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Post by spacescarletred on Feb 14, 2022 7:43:39 GMT -8
Should we have a page on here or thread that is dedicated to discussing the history of the Classic theme and how it's made a bit of a comeback? I'd be really curious to know the history of this place and how it came to be. What inspired Simple Classic Theme etc, what discoveries led to the tricks that we all use that allows us to do certain things with said classic theme. I'm super curious and would love to hear about it. I remember my first time hearing that people were working on a classic theme was back when a Youtuber called "Ender" made a video on it. How on earth did we get from something that kinda worked, to what we have now where someone could still do their daily work but, also have classic theme enabled.
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Post by leet on Feb 14, 2022 9:34:20 GMT -8
I'm not sure if we need to do something like this as the community, but I guess I could shed some light on my place in the Classic community. For me it started when YouTuber EnderMan uploaded this video. Coincidentally, a week before this video was released, veselcraft created a GitHub project called SetClassicTheme. It was a basic C++ project that used SetWindowTheme to remove all themes on a Window (the same way older SCT versions were rendered in Classic, even before you enable it). On August 21st of 2019 (10 days after Endermans video), I created a C# application with the same name in order to see if I could make this into a more viable method. This failed, hence with the first release of the program, I stated it would be the last on the release page on GitHub. What happened in the two days after that is still unclear to me. I think I had discovered anixx's method for reversibly enabling Classic using newer PowerShell versions and a PS library for managing NT objects. I scripted that into a C# application to make it easy to enable and disable, and called it SimpleClassicTheme (spaces came since 1.0). I released SCT build 1 (b1) on August 23rd of 2019. It still required PowerShell and did not feature any fixes for the taskbar, nor did it do any tweaks with Explorer. It did however allow for automatically launching and enabling Classic with Explorer when your PC boots up. A screenshot of b1 can still be found here. From here stuff evolved slowly but surely. SCT got fixes, updates, new features and more. On February 7th of 2020, I released an addon for SCT called SCT Taskbar. This is when SCT really started to thrive in popularity (Note: I deduce this from having looked at GitHub statistics over the past years). SCTT started out as an Alpha and slowly gained more features and robustness. Unfortunately, SCTT fell short when I decided to make it into a private Beta. The main reasoning for this was the amount of issues in SCTT. I got many messages from people who were having problems I already knew about. Also: I had planned major architectural changes in SCTT, which meant even more problems would become a thing. 25th of September 2020, soapmusic27 created a Discord server intended to discuss Classic Theme related topics. Currently the server has about 80 members and more are coming in pretty frequently. Here is also were Craftplacer joined SCTT's dev team. Craftplacer did amazing work on structurally changing the way SCTT works and behaves to make it faster and easier to work on. Can't express enough thanks to Craftplacer for the work he has done on SCTT. Somewhere along the line of this development I made SCTT's beta public again and started to prepare to release 1.0.0. Unfortunately, I've never done so. SCTT's development has slowly trickled down and I decided to cease development on Another thing I've done in the Classic community (on ClassicServ, not WinClassic) is Panther2K. I got sick of how annoying Windows setup is and how annoying it is to manually install Windows using DISM so I decided to automate it and add a nice Classic GUI frontend. It's just an installer that collects information like pre Panther (Vista setup) did, and installs Windows using WIMGAPI (Windows IMaGing API). That's pretty much my part of the Classic Theme community. It was pretty cool looking back at the journey. I encourage other members of WinClassic to do the same, especially older members (anixx, powerplayer, maybe Splitwirez/ROB), maybe they could talk a bit about Start9? |
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Post by spacescarletred on Feb 14, 2022 11:06:45 GMT -8
I'm not sure if we need to do something like this as the community, but I guess I could shed some light on my place in the Classic community. For me it started when YouTuber EnderMan uploaded this video. Coincidentally, a week before this video was released, veselcraft created a GitHub project called SetClassicTheme. It was a basic C++ project that used SetWindowTheme to remove all themes on a Window (the same way older SCT versions were rendered in Classic, even before you enable it). On August 21st of 2019 (10 days after Endermans video), I created a C# application with the same name in order to see if I could make this into a more viable method. This failed, hence with the first release of the program, I stated it would be the last on the release page on GitHub. What happened in the two days after that is still unclear to me. I think I had discovered anixx's method for reversibly enabling Classic using newer PowerShell versions and a PS library for managing NT objects. I scripted that into a C# application to make it easy to enable and disable, and called it SimpleClassicTheme (spaces came since 1.0). I released SCT build 1 (b1) on August 23rd of 2019. It still required PowerShell and did not feature any fixes for the taskbar, nor did it do any tweaks with Explorer. It did however allow for automatically launching and enabling Classic with Explorer when your PC boots up. A screenshot of b1 can still be found here. From here stuff evolved slowly but surely. SCT got fixes, updates, new features and more. On February 7th of 2020, I released an addon for SCT called SCT Taskbar. This is when SCT really started to thrive in popularity (Note: I deduce this from having looked at GitHub statistics over the past years). SCTT started out as an Alpha and slowly gained more features and robustness. Unfortunately, SCTT fell short when I decided to make it into a private Beta. The main reasoning for this was the amount of issues in SCTT. I got many messages from people who were having problems I already knew about. Also: I had planned major architectural changes in SCTT, which meant even more problems would become a thing. 25th of September 2020, soapmusic27 created a Discord server intended to discuss Classic Theme related topics. Currently the server has about 80 members and more are coming in pretty frequently. Here is also were Craftplacer joined SCTT's dev team. Craftplacer did amazing work on structurally changing the way SCTT works and behaves to make it faster and easier to work on. Can't express enough thanks to Craftplacer for the work he has done on SCTT. Somewhere along the line of this development I made SCTT's beta public again and started to prepare to release 1.0.0. Unfortunately, I've never done so. SCTT's development has slowly trickled down and I decided to cease development on Another thing I've done in the Classic community (on ClassicServ, not WinClassic) is Panther2K. I got sick of how annoying Windows setup is and how annoying it is to manually install Windows using DISM so I decided to automate it and add a nice Classic GUI frontend. It's just an installer that collects information like pre Panther (Vista setup) did, and installs Windows using WIMGAPI (Windows IMaGing API). That's pretty much my part of the Classic Theme community. It was pretty cool looking back at the journey. I encourage other members of WinClassic to do the same, especially older members (anixx, powerplayer, maybe Splitwirez/ROB), maybe they could talk a bit about Start9? This is one of the reasons I'd like to setup something history wise, because, it's awesome seeing how just from humble beginnings a project can grow and mature into something amazing. It's important to know where we began and how we got to where we are now...(Although that may just be my inner History major talking) I also love having history to look back on. I mean I literally use a classic theme because, I love history, and even with modern improvements, it's awesome to have some way to kinda re-live those days. Another reason I'd like to is just for documentation and creating an easy one-stop-shop for people to understand how the method for Classic theme came into existence and, what sparked interests for community members. I think I may just be kinda silly in this under-taking, but, then again I love documenting and I love learning. I love stories and I love hearing people tell me about what they have accomplished. Gives me some hope to keep on going myself, as it only takes one little spark to create something beautiful. Archival is something I've always been interested in. Thank you for sharing your story!   I hope someday with enough posts I could kinda compile something, maybe a Youtube video going over the development of things? Who knows? |
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Post by The Jackal on Feb 14, 2022 11:56:01 GMT -8
The origin of this forum originated from this thread on the Thinkpads.com support forums: forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=113024The method to enable classic theme on W8 (and later W10) was discovered there, and this forum was opened to discuss and come up with new ways to keep classic theme alive on modern Windows. Powerplayer, Anixx, Splitwirez, and the forum's admin, R.O.B., all originally came from that community. It's all before my time (I just stumbled upon this forum after researching if it was possible to get classic theme back because I've been using it since XP through Vista to Seven). |
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Post by anixx on Mar 9, 2022 2:07:18 GMT -8
After the release of Windows 8, it was noticed by many users and hackers that the classic theme was still there. Most often they occasionally experienced it when the video subsystem or DWM malfunctioned. Then, as The Jackal pointed out, one man on the ThinkPads forum under nickname IbmPad discovered a way to enable Classic theme and made the first utility to do so (ClassicTheme.exe). The utility was doing so by deleting the memory area where the theme was stored. Based on this, later were discovered other methods of enabling Classic theme, for instance, using the Microsoft's utility Handle, to delete this memory area. At the same time, we found that classic theme can be enabled not only by deleting this area but also by just blocking access to it, for instance with utility ObjDir. This would allow to enable and disable Classic theme during one session several times. Then I found a way to control this access using PowerShell www.winclassic.net/thread/413/reversibly-enable-disable-classic-powershellBy this code newer utilities SimpleClassicTheme and ClassicThemeTray are inspired. In parallel to this development it was also noticed that when DWM is disabled and there is no "AeroLite" theme available, the system also falls back to Classic theme. So, this is a way to enable Classic theme for those who wants also DWM disabled. Also, R.O.B. had some progress into the direction of hacking the theme files so to make the theming being formally enabled while displaying the controls from Classic theme. AFAIK, this work is not finished. |
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classic98
New Member
Posts: 20
OS: Windows 10 21h1 (64-bit) ~ and Windows 7 (32-bit) VM - Win2k (also VM)
Theme: Simple classic Theme
CPU: IDK
RAM: IDK
GPU: IDK
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Post by classic98 on Jun 2, 2022 10:27:37 GMT -8
very very interesting!
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Post by R.O.B. on Jun 11, 2022 13:23:57 GMT -8
Sorry I'm super, super late to the party, but I thought I'd share my perspective since others expressed interest in it. To be honest, anixx, Clasurol, and ʇǝǝๅ already did a pretty good job at covering most of the history in their posts, but I do have a few things I can add related to how WinClassic itself came to be and some of its prehistory.
Before the ThinkPad Forum thread was even created, there were a few of us conversing on SevenForums and EightForums. Most of the discussion from this time period revolved around simply restoring old/removed features, such as the classic address bar or 32x32px icons in Explorer. Really nothing too crazy compared to what we're doing now with things like SCT, but you have to start somewhere I guess. I hesitate to call us much of a community at this point since it was really only a handful of people (namely anixx, myself and possibly one or two other members) who were regularly involved in these discussions. But it was the seed that would eventually grow into the current WinClassic community.
This was in the early 2010s (around 2012-2013 or so) and Windows 8 was pretty new. As such, options related to enabling the classic theme on it were extremely limited. That's not to say that there were no options whatsoever back then, but pretty much all of them involved severely crippling the OS in some way. When IBMPad published ClassicTheme.exe on the ThinkPad Forums, it was a real game changer. This was the best option by far to enable the classic theme at the time, and it marked the point where it finally started to become practical to use on Windows 8. This is also when what would eventually become the WinClassic community was born, with many of our earliest members joining in on the discussion.
Minor tangent: I find it kind of funny that discussion related to the classic theme started on the ThinkPad forums as I'm sure most of the people in that thread (myself included) didn't even own a ThinkPad. Now I'm a pretty big fan of the old IBM-era machines - wish they never sold to Lenovo and kept the old keyboards. But I digress.
With the ThinkPad Forum thread growing larger and larger, I realized there was quite a bit of interest in the classic theme. The thread contained a lot of information that required new members to go through several pages of posts just to find answers for things that had already been covered. Additionally, there was also a thread about the classic theme on Facepunch, meaning some information was split between two completely different websites. I realized that there could be demand for a new forum dedicated specifically to the classic theme, so I began looking into creating just that.
I had absolutely no experience running an internet forum at the time, however I still wanted to give it a shot. Since I was only a few years out of high school and still living with my parents with no source of income, I had no choice but to look for an option that was completely free. And the best platform for creating a free forum I was able to find was ProBoards. So I created an account, and got to work on creating a new forum. Finally, on May 3, 2016, WinClassic was officially launched. It had a modest start with only a few active members, but eventually it grew into what it is today.
Nowadays, I'm pretty happy with what WinClassic has become. My biggest regret is that I don't have more time for it. Without going into too much detail, life has made it fairly difficult for me to give WinClassic as much attention as I'd like to. Even still, I am happy to see our community thrive, and am optimistic about the future.
The only other thing I'd like to add is, even though I've complained about some of the limitations of ProBoards in the past, I really don't want to sound ungrateful. For every limitation it has, it is actually a pretty feature rich platform. If nothing else, it has allowed me to give WinClassic a pretty accurate classic theme style that works in pretty much any modern web browser. I don't think it would be my first choice if I were to create WinClassic today. However, considering the fact that it allows you to create a fully-fledged internet forum for absolutely free, I really can't complain too much. Without it, WinClassic would probably not exist.
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Post by R.O.B. on Jun 12, 2022 1:12:03 GMT -8
Also, R.O.B. had some progress into the direction of hacking the theme files so to make the theming being formally enabled while displaying the controls from Classic theme. AFAIK, this work is not finished. Yeah, that method involved hex editing an msstyles file to give it invalid names for its controls (like changing "button" to "xutton" for example) so that it would fall back to the classic theme. Unfortunately, I never got very far with that since it had a lot of issues. For instance, things like open/save dialogs would sometimes completely break depending on what you did. Other times, it would even just stop working entirely and just fall back to the default Aero theme. But the biggest reason why this never really went anywhere is because Splitwirez and I managed to break a Windows installation while experimenting with this, so we figured it probably wasn't worth the headache at that point. Perhaps if one were to keep at it, they would end up with something that works. But honestly, the methods we are using now to enable the classic theme work better in just about every way. |
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Post by leet on Jun 12, 2022 10:57:29 GMT -8
Thanks for sharing anixx and R.O.B.! It's really nice to see some of the founders of the community share their stories here.
Also, I think this thread should be renamed to something like History of the Classic Theme communityAs it's more about how we as a community came up with all of the methods and projects, not specifically Classic Theme itself.
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I hope someday with enough posts I could kinda compile something, maybe a Youtube video going over the development of things? Who knows?
