Classic Shell: Forum

After updating to 4.2.1 under Windows 8.1 I have the fiollowing problem:



Part of the Quick Launch bar is not visible and I cannot move it.

Under 4.1 all was OK.

Another problem is that clicking somewhere left of the Start button the start screen occasionally appears even though it is totally disabled.

Even if I somehow reach the handle of the Quick Launch bar, I still cannot move it!

And it changes the position periodically, seemingly, randomly. Sometimes it becomes far from the start button but in that case I cannot move it closer either.

Are you using a modified visual style or some program that does in-memory patching on Windows 8.1 to bring back the classic theme?

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I am a Windows enthusiast and did Classic Shell's testing and usability/UX feedback.

I disavbled the theming

So returning to 4.1.0, the 4.2.1 is totally not usable. It seems the fixes for Windows 10 intervened with Win8 usage.

I have just noticed that the Quick Launch periodically "jumps" further away from the start menu by a fixed length. But still I cannot move it.

Now I have this:



And about each 10 seconds it jumps further to the right.

I also use 7+ Taskbar Tweaker along with Classic Shell. No problems with it experienced before.

After exitting 7+ Taskbar Tweaker the problem persists, I cannot move the Quick Launch bar.

I don't understand how you got the classic look for your taskbar if you've disabled third party themes. This seems to be a problem with the third party theme

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I am a Windows enthusiast and did Classic Shell's testing and usability/UX feedback.

The same problem with the default theme:

I have rolled back to 4.1 until this is fixed.

Unfortunately, I cannot repro this on my Windows 8.1 with Classic Shell 4.2.1 and Quick Launch enabled, 7+TT also running.

If you right click the Taskbar -> Properties -> Toolbars tab, which toolbars do you have running?

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I am a Windows enthusiast and did Classic Shell's testing and usability/UX feedback.

Only Quick Launch.

The picture as I see it is as follows:

Classic Shell 4.2.1 only:

- The Quick Launch buttons became very close to the Start Button, there is not a single pixel between Start button and the first Quick Launch button (when the taskbar is locked), in 4.1 there were 2 pixels as in Windows usually.

- Clicking the pixel left of the Start button brings the Start Screen

Classic Shell 4.2.1 and 7+ Taskbar Tweaker:

- Using option "Hide start button" of 7+ Taskbar Tweaker makes the Quick Launch to overlap with Star Button. I usually enabled this function because the Windows start button often appears instead of Classic Shell and conflicts with it. Under 4.1 enabling this option did not lead to the overlap.

Classic Shell 4.2.1 and W8Classic:

- This leads the Quick Launch to move right by about 2 cm each 10 seconds if used the W8Classic version that periodically refresheds the taskbar. Under 4.1 there was no such problem. If to use the older version of W8Classic there is also no such problem. I reverted the both now.

Classic Shell 4.2.1 and 7+ Taskbar Tweaker and W8Clasic (latest):

- The Quick Launch appears overlapped with Start button and each 10 seconds moves right

- Clicking left of the Start Button (the edge of the screen) brings unexpectedly the Start Screen.

Well, looks like you have 3 separate programs that all try to mess with the layout of the taskbar. That's not at all supported. They can't all get their way. You have to disable the taskbar features for two of them. For Classic Shell this means to disable the custom start button and use the default Windows button. Then it won't try to move things around.

Is there Classic button in Windows 8 at all? There is not!

In Classic Shell 4.1 all works well.

At least with Classic Shell being the only used program, there is the following glitch with 4.2.1:

- The Quick Launch buttons became very close to the Start Button, there is not a single pixel between Start button and the first Quick Launch button (when the taskbar is locked), in 4.1 there were 2 pixels as in Windows usually.

Classic Shell 4.1:



All is perfect.

Classic Shell 4.2.1:



No space between the first Quick Launch button and the Start Button.

Also I have noticed that it conflicts with a third program, Taskbar Fixer. Thus it conflicts with 3 utilities I use plus displays things wrong even without any third-party applications.

The 4.1 version did not conflict with anything and displayed things perfectly.

It remains an unsupported scenario because multiple programs are trying to manipulate position of UI elements on the taskbar. With the default Windows 8 theme, there are a few pixels between the Classic button and the Quick Launch.

The Classic theme is not officially supported on Windows 8. The app which tries to bring it back like the one you mentioned says on its page here: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=113024 "This program replaces the default shell with itself". This is not a supported scenario. It was a lucky coincidence that Classic Shell 4.1 worked with this configuration.

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I am a Windows enthusiast and did Classic Shell's testing and usability/UX feedback.

There are several programs that disable theming on Win8. The most easy way is disabling DWM

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=383450

With this method Classic Shell misses the pixel also.

If Classic Theme is not supported, why there is an option fot the Classic menu cover and button in the first place?
Is Classic Shell not for classic desktop?

Why it is not possible to restore the things as they were at 4.1? If the change was to fix Win10 compatibility, it can be implemented conditionally.

Something really wrong with CS 4.2.1. It conflicts with Everything. And I am not sure its placement is correct with the default theme either (the misplacement is just less visible).

An example of mis-behavior of the 4.2.1 version.

Here is an AutoHotKey script. It moves (adjusts) the taskbar elements vertically.
Under 4.1 it works as it should. Under 4.2.1 each time it runs, the Quick Launsh also shifted horizontally by about 2 cm.
There is nothing such thing in the script. So it turns out that Classic Shell moves the Quick Launch every time
somebody moves the elements on the taskbar. And moves it not to a fixed position, but adds about 2 cm each time
regardless of where it is currently.

Do you see similar issues if you stick with the default Windows 8.1 button?

The default button, when not using any other utilities, eats 1 pixel from the first Quick Launch button, making its left edge invisible:



I experience no Quick Launch jumps with the default button, even when the above script is enabled.

And is that also happening without Classic Shell? If so, then the fault of eating pixels is not related to Classic Shell, but to the classic theme hack.

It is related to Windows 8. The default Win8 button is not intended for use with the Classic theme.

The Classic button of Classic Shell is intended on the other hand. Why not to make the Classic button 2 pixels smaller or shift the Quick Launch by 2 pixels to the right?

I think the issue will be there under Win7 as well, although I cannot test it.

Also I wonder why the 4.2.1 version is not compatible with the above script. If it moves the Quick Launch, why it alwatys adds the x-coordinate rather than to put it in a definite position?

By the way, a workaround for the too close position of Quick Launch and the start button is to create an empty launch bar in between. Still I hope this problem to be fixed somehow in the future versions. Currently sticking with 4.1 anyway at least as long as I am on Win8 because of incompatibility with the AHK script I use.

On Windows 7 with the official Classic theme there is no issue with Classic Shell 4.2.1 and the Classic button:

Disabling DWM on Windows 8 is also another unsupported OS modification.

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Links to some general topics:

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I am a Windows enthusiast and did Classic Shell's testing and usability/UX feedback.

Actually, the program can be used without the replacement of the shell now. I'm also using the classic theme on Windows 8.1, so I can confirm that the quick launch spacing issue does happen. It's not a huge deal to me, but I would like to see a fix (I don't mind if that fix doesn't come from Classic Shell). I don't really feel like using an empty toolbar though.

I also got the taskbar jumping issue, but I got it to stop by disabling Anixx's AutoHotKey script. So they're just not compatible at the moment. This is something I will also live with for now.

Classic theme on any operating system, Win8 or Win10 can now be enabled using only Microsoft-provided tools.

Using the handle utility from Sysinternals use the following command to enable the Classic theme for all newly started applications:




So this problem is not limited to the W8Classic utility.