New Version of ExplorerPatcher

Dch48 · Apr 11, 2022

I'm gonna try that Rectify 11 thing on my old laptop. It might turn out to be more like Rectumfy but we'll see.

Edwin · Apr 11, 2022

Dch48 said:
gonna try that Rectify 11

Kind of a mess!
Not sure which is worse, MS's or this one!

Wynona · Apr 12, 2022

I watched a Microsoft video today Ask Microsoft Anything.

Someone asked about future plans regarding the taskbar, and from what they said, it seems that those who have touch screens will have priority over positioning of the taskbar . . .

With touch screen, you seemingly have the ability to swipe from left or right; thus, performing some action. If the taskbar is allowed on the left or right side of the screen, seems as how it will interfere with right and left swiping.

Grrrrrrrrrrrr! Microsoft is now making choices for me! It used to be that we had choices, but probably not any more. I have desktop machines; why on earth would I want to have a touch screen I can't even touch because it's too far away from me!

I could go on, but I think I'll shut up now before I start a riot.

CornishRattler · Apr 12, 2022

Wynona said:
Grrrrrrrrrrrr! Microsoft is now making choices for me! It used to be that we had choices, but probably not any more. I have desktop machines; why on earth would I want to have a touch screen I can't even touch because it's too far away from me!

I could go on, but I think I'll shut up now before I start a riot.

Not really, the ultimate choice is yours and yours alone

Stigg · Apr 12, 2022

All of you people who wanted all the functionality of Windows 10, should have stayed with Windows 10.
In my opinion, Windows 11 takes away more than it offers. I personally cannot see any reason to downgrade a perfectly good Windows 10 to Windows 11. It's no good waiting around in the hope that Microsoft will restore functionality in the future. Life is too short for that.

I predict in years to come that Windows 11 will be rated lowly in the list of Windows operating systems along with Windows ME, Windows Vista, Windows 8 and 8.1.

hdmi · Apr 12, 2022

alexkua said:
When switching to "Taskbar Icon size: small" in Windows10-style, is there a way to still have date in the clock display?

Yeah, just hover your mouse over the clock. lol

cbiweb said:
I have my taskbar height expanded because I have two levels of icons for Quick Launch and various toolbars. The expanded height allows the date to show. Auto-hide is useful in that case because you retain screen space.

Expanding the taskbar height IMO kind of defeats the purpose of setting the taskbar icons size to small. Auto-hide is not an option for me because the taskbar contains all sorts of useful status information the usefulness of which is lost each time when it gets hidden so, instead, I vastly prefer to use a little bit of easy script code that modifies what gets shown on my toolbar, either automatically on-the-fly or manually, depending on the various characteristics of my current workflow.

hdmi · Apr 12, 2022

Stigg said:
All of you people who wanted all the functionality of Windows 10, should have stayed with Windows 10.

Nope. I switched from Windows 10 to 11 for the improved performance only.

Stigg said:
In my opinion, Windows 11 takes away more than it offers. I personally cannot see any reason to downgrade a perfectly good Windows 10 to Windows 11. It's no good waiting around in the hope that Microsoft will restore functionality in the future. Life is too short for that.

I don't need to wait for Microsoft to do that. That's just because I use ExplorerPatcher, Open-Shell, Battery Mode, TranslucentTB app, 7+ Taskbar Tweaker. If Microsoft decides to break them, I can always go back to Windows 10 and buy a faster computer in order to compensate for lost performance after I get tired of Microsoft slowness. Windows 10 will be supported until October 14th, 2025. If Microsoft still hasn't fixed Windows 11 issues by then, then someone else will have. Or if it still turns out that no one has, I will have concocted my own set of workarounds probably.

Stigg said:
I predict in years to come that Windows 11 will be rated lowly in the list of Windows operating systems along with Windows ME, Windows Vista, Windows 8 and 8.1.

I have been dealing with Microsoft shenanigans for nearly 38 years by now. I switched from Windows 7 x64 Ultimate to Windows 8 Home during the first week after Windows 8 was officially released, so I think I know a thing or two (or three or four or five) about Microsoft shenanigans─and about Classic Shell, and about how it too relates to pearls before swine. lol

Edwin · Apr 12, 2022

The-Hive · Apr 12, 2022

I am a vet at this I go back to Windows 3.1, may even have been 3 and been involved in technology since the days of Commodores and spectrums... When 16kb was a lot of memory :ROFLMAO:

Dch48 · Apr 12, 2022

Dch48 said:
I'm gonna try that Rectify 11 thing on my old laptop. It might turn out to be more like Rectumfy but we'll see.

Rectumfy it is. It won't even install. It throws up errors about missing system files. It's not even the same file every time. It goes as far as the 11 logo and that's it. I never even see the setup screen. I'm thinking that it will not install on a computer that does not meet Win 11 requirements. The laptop I tried isn't even close. No TPM or secure boot and no UEFI. I tried Rufus with the options to bypass compatibility and it still doesn't work. I'm not putting it on my one compliant system. That's a hard pass.

cbiweb · Apr 12, 2022

Stigg said:
All of you people who wanted all the functionality of Windows 10, should have stayed with Windows 10.

I had little choice but to go with Win11. I don't want it, and never wanted it, but when my Win10 laptop died I had to buy a new one. The new one was advertised as coming with Win10 but was delivered with 11 on it. To put 10 on it would take more time than I have, since I needed to get up and running ASAP. So I'm stuck with 11. It's not always a choice we *want* to make.

Dch48 · Apr 12, 2022

The-Hive said:
I am a vet at this I go back to Windows 3.1, may even have been 3 and been involved in technology since the days of Commodores and spectrums... When 16kb was a lot of memory

I had, and loved, a Coleco ADAM computer. They got a bad name because of stupid design of the power supply but were ahead of the times in many ways. They had a true plug and play interface for the peripherals. They came with a daisy wheel printer that was balky and broke down a lot. The worst part was that the printer had to work to boot up the system because it contained the power supply. I had a standalone power supply for mine that was pulled from a broken printer and put in it's own case. I did a lot of programming in BASIC and even some assembly and machine language routines. It was a lot easier on an 8-bit platform. Some of my creations are archived on sites dedicated to the ADAM.

I also had an old 8080 PC running DOS and a Radio Shack TRS-80 with 4kb of RAM.

catweazel · Apr 13, 2022

Hallo.
the new version 22000.556.43.4 works very well after update to Win11 22000.613, pinning to the start menu via the EP now also works for me.
Good job. Commendable

The-Hive · Apr 13, 2022

Does this ok to you guys? there is a big gap between the top and the first row of icons

AndreTen · Apr 13, 2022

not here.. Pro and Dev versions display this right

The-Hive · Apr 13, 2022

AndreTen said:
not here.. Pro and Dev versions display this right

Thanks, It is probably a setting I missed, I will look again or it is to do with OpenShell as that is the win 11 menu by clicking with shift held down

valinet · Apr 13, 2022

No, nothing's misused - the icons are centered vertically. When you have got few icons, it looks like that - when you had the Recommended section on, it made it not noticeable.

Regarding the Windows 11 Start menu being kind of broken on the latest CU, I will fix it when I will have time to look into it. Thanks.

EDIT: Actually, as usual, there's nothing to fix (on my side) when speaking about symbols. Again, Microsoft took a while to upload the public symbols for `StartDocked.dll`. The problem automagically solved itself now that they have uploaded them some time between now and the time I made the original post.

Steerpike · Apr 13, 2022

I've installed EP, and set 'start menu style' to windows 10. I then added a bunch of my favorite apps to the menu, and it works great! But one thing I did in 'real' windows 10 doesn't seem to work in this situation; I like to add 'control panel' as a tile in the windows start menu. In windows 10, I simply press the windows key, type 'control'; Control Panel app appears, and I can right-click it and choose 'pin to start'. When I carry out this process in the new win 11 with EP, I can still right click 'control panel' and choose 'pin to start', but it does not appear as a pinned app. Is there any way to get Control Panel to show as an app in this 'win 11 + win 10 settings' mode?

I've also set taskbar to win 10 mode. When I click the speaker icon in tray, I get the volume control as I did in win 10. and when I click the 'network' icon, I get the list of available access points, as I did in win 10. But when I click the battery icon, I get a momentary 'hourglass' cursor, then nothing. In win 10, I get a pop-up that lets me adjust a slider between 'best battery life' and 'best performance'. No big deal if it's not available, just wondering.

valinet · Apr 14, 2022

Steerpike said:
I've installed EP, and set 'start menu style' to windows 10. I then added a bunch of my favorite apps to the menu, and it works great! But one thing I did in 'real' windows 10 doesn't seem to work in this situation; I like to add 'control panel' as a tile in the windows start menu. In windows 10, I simply press the windows key, type 'control'; Control Panel app appears, and I can right-click it and choose 'pin to start'. When I carry out this process in the new win 11 with EP, I can still right click 'control panel' and choose 'pin to start', but it does not appear as a pinned app. Is there any way to get Control Panel to show as an app in this 'win 11 + win 10 settings' mode?

I've also set taskbar to win 10 mode. When I click the speaker icon in tray, I get the volume control as I did in win 10. and when I click the 'network' icon, I get the list of available access points, as I did in win 10. But when I click the battery icon, I get a momentary 'hourglass' cursor, then nothing. In win 10, I get a pop-up that lets me adjust a slider between 'best battery life' and 'best performance'. No big deal if it's not available, just wondering.

It's been expalined a couple of posts ago that the backend for the Start menu tiles has changed, being different for the Windows 11 and Windows 10 Start menu. To have a program work with an old version of the tiles library, easiest is to have the respective program load an older version of that library. Unfortunately, this has some side effects, borking some new features, so I decided to keep this off for usual File Explorer windows. Instead, log on, make sure not to open any Control Panel windows (aka not have an `explorer.exe` instance with command line containing `/factory...` in Task Manager, then go to ExplorerPatcher Properties - Start menu - Pin tiles to the Windows 10 Start menu from File Explorer. A File Explorer window will open. Use that window to locate whatever you would like to pin. When you identify said object, right click, Pin to Start as usual; if it doesn't work from the first try, give it a few retries, keep opening Start in between and eventually it will work. I used this just fine to pin Control Panel items just fine, among programs not found in Start etc.

Dch48 · Apr 14, 2022

Just got 22000.613.44.1 and it's working fine. The only part I'm using though is the option to remove the recommended section from the Win 11 Start Menu. Everything else in 11, I'm fine with and remains at defaults