Review of the Classic Shell program. Classic Shell, what is this program and is it needed?

For most Windows users 10 that had difficulty transitioning from previous Windows 7 on a new operating system, it will be good news to learn about the application Classic Shell. What kind of program is this and what interesting features it can offer the user, which we will consider in the framework of this article.

About the program

The main goal of the Classic Shell program is to modify the Start Menu and with the ability to edit it to suit your needs, as well as introduce additional functions into Explorer. In general, it allows you to:

1. Customize your Start menu with several templates.
2. Modify start buttons for Windows 7, 8, 10.
3. Search files and documents.
4. Get quick access to frequently used programs.
5. Flexibly customize the Start menu to suit your needs.

The program also adds to Explorer additional features, such as: “status bar” and “toolbar”.

The utility is in English (with the possibility of updating to the Russian version), distributed free of charge. You can download it from the official website of the developer. Installation is straightforward.

Settings and features

After installation is complete, a window with styles will appear:

1. In the first tab, you can choose the style in which your Start menu will be designed. There are three options in total: classic, classic with two columns and Windows 7 style.
   
2. The second tab allows you to further configure hotkey commands.
   
   
3. On the third tab, you can select the skin you like to design the Start menu.
   
4. The fourth tab offers personal settings Start menu. Here you can set which elements and how will be displayed in the Start menu.
   
5. If you check the box next to “Show all Setting”, 10 more tabs will open, which allow you to flexibly customize the menu design and adjust the available functions.
   

Advice! If you are not comfortable with the English interface of the program, you can install the Russian language. To do this, open the “Language” tab, select “Ru” and click “Click here to install it”. Then close the panel and launch Setting for Classic Start Menu.

Now, here are some examples of quick customization of the Windows 10 Start menu:

1. Windows 7 Style → Classic Skin.
   
2. Classic Style → Metro.
   
3. Classic with two columns → Windows XP Luna.
   
4. Windows 7 Style → Metallic.
   

You can modify the Start button itself. Click the “Replace Start button” and select two proposed options, or attach your own. The program only works with .bmp and .png formats.

Removal

“Uninstall and change programs” will help you remove a program:

Conclusion

In general, the program will appeal to users who want to diversify the standard Start menu with something new, as well as those who yearn for the top ten for the standard start menu. Windows menu 7. In addition, the program allows you to fine-tune system applications and programs in the Start menu. And this is convenient if you often access the settings of the classic “Control Panel”, which has already been removed from the menu quick access(Win+X) in Windows 10 Insider Preview.

Classic Shell - free program to return the previous appearance of the classic Start menu in the operating systems Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista. The program changes the visual display of operating room elements Windows systems for more convenient use.

Many users experience inconvenience when using the Start menu due to the fact that Windows developer, Microsoft is constantly changing the settings, options, and appearance of the Start menu.

Therefore, many users want to return the classic Start menu for the Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8 operating systems. In the Windows 7 operating system, users change the appearance of the Start menu in the style operating system Windows XP.

The free Classic Shell program returns the classic look of the Start menu and allows you to make extensive settings for displaying styles, options and design of the start menu.

The Classic Shell program consists of three components:

• Classic Start Menu - bringing back the classic Start menu
• Classic Explorer - Adding a Toolbar to Windows Explorer
• Classic IE - customizing panels in the browser Internet Explorer

In this article we will look at the operation of the Classic Start Menu component, which allows you to create the old Start menu in the Windows operating system. Not all users need other program components.

The Classic Shell program works in Russian. You can download the Classic Shell program from the official website of the developer. On the downloads page, select the “Classic Shell x.x.x (Russian)” file to download to your computer.

classic shell download

Installing Classic Shell

Installation of the Classic Shell program occurs in Russian and does not cause any difficulties. Go through the Classic Shell installation wizard one by one.

In the window " Custom installation» You must select application components to install on your computer. By default, all components are selected for installation.

We want to bring back the classic Start menu, so we only need to keep the “Classic Start Menu” and “Classic Shell Update” components (for automatic updates).

The "Classic Explorer" and "Classic IE" components change the appearance of Explorer and Internet Explorer, respectively, and not all users need such changes. Therefore, disable the installation of these components.

Classic Shell for Windows 10

After left-clicking on the Start menu, you will see the classic Windows 7-style Start menu installed in the Windows 10 operating system. This is what the Start menu looks like with default settings.

The classic Start menu for Windows 8.1 or Windows 8 will look similar.

Setting up Classic Shell

After installing the application, the “Classic Start Menu Options” window will open. In this window, all program parameters are configured.

You can change Classic Shell settings at any time. To do this, right-click on the Start menu, and in context menu select "Settings".

In the “Start Menu Style” tab, you can select a classic style for the Start menu in the style of the Windows XP or Windows 7 operating systems.

With default settings, the standard Start button is displayed on the Desktop. Instead of the button image from the operating system, you can set the image from Classic Shell (two options) or add your own image if you have a similar image.

By default, the main settings in the program are made in the tabs: “Start Menu Style”, “Basic Settings”, Cover”, “Start Menu Customization”.

Check the box next to “Show all parameters” to configure other parameters in the Classic Shell program.

After this, they will become available additional settings in the tabs: “Menu View”, “Start Button”, “Taskbar”, “ Windows Settings 10", "Context menu", "Sounds", "Language", "Controls", "Main menu", "General behavior", "Search field".

Although the program is configured optimally by default, the user can independently change the application settings to suit his needs by experimenting with the settings. To do this, select the settings, see what happened after changing them. If it turns out that you went a little overboard with the settings changes, you can return the program settings to their defaults.

In the application settings you can hide unnecessary functions, change the display of items and icons, change the order of items, remove items from the Start menu.

To do this, select the element, select a command and display. After right-clicking on the desired element, select additional functions.

In the “Cover” tab you can select a cover for standard menu"Start". By default, Windows 10 uses the Metro skin. You can choose other covers: " Windows Aero", "Metallic", "Midnight" or "Windows 8", the minimalist "Classic Skin" option or the "No Cover" option.

Classic Shell parameter settings can be saved to an XML file in order to load settings from this file when new installation Classic Shell programs. To do this, use the “Archive parameters” button, select the right option: “Save to XML file” or “Load from XML file" To reset the program's settings to default, select "Reset all settings."

Removing Classic Shell

Classic Shell program is uninstalled in a standard way. If the program was not uninstalled correctly, or some problems arose during the uninstallation process, use special utility which can be downloaded from here.

Conclusions of the article

The free Classic Shell program installs an alternative (formerly classic) Start menu in the Windows operating system. After installing the program on the computer, the user can return the classic view of the Start menu in Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7, and make other changes appearance and start menu options.

Hello everyone Let's talk today about such a program as Classic Shell, I will tell you what it is needed for, in general I will show it so that you know what it is. After some quick browsing on the Internet, I realized that Classic Shell is a utility for returning the Start menu and also has some useful features.

I'll be honest that lately There are fewer and fewer worthy programs, I don’t know if you noticed this, but I did. Very often the programs are not useful at all, they improve something, clean something, speed it up, often it even smells like a money scam... Why? Well, because there are programs in which some of the functions will be available only after purchase paid version.. Given that there is free analogues, which are even better in functionality.. Well, but regarding Classic Shell, my intuition tells me that this is a normal program, well, I don’t know why, maybe because it’s popular

By the way, CCleaner immediately came to mind among the worthy programs, well, I think you already know what kind of program it is, and if you don’t know, be sure to read about it on the Internet! If you want to know my opinion, then I advise you to install it, there are a lot of useful functions There is. Damn, well, I still haven’t written what kind of program it is, CCleaner is a Windows cleaner, but only a sensible one and it has a bunch of additional options, in general I recommend

By the way, would you like to say a test shot that this CCleaner program is worthwhile? It's free, that's a sign of good software! Although I agree that not always...

So what did I do? I went to their website (this is classicshell.net) and there I clicked Download Now and downloaded the Classic Shell program. I started installing and look, already during installation we see that the following components will be installed:

In this case, the installation of any component can be canceled if desired. I also forgot to write that I’m installing on Windows 10, on Windows 7 the Start menu is already normal, but I think you can install Classic Shell on this Windows to take advantage of some of the features of this program.

Well, I didn’t disable anything there, that is, I installed it as it was. The program was installed, and then a window was opened where I was asked to choose what the Start menu would look like now:

At the bottom there is a checkbox Replace Start button, this is so that you can change the Start icon, as I see, you can even set your own. There are also tabs there, they also have interesting options, but alas, everything is in English. No, you can figure it out calmly, but in order to fully study the program, I probably needed to turn to Google translator...

By the way, I noticed the Show all settings checkbox, if you check it, more will appear more tabs with all sorts of options. It’s not bad, I’ll tell you this...

In general, I selected the last menu, that is, Windows 7 style, clicked OK, and this is what the menu now looks like:

In general, to be honest, I don’t really like it, well, somehow the menu is similar in shape to what is in Windows 7, but in terms of design, something is not very similar. And so, in principle, the menu is not for everyone, if you change the color, then maybe it will be better. As I understand it, the color is taken from the system color of the Start menu, so it can be changed in the settings. You can get into these settings like this: press Win + R, the Run window will appear, write the following command there:

rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL desk.cpl,Advanced,@Advanced

But to be honest, I don’t know about you, but I’m literally having trouble with color settings. For example, I chose a color, I want to change its intensity, but there is no result. But try it, maybe it’s like that for me..

If you choose another option, for example Classic style (the one that comes first), then the menu will be like this:

The topmost item, that is, the Start Menu (Windows), is to return to the standard menu.

But I tried to change the Start icon, here I chose Aero:

And this is the icon we got:

Well, yes, it’s cool, but not at all in Windows style..

When I returned to the regular Start menu, I noticed these three programs there:

Well, I think you understand that all these icons are all from Classic Shell and there is nothing dangerous here, it’s normal that there are three of them. The Classic Shell Update item launches a window regarding the update, here you can uncheck the box and the Classic Shell program will not update itself, here is this checkbox:

Classic IE Settings are Internet Explorer browser settings, this is what they look like:

Just for fun, I unchecked all the boxes and then launched Internet Explorer, this is the message I then saw:

It says that the Classic Explorer Bar add-on is ready for use and then there are two buttons Enable or Do not enable. That is, as we see, Classic Shell adds its own add-on, there is nothing bad here, this is just a note to you. In general, I clicked Enable, but I didn’t notice anything special, although I unchecked all five checkboxes. By the way, there is also a Show all settings checkbox here, when I checked it, many more settings appeared:

As I see, you can change some colors here, well, in general, if you are interested, you can take a look and experiment, so to speak. There is another tab Status Bar, there are only two settings, and there is also Language, where you can select the browser language..

Now let's return to the main window, that is, to the Classic Start Menu Settings:

So what else do I want to show you here? Look, I wrote that there is a Show all settings checkbox, well, if you click it, then all sorts of tabs will appear. Look at what other tabs will appear, you can roughly understand how many additional settings the program has:

In general, as you can see, there are quite a few settings here.. And in general, the Classic Shell program is impressive: it is free and at the same time contains many unique Windows settings. I won’t describe the settings, they are all in English, in which I am zero, but I will say that the settings here relate to the fine sharpening of the conductor, the shell, the Start menu and other settings in this spirit. For those who like to finish their Windows to perfection, then I recommend installing the Classic Shell program

In general, I think it’s already clear what kind of Classic Shell program this is, what it’s for, and most importantly, the degree of its usefulness. I think you understand.

But there is one more very important circumstance that I simply must mention, this is that Classic Shell also supports START MENU STYLES! That is, I didn’t know about it at first, that’s why I ended up with a Start menu, which I made sort of like Windows 7, but in reality it wasn’t very similar... And all because I didn’t match it to the style! The style can be selected on the Skin tab, here:

I selected Windows Aero, clicked OK, and now the menu looks like this:

As you can see, this is already much better than it was, and it really looks more like the menu that is in Windows 7.

If you check this box:

Then the menu will become even more similar to what is in Windows 7:

Well, in general, what can I say here in the end? Classic Shell is an excellent program, free, and the fact that it was made by foreign developers only means that it has fewer glitches. I don’t want to offend anyone, in Russia there are also decently super programmers (well, for example, Outpost Firewall, the domestic firewall was excellent), but as I noticed, foreign programmers are still better at creating bug-free programs. Or maybe I'm wrong, these are just my observations...

Classic Shell contains a lot of different settings, and it seems to me that everyone will find some options here that will help customize Windows for themselves and make it more convenient. You can make the Start menu the same as in Windows 7, but the style will not look particularly good against the background Windows style 10, but again, there are enough Start menu options in Classic Shell to choose the one that's right for you.

Now all I have to do is show you how to completely remove Classic Shell from your computer if you suddenly find it unnecessary. To do this, hold down Win + R and write the following command there:

Then on the list installed programs will be Classic Shell, right-click on it and select Delete there:

The following message will pop up, then click Yes (well, if you haven’t changed your mind about deleting of course):

Then there will be another window like this, click OK here too:

Then this security window popped up, this is normal, that is, this is how it should be, click here Yes:

That's it, then only for about two seconds the following window will appear:

That's all, you uninstalled the Classic Shell program, and the Start menu was restored, that is, it became standard, as before

Well, guys, that's all, sorry if something is wrong, but I hope that everything was clear to you here. Good luck and may everything in your life be wonderful

The Classic Shell utility is very popular among users of the Windows 8 and 10 operating system. It will help get rid of Microsoft's most controversial solution - the tiled interface in the Start section - and allow you to return its classic look. Users of "tens", "seven" and older versions of Windows will appreciate additional features start menu, which open after installing this program - personalization through skins, changing the graphic icon and a number of other useful functions.

Also, using Classic Shell, you can return the status bar to its “previous” conservative appearance. Internet browser Explorer and expand the functionality of the system explorer.

Program features:

• return of the classic Start menu for owners of Windows 8 and 10;
• a set of tools for personalizing the start menu;
• changing the icon for the “Start” button;
• adding to standard browser buttons “back”, “copy”, “cut”, “paste” and others;
• adding a display of the total file size and free space on the disk in the status bar of Explorer.

Working principle:

During installation, the installer will offer to select the necessary modules that will be presented on the computer:

• Classic Start Menu - tools for personalizing the start menu;
• Classic Explorer - functionality to expand the capabilities of the explorer;
• Classic IE - installation in system browser classic shortcut buttons, which were first presented in this form in IE 5;
• Classic Shell Update - a component for checking utility updates.

It's funny that the selection dialog is designed in the style of installers from the Windows 98 era. All these modules take up just over 10 MB, so you can install them all and not worry about free space. disk space. Despite the small file size, installation on modern computer takes about 30 seconds.

To change the launch pad settings after installing Classic Shell, click on the “Start” button. A window will appear asking you to set required parameters. In the program interface, the “Start Menu Style” tab is of greatest interest. It allows you to personalize the appearance of the start section from pre-installed templates.

Note that not all settings are initially displayed in Classic Shell. To access hidden functionality, check the box next to “Show all parameters”.

Pros:

• the ability to save a settings profile;
• returning useful functionality to the Explorer status bar;
• works as a separate utility and does not make changes to system parameters;
• after removal it does not leave garbage in the registry;
• The utility is free and available in Russian.

Cons:

• an incomprehensible situation with a relatively lengthy installation on a powerful computer;
• due to its small size, it was possible to install all the modules at once, rather than having an unnecessary dialogue with the user.

The Classic Shell program is a real find for those who have not been able to get used to the Metro interface of the new Windows. Users from another Windows version will appreciate the expanded functionality of the Start button and useful conservative functions from previous versions operating systems. This utility will not be superfluous even for computers that have already updated to Windows 10 - the application offers more settings than the Microsoft developers initially provided.

Analogues:

Power8 - small-sized software for returning the cascade interface to the start menu;

Start Menu X is a utility for adding functionality to the “Start” button.

Classic Shell is a small program that can return the classic menu from Windows 7 to your top ten. Also useful elements are also added to Windows Explorer. In this article, we will look at the program’s capabilities in more detail, discuss its advantages and disadvantages, and also provide a link to download Classic Shell for Windows 10. Let’s get started.

Let's look at the fundamental features of Classic Shell for Windows 10:

• Drag and drop application icons and other functions (delete, copy and rename) directly from the Explorer context menu.
• Show recently used files. At the same time, the number of such objects can be set so as not to overload the list with unnecessary elements.
• Convenient search bar for quickly finding a particular object.
• Customize the appearance of the Start menu using changeable themes. You can also change the functionality of the shell in its settings.
• Work using Microsoft's Active Accessibility algorithms.
• Transform the tiled Start menu interface into a classic list with subcategories.
• Expansion of functionality Windows Explorer 10 to implement actions such as:
  • Go to the root directory of the file system.
  • Copying, cutting, pasting files.
  • View properties of a file or directory.
• Displayed general information about disks. For example, free space, name, etc.
• Classic view of the window for working with files.
• Integration of an add-on for Internet Explorer that allows you to display the full title of a web page. The security of the resource and the progress bar of its loading will also be shown.

This is not all the capabilities of the utility. You can get to know them better in the video attached below.

Pros and cons

A characteristic feature of any Windows application is a number of “strengths” and “weaknesses”. Classic Shell was no exception.

Advantages:

• the settings you make are saved to a file and can be applied later;
• the status bar of Windows 10 Explorer gets its former functionality typical of the “Seven”;
• the utility works separately from the main operating system and does not make changes to the registry;
• after uninstalling Classic Shell, there are no “tails” or other “garbage” left in the registry;
• complete freeness and Russification of the entire user interface.

Flaws:

• too much long installation Classic Shell even on fairly powerful PCs;
• There are a lot of extra steps during installation and dialogue with the user.

As you can see, the program does not have many shortcomings.

How to use

Let's look at the algorithm for installing and using Classic Shell using Windows 10 as an example:

1. Initially, download the archive with the program using the button below and unpack its contents.
2. We install the utility, following the prompts during the installation process.
3. Launch Classic Shell and make the necessary settings.
4. We use user-friendly interface Start menu and Windows Explorer.

Video

In order to become more familiar with the program, we recommend that you carefully watch the training video on it. Even those users who know how to work with Classic Shell can find it useful.

Download

Below you will find a button where you can download Classic Shell for Windows 10 for free.

Warning: Do not try to search for the program on the Internet. Due to its enormous popularity, attackers often change the distribution kit, equipping it with malicious code.