vista, it will probably run 10 ok.

You can take a 10 year old computer, put a $40 SSD in it, install Windows 10 and have a pretty decent extra system around the house.

[dayglored]

> I’m faster working on systems in Win 10 than I ever was in Win 7.

I'm sure that the Win10 UI works better for some folks than the Win7 one. You're in luck, given that Win7 is on the wane and Win10 is the wave of the future.

I realized just now that I've misrepresented something in my praise for Win7's UI. I actually don't like the default Win7 UI -- it's too much like Vista, similarly to how Win10's is too much like Win8's. The difference, for me, is that in 2 minutes I can make Win7's UI look, feel, and act just like Win2000's UI -- and that's actually the UI I want. Spare, fast, sensible, with high density of info.

(Something about Win10's UI that drives me crazy is that the information density is 10% that of Win2000's. Why did they do that? So it works on a mobile device being handled by a guy with fat fingers. Problem is, there aren't any such guys any more -- Windows Mobile is dead.)

There is no need whatsoever to change the basic UI look and feel, -IF- you have it right in the first place. Microsoft gets this wrong with every release; Apple folks got it right two decades ago:

• Line up the default UIs of MacOS/OS-X 10.1 through 10.14. They're nearly indistinguishable other than the wallpaper.
• Line up the default UIs of Win2000 through Win10. Everyone is radically different in ways that require relearning where things are and how they act.

For me, Win2000 got the UI right: Spare, fast, sensible, with high density of info. Frankly I like the Win2000 UI much better than anything Apple has done with the MacOS UI. But the farther down the road Windows goes, the farther it gets from what works for me. And now that I can't brain-damage the UI back to what works for me any more, I've lost enthusiasm. I don't want to spend brain cycles re-learning how to use the UI. I want the UI to let me use the computer to get work done, with a minimum of thought about the UI.

My fondest dream, a few years back, was that Microsoft would take the opportunity with Win10 to graft something like the Win2000 UI onto a release of Windows whose API looked and worked like Windows, but which underneath was a Unix-like foundation (kernel and whatnot). Not necessarily Linux -- actually BSD is a better pick -- but something that would provide greater stability and security than the mess that the NT kernel has become.

I'm out of luck on that account, sadly.

> [Win10]....has been better than Win 7 overall in performance and function.

When Win10 first emerged a few years ago it had substantially better performance than Win7. I was jazzed! I figured I could learn to live with the unpleasant UI as long as the underlying machine ran like a blue streak. But somehow, each Update has actually decreased the performance, at least as far as I can tell with the things I do.

Have you experienced anything like that? Maybe it's just me, or the particular things I do (which are system-admin-y stuff).

[zeestephen]

Thanks for trying to help.

I have used Windows and its contemporary Microsoft browser for 20 years, and, before Edge, I never had a serious complaint.

Not only that, the first iteration of Edge worked fine with Free Republic.

Bottom Line - I am unwilling to jump off the good ship Microsoft into the cold, deep waters of outside vendors.

Whenever I contact MSFT Support about these irritating glitches, they tell me they are aware of them, and the problem will be solved in a future update, which is actually true, but then they create brand new problems!

Thanks again, Daniel.

[daniel1212]

Bottom Line - I am unwilling to jump off the good ship Microsoft into the cold, deep waters of outside vendors.

If that is OK for what you do then you stay with it, but if you want more and or easier functionality then there are plenty of safe free programs that enable that. For me, the basically barebones Edge is way down the list among the multiple browsers I find useful.