Classic Taskbar - Chan Software: Has anyone used this.. ?

Anyone here using this app from the Microsoft Store.. Classic Taskbar by Chan Software..

.. is it any good.. ? does it have the functionalities of the 10 taskbar.. ?

.. any thoughts are welcome..

If you simply want to have W11 Start Menu & Taskbar look and act like W10 (with many configurable options), just use Open Shell Menu for the start button / menu and Explorer Patcher for the Taskbar. Both are open source and free and work perfectly.

On my system I used the combination that @allan mentioned. But when in May this year there were big problems with a certain Windows 11 update, I switched over to StartAllBack (SAB). For which those problems at that moment were solved already. That does not mean that SAB is better than the combination of Explorer Patcher and Open Shell. Just a bit faster in Startup as my impression is. But SAB you'll have to pay (a small amount) for if you want to stay using it, EP and OS are free software. EP is now functioning without problems as well as SAB!

The problem with apps like "Classic Taskbar by Chan Software" is, that you'll have to pay to try it out. Most people would not do that, would like to test it first. Even if the prize is only US$ 0,99... Maybe there is some way to try it outside the MS Store, but I am not intending to search for that.

I am sure that when MS changes the system in such a way that the free Explorer Patcher will become unusable (I have read about plans to do so), the app "Classic Taskbar by Chan Software" will be unusable too, because they both rely on using the classic Windows 10 UI still built in in Windows 11.

.. thanks for the replies.. i am already using Stardock Start11 and though it does have its shortcomings, it works fine..

.. i thought i'd ask around since this one seemed a lot more closer to 10 in the screenshots..

EDIT: .. uninstalled Start11 and used Explorer Patcher now.. looks good.. will use that as long as MS doesn't remove the 10 code..

gladson1976 said:

... i am already using Stardock Start11 ...

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I used that before as well, even had bought a 5-fold licence in juli, but when they decided to 'upgrade' to a version 2 of that program in October 2023, for which I would have to pay again, I decided not to use it anymore. The only thing I used it for was just changing the taskbar.

If in future StartAllBack or ExplorerPatcher would be unusable in Windows 11 and Start11 would be the only app to get the taskbar on half height, I would consider again to use it.

gladson1976 said:

... used Explorer Patcher now.. looks good ...

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Good to hear!

Kees said:

But when in May this year there were big problems with a certain Windows 11 update, I switched over to StartAllBack (SAB). For which those problems at that moment were solved already.

Click to expand...

I never experienced any big problems with ExplorerPatcher. Most likely this was because back then I had already changed the Control Interface option to Windows 10 Ribbon in the File Explorer section of ExplorerPatcher's settings a very long time before this specific Windows update had been released by Microsoft. Even when it did cause the explorer.exe to crash on me a few times (also a very long time ago), this happened to me me only after a reboot that finalizes the install of a Windows Cumulative Update, and, each time when this happened I was able to remedy the problem almost completely effortlessly right away. That's because even after explorer.exe has crashed you can still press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to bring up Task Manager, then click on Run new task, and, in the text box that appears, either enter explorer to manually restart explorer or if that causes explorer to immediately crash again after that, then enter %programfiles%\explorerpatcher\ep_setup /uninstall to uninstall ExplorerPatcher. The "big" problem was just that most people don't know the Windows registry setting to disable explorer automatically restarting after it crashes so as a result, for those people (but not for me, lol) it kept on crashing/restarting in an endless loop then. It's this one:
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon" /v AutoRestartShell /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

hdmi said:

That's because even after explorer.exe has crashed you can still press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to bring up Task Manager, then click on Run new task, and, in the text box that appears, either enter explorer to manually restart explorer or if that causes explorer to immediately crash again after that, then enter %programfiles%\explorerpatcher\ep_setup /uninstall to uninstall ExplorerPatcher. The "big" problem was just that most people don't know the Windows registry setting to disable explorer automatically restarting after it crashes so as a result, for those people (but not for me, lol) it kept on crashing/restarting in an endless loop then. It's this one:
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon" /v AutoRestartShell /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

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I did read something about that when I had problems, but did not want to try the solutions.
As I am quite happy now with SAB (especially it's configurable startmenu), I will not change over again to EP + OpenShell anymore (unless SAB becomes unusable or the developer stops his support).

But I don't deny the combination of EP and OpenShell is a usefull option as well! OpenShell has a configurable startmenu as well, just looking a bit different. But the options are about equal.

Kees said:

But I don't deny the combination of EP and OpenShell is a usefull option as well! OpenShell has a configurable startmenu as well, just looking a bit different. But the options are about equal.

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I have no idea where you must have been looking when you arrived at the conclusion that the options are about equal. In SAB the vast majority of the options either are almost completely different (i.e., crippled, dumbed-down imitations) or are simply not there.

I have managed to imitate the startmenu layout, that (for years) I had in Open Shell in Windows 7 and 10, in StartAllBack and that to my full satisfaction. That's all I still would like to write about it. As far as I am concerned: Case closed.

If all you need is just a window panel that does (functionally) very little more than show a list of menu items that you can arrange and click on, then yes, that would certainly be a closed case. With a huge watermark on it that only goes away after you pay for that which has been entirely free for the past 14+ years so, that's all I still would like to write about it... To Whom It May Concern.