Classic Shell: Forum

Classic Shell 4.2.6 beta was just released.

Here’s what’s new:

• Improved support for Windows 10 Redstone
• New feature for setting the taskbar color, texture, and text color
• Menu animations for the Windows 7 menu style
• New skinning features for pattern textures, emblem textures, and more complex skin settings
• New Metallic skin (Skin options of the Metallic skin allow you to change the menu color, background image, text color and text size via the GUI. More advanced features can be customized by editing the skin)
• Ability to execute some start menu commands from the command line
• Separate commands for Restart and Shutdown without installing updates
• Toolbar buttons for Windows Explorer to toggle the hidden files, system files, and file extensions.
• Toolbar button to create a zip archive
• Ability to change the font and size of the status bar in Explorer
• Many small fixes and improvements

Update:
A crash was discovered in version 4.2.6 that affects 32-bit Windows 10. There is a new beta version 4.2.7 that fixes the problem.

If you are affected by this, follow these instructions:
1) Press Ctrl+Alt+Del and select the Task Manager
2) Go to File -> Run new task
3) Enter this text: http://www.classicshell.net/downloads and press OK. This will open the Downloads page in your browser
4) Look near the bottom of the page for the Classic Shell Utility and click on it. Alternatively, you can enter the direct download link in the Task Manager: http://www.mediafire.com/download/3uker ... tility.exe
5) Run the downloaded utility and select the second option "Remove Classic Shell". Follow the instructions, and reboot when prompted

After the reboot the Classic Shell 4.2.6 will be removed from your system. Install version 4.2.7



Next release is Classic Shell 4.3.0.
Previous release was Classic Shell 4.2.5

Here is the detailed change log for Classic Shell 4.2.6:
(For screenshots of new features, see this blog post)

Major new features:
*********************
● Classic Start Menu supports fade, slide and random animations also in Windows 7 style
● New feature to select the text color for the taskbar on Windows 7, 8, 10
● New feature to set a texture for the Taskbar and Start Menu for Windows 7, 8, 10!
● Settings to set taskbar color and transparency for Windows 7, 8, 10
● Metro Settings in search results have a "Pin to Start Menu" right-click command
● New Explorer toolbar commands to toggle hidden files, system files, file extensions, open Folder Options and create a ZIP file
● New setting for the font of the Explorer status bar (Windows 8 and up)
● Many new skin features
o Skins can use PNG and JPEG resources
o Textures are supported in Start Menu skins, up to 4 with tiling pattern and a mask
o Skins support logos/emblems drawn on top of the menu background, up to 10 emblems, first 4 can have a mask
o Menu shadow can be disabled as a skin setting
o All Programs tree in Windows 7 style can be completely transparent and use the background from the main menu
o Fresh skin options which now support colors, bitmaps, and more
o New "Metallic" skin that showcases the new skin features

Minor new features and changes:
****************************
● Compatibility with Windows 10 Redstone 1
● New setting to set hover sound for the Start button
● If a menu item's Label field has a user-defined accelerator key using an amperstand (&) character, it will be executed when you press the key, ignoring other items that begin with that letter
● You can hide All Programs item in Windows 7 style menu from Settings UI (previously only as a Group Policy)
● Some Start Menu commands are now available from cmd line. e.g. ClassicStartMenu.exe -cmd restart. Other commands include confirm_logoff, advanced_boot, update_restart, update_shutdown, hybrid_shutdown
● New setting to select the last item in the shutdown menu instead of the first
● The Shutdown menu has separate items for shutdown/restart without installing updates
● The Invert Metro Icons setting now works without a restart of the menu
● Metro icons correctly update their color when the system color changes (Windows 10)
● The search thread runs at normal priority instead of "idle" so even if the CPU is busy at startup or doing long-running tasks like video encoding, the search will be fast
● Corrupted/damaged Metro Apps are hidden from the Apps menu

Bug fixes and minor changes:
*******************************
● Recent documents will not show redundant items with full path
● Fixed a bug where you can select two radio buttons in the skin settings

Known issues in this release:
*************************
∙ The installer was crashing on a 32-bit Windows 10 Insider build due to a wrong calling convention for a Windows function. Fixed in Classic Shell 4.2.7.

_________________
Links to some general topics:

● Compare Start Menus

● Read the Search box usage guide.

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