Classic Shell Returns For Windows 11 (with and/or without) ExplorerPatcher installed

spapakons · Oct 5, 2022

You can also restore Windows Vista/7 gadgets with 8gadgetpack, play classic Windows games with Winaero classic games, use the old Windows 8 and earlier calculator with Winaero old calculator, tweak the system fonts and many other settings with Winaero Tweaker, calculate the Windows Experience Index with Winaero WEI and even install Windows Media Center with a modified Windows 7 WMC installer. See relevant threads for details.

To play good old MS DOS games use DosBox. To play 16-bit Windows games install Windows 3.1 or Windows 95 in DosBox.

hdmi · Oct 5, 2022

spapakons said:
While Classic Shell works fine in Windows 10 and 11, I use Open Shell to get the latest. I have no problem using the default Windows 10 or 11 start menu, but I hate when I have to scroll through tens of applications to find the one I want to launch. I find the Windows 7 menu better organized and easier to use, so I also install Open Shell and set it to Windows 7 style for my friends. I also prefer the colorful Windows Vista/7 start button over the plain white default of newer Windows versions, so I replace that also. I use custom system icons almost everywhere, including the battery, network and sound icons. If these are grouped together (as is default in Windows 11) any custom icons are ignored and I see the original Windows 11 icons instead. So I have also installed Explorer Patcher to ungroup them and to restore the list of tools including Task Manager when you right-click on the taskbar. Having both Open Shell and Explorer Patcher installed, I didn't notice any issue. Latest Explorer Patcher fixes the bug of the network icon that would not work in the previous version. The latest version shows labels (such as Flight mode) instead of the respective icons, but this is a known issue and will be fixed.

For anyone interested, to replace the system icons, I use Customizer God. To get the Windows 7 start button and start menu I use Open Shell. This also gives the useful cut/copy/paste buttons in Explorer. To ungroup the battery network and sound icons and restore the right-click menu with Task Manager I use Explorer Patcher. To also replace the Windows 11 icons in classic System Properties and in Windows Version, I use Resource Hacker. To see the classic System Properties window you must create a new folder and then rename it with a specific code as the name, I don't have the code handy.

Yeah, Open Shell v4.4.170 with the Windows 7 style Start Menu is the way to go, along with ExplorerPatcher.

To get the classic System Properties window you can create a new shortcut and paste C:\Windows\explorer.exe shell:::{BB06C0E4-D293-4f75-8A90-CB05B6477EEE} in the target field. (The one that opens the Classic Start Menu settings window is "C:\Program Files\Open-Shell\StartMenu.exe" -settings and the icon for this shortcut is inside the file C:\Program Files\Open-Shell\StartMenu.exe .)

As for the battery flyout, the best one is a free program called Battery Mode. Now all you need to add is TranslucentTB app (also free) from the Microsoft Store. (Should you decide to permanently hide the TranslucentTB icon from your systray, the settings file is C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Local\Packages\28017CharlesMilette.TranslucentTB_v826wp6bftszj\RoamingState\settings.json and if you change the line near the bottom from "hide_tray": true, to "hide_tray": false, with notepad the icon will be back immediately the moment when you save the file.)

Not pointing at you, but some folks on here just want to argue that a wrench works nine times better after the handle has been substituted with a bar of chocolate! lol

spapakons · Oct 5, 2022

A warning though, the shortcut works only in Windows 10, not in Windows 11. To see the classic System Properties in Windows 11 you must create a new folder (yes, folder, not shortcut) and rename it to contain the code as the folder name. I am not sure if this is the correct code, I don't have access to my computer right now to confirm it. Once you create the folder and you confirm it works, you can then right-click on it, select Properties and you should see a blank text box on top. You can put whatever you want in the box, such as Classic System Properties, and this will become the new description of the folder. This will be what you see below the icon. You can also copy the folder to a USB flash drive and use it to another computer. Just double click on the folder to open classic System Properties.

The classic System Properties shows the Windows 10 logo by mistake (don't know if they fixed it in 22H2) and the OEM logo, if any. To change the OEM data including the OEM logo use Winaero Tweaker. To change the Windows logo use Resource Hacker to replace the respective images inside the file C:\Windows\branding\shell???.dll (I don't remember the exact name). The file is protected and since 22H2 the Security tab is hidden and you cannot take ownership to modify it. So you must copy it to another folder, modify it and then reboot in Command Prompt to replace it. On next normal boot you will see the new logo in classic System Properties.

The file C:\Windows\branding\base???.dll (I don't remember the exact name) contains the Windows 11 logo for the About Windows (winver command). So you can modify the respective images with Resource Hacker to change this logo. See my relevant thread for details and screenshots.

hdmi · Oct 5, 2022

spapakons said:
A warning though, the shortcut works only in Windows 10, not in Windows 11.

The shortcut works just fine for me on Windows 11.

spapakons · Oct 6, 2022

Probably different code, cannot confirm right now. For me the shortcut worked fine in Windows 10, but not in Windows 11. The folder works in both Windows 10 and 11. Is there any way to invoke the shortcut or folder automatically, rather than click on them? Winaero or anyone else, please do something. Thanks.

hdmi · Oct 6, 2022

spapakons said:
Probably different code, cannot confirm right now. For me the shortcut worked fine in Windows 10, but not in Windows 11. The folder works in both Windows 10 and 11. Is there any way to invoke the shortcut or folder automatically, rather than click on them? Winaero or anyone else, please do something. Thanks.

I'm on Windows 11 Home 22H2 latest build, 22621.525, and have upgraded to it only yesterday (that is, upgraded to it from 21H2 build 22000.1042).

pietcorus2 · Oct 6, 2022

hdmi said:
I'm on Windows 11 Home 22H2 latest build, 22621.525, and have upgraded to it only yesterday (that is, upgraded to it from 21H2 build 22000.1042).

May I ask you if you met id=1108 in your eventviewer ?
Im searching for a solution to avoid this id=1108 , more info will be helpfull.............

spapakons · Oct 6, 2022

hdmi said:
I'm on Windows 11 Home 22H2 latest build, 22621.525, and have upgraded to it only yesterday (that is, upgraded to it from 21H2 build 22000.1042).

If you run Windows Update and install them all you will go to build 22621.608

hdmi · Oct 6, 2022

pietcorus2 said:
May I ask you if you met id=1108 in your eventviewer ?
Im searching for a solution to avoid this id=1108 , more info will be helpfull.............

Yes, these events with ID 1108 (The event logging service encountered an error while processing an incoming event published from Microsoft-Windows-Security-Auditing) show that the event [that the event logging service couldn't process] was an event with ID 4688 (A new process has been created) with an error code 15003 (The template for an event definition cannot be found in the resource).

These events with ID 1108 don't seem to have occurred anymore for me, since yesterday (late afternoon).

spapakons said:
If you run Windows Update and install them all you will go to build 22621.608

It didn't offer that update for me yesterday after the 22H2 upgrade, but now it does. Anyway, thanks for reminding me to check.

pietcorus2 · Oct 6, 2022

" These events with ID 1108 don't seem to have occurred anymore for me, since yesterday (late afternoon). "..............WOW !! Did you changed something before this id=1108 disappeared ?
Maybe will find the solution finally.........!

spapakons · Oct 6, 2022

pietcorus2 said:
" These events with ID 1108 don't seem to have occurred anymore for me, since yesterday (late afternoon). "..............WOW !! Did you changed something before this id=1108 disappeared ?
Maybe will find the solution finally.........!

Have you installed all the available updates before proceeding with the 22H2 Setup? Have you disconnected from the internet? Try these and see if that solves your issue.

pietcorus2 · Oct 6, 2022

spapakons said:
Have you installed all the available updates before proceeding with the 22H2 Setup? Have you disconnected from the internet? Try these and see if that solves your issue.

Yes , did all you just adviced !
Im using a task for cleaning the eventlog , 2 minutes after reboot .
Using it untill a working solution appears !
Almost sure its a MS-bug , its been reported by many forum-members already.............

spapakons · Oct 6, 2022

If you had a successful upgrade to 22H2, who cares about the log?

pietcorus2 · Oct 6, 2022

spapakons said:
If you had a successful upgrade to 22H2, who cares about the log?

Yep, all is working just fine !
Im a perfectionist , always clean eventlogs in previous 11 .............I want it to stay that way !

hdmi · Oct 7, 2022

pietcorus2 said:
" These events with ID 1108 don't seem to have occurred anymore for me, since yesterday (late afternoon). "..............WOW !! Did you changed something before this id=1108 disappeared ?
Maybe will find the solution finally.........!

Within less than 24 hours after the problem had gone away, it somehow returned again last Thursday early afternoon and seems to have occurred several times until late evening that day it went away again. I also noticed that these events seem to always come in pairs, the other event with ID 1108 shows an event ID 0 (instead of 4688) with an error code 15005 (instead of 15003). Each time when this happens, there's 10 of these same pairs, they all have the same timestamp so this is what distinguishes them from the next 10 pairs. Also, during that same afternoon, I installed the Cumulative update (KB5017389), but that was late afternoon so, these events have occurred both before and after this update was installed. The problem has returned yet again, for the 2nd time. This happend just few moments ago, just a single time, right after I rebooted. Then suddenly, it dawned on me that all of these timestamps match the times when Windows was starting─each time right after I rebooted.

Try3 · Oct 8, 2022

n9nu said:
CLASSIC-SHELL IS BACK FOR WINDOWS 11
...
The Open-Shell start menu

spapakons said:
While Classic Shell works fine in Windows 10 and 11, I use Open Shell

spapakons,

The OP & various comments posted by others made me think that ClassicShell & OpenShell were two names for the same thing.
But you refer to them as though they were different.
Please would you explain.

I'm still happily using my Taskbar*** Toolbars as my menu system [as I have been for over a decade] but am trying to keep abreast of discussions about alternatives in case my current solution ever becomes impossible.
*** Windows 11 Taskbar altered using the UndockingDisabled method

All the best,
Denis

spapakons · Oct 8, 2022

The Author of Classic Shell has stopped development. Third parties continued his work but changed the name to Open Shell to denote that the source code is now open and anyone willing can contribute. Yes, they are the same thing, but using the latest version of Open Shell means you have all bug fixes and any new features. The Windows 7 skin and start button I had back in Classic Shell also work in Open Shell, so I can have the good old colorful orb instead of the white Windows button. Also Classic Shell and old versions of Open Shell didn't work properly in Windows 10 (don't know for 11), as the search button was overwritten and could not be used. Newer versions have fixed it.

Tip: If you don't replace the start button, Open Shell doesn't show the custom start menu in Windows 11, it shows the default Windows 11 start menu. I have not checked if this has been fixed in latest version. If you replace the start button and have it aligned at the left of the taskbar, it doesn't center over the original start button and you can see a little of the original at the right edge, not very desirable. To remedy this you must increase the size of the start button. Set a custom size of 60 for 100% scaling or 70 for 150% scaling, depending on your screen resolution.

Try3 · Oct 8, 2022

Thanks for explaining that,
Denis

blued · Oct 8, 2022

Prefer the Win 11 start menu as is vs any of the current modifying options out there. The most perfect menu I've used so far is the Win 10 one. Far more polished than the others and has one important feature that 11 does not have which is its expandibility. You can drag its corners out to accommodate a larger set of icons, unlike 11 where you have to scroll to see hidden icons underneath. If anyone knows of a program that can return the 10 menu exactly as the original (without glitches or differences), pls let me know.

pietcorus2 · Oct 8, 2022

" right after I rebooted. ".................yes, here also , they come in pairs , just as you described .
I have 20 times id=1108 , after every reboot !
Its discusting , coz no solution still , nowhere...............