I'm on
Windows 10 Home 64-bit 1903 and I can't seem to make this work. Without any prior experience in trying to make Windows 10 resemble the XP Classic mode, I've tried all of the following today (it's been close to 12 hours so far) and only been able to restore my system by means of Windows system restore points.
To make this clear upfront: All I want is a
grey Classic XP taskbar,
solid-color (no transition!) Windows title bar (along with the
old classic theme grey title bar buttons), and while tinkering with all this today, I found the classic start menu (with that vertical blue line, maybe from Win95?) is also pretty nifty. I don't need classic Windows Explorer *THAT* much, but I especially appreciate removal of the ribbons. What I definitely *DON'T* want is to replace Windows 10 task manager with Windows XP task manager. I also have no need whatsoever for IE.
Another headsup: Besides some very basic BASIC experiences on a Commodore64 *VEEERY* long ago, I'm not a coder, scripter, or hacker in any way whatsoever. I'm a GUI button masher, and the most I can do is use explorer or WinRAR to put a theme somewhere. It's why I haven't been able to learn AVIsynth and Mencoder for 15+ years by now or even just use them to open a video, because nobody ever bothers to write even just a Simple Theme Classic-like or VirtualDub-like GUI for them. The only recent development there is that people have written a VDub fork called VDub 2 with an internal AVIsnyth script editor, but still no GUI.
Anyways, so today I first tried to do things exactly as laid down here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf_Y2aLu4B0 and here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAjn6uqJkzE . I don't quite remember how, but somehow I found out I also needed StartIsBack next to Open Shell.
So first I installed
UltraUX Theme Patcher, then
Open Shell and only really managed to replace the start button with that, customize the start menu, and make the Windows 10 taskbar a very ugly color, but that was all. I think then I googled and found out I also need
StartIsBack to also fix the taskbar. I went and installed StartIsBack on top of Open Shell, needed half an hour or so to keep the two from constantly overriding each other in a way I didn't want, and yet all I managed was a light grey Windows 10 taskbar where with such a color you can't even tell the individual programs apart well.
So I googled again and came upon this thread. Installed
Simple Classic Theme on top of the other two as according to official guide (as I understand from the guide that those two need to be installed prior to Simple Classic Theme), and lo and behold: I additionally got the classic title bar and light grey title bar buttons on the top right on all program windows, but that was all again. No classic taskbar, not even if I ticked the relevant box. Additional stuff that Simple Classic Theme did to my chagrin:
-
It often crashed my explorer (so that my entire desktop went blank and I couldn't make the taskbar show up),
-
forced me to replace the Windows 10 task manager with the classic task manager (before I did that, the task manager refused to even just open up no matter by which method),
-
"Folder X" did nothing at all,
- I found
7+ Taskbar Tweaker entirely useless, as all behavior was the way I wanted, and 7+ Taskbar Tweaker did zero to change anything about the looks (outside of hiding the start button, which at times did and didn't work somehow, and not even the spacing thing did anything at all), which is what I was actually after,
-
and clicking on "Open T-Clock" only kept giving me an error message.
So I googled again and came upon this thread:
www.winclassic.net/thread/280/classic-taskbar-superbar-startisback , where I found I needed that custom style/skin/theme for my taskbar to make it the classic one again. At first, that didn't work either as
Simple Classic Theme was by now just bluntly overriding everything that Open Shell and StartIsBack tried to do on their own. In StartIsBack, I couldn't even tick or change anything anymore because of Simple Classic Theme, whereas in Open Shell, I could still change stuff, but it didn't affect anything anymore. Plus, as said, Simple Classic Theme kept crashing my explorer and taskbar.
So that's when I
first had to use system restore. It'd really come handy if you'd supply a
de-installer for Simple Classic Theme, including setting the registry and everything back to what it was before. And it's annoying that once I install Simple Classic Theme,
the task manager will stop working up until I install the old task manager with it.
So, next I set up Open Shell and StartIsBack again, and *FINALLY* managed to make the classic taskbar show up thanks to Classic3.msstyles, along with the changed start button and menu.
But no classic title bars and title bar buttons.So again, I installed Simple Classic theme on top of the other two. This time, I managed to maintain the classic taskbar, but weirdly enough, now the classic title bar and title bar icons would
*EXCLUSIVELY* show up on system messages and on the Simple Classic Theme window only, but on no other windows whatsoever (even new ones I started afterwards), although I'd done all necessary re-boots in-between. Simple Classic Theme didn't crash my explorer as much anymore (but it still did), but it still forced me to switch to the old task manager, plus now it suddenly made all title bars part transparent on the left half of the screen.
I also found throughout all of the above that the only time Simple Classic Theme actually does anything was when I
ticked the classic taskbar option. If that box is not ticked, the app doesn't do anything at all, whereas if it is ticked, a cmd prompt flickers by, the taskbar shortly disappears, and the entire desktop will flicker for a sec, with and without desktop icons, before everything will come back with a changed look (and even that only if I'm lucky). But nothing doing whatsoever if that one box is not ticked.
And I also found that at least on the second try (i. e. after the first system recovery),
"Install Required Stuff" was greyed out on Simple Classic Theme. Don't remember how that was on the first attempt before the recovery.
So it was
back to Windows system restore. I'm now on Open Shell + StartIsBack, meaning I have the
classic grey start button,
classic grey task bar,
classic start menu, but that's all,
no classic title bar and title bar buttons on program windows.
I don't remember Windows Defender ever coming up throughout any of this. The only time anything on my system complained was when I downloaded some taskbar themes off of DeviantArt, where my virus scanner told me the .zip with only a few BMPs or PNGs inside of it would contain dangerous viruses.
How to get this thing done once and for all? As said, all I want is
classic grey taskbar +
grey start button +
classic title bar with grey title bar buttons on program windows, plus I like the
nifty vintage start menu (with that blue stripe). Also,
no desktop button in sight anywhere on the taskbar so far. Hmmm...guess I'd also like the
old clock and calendar back somehow. Especially the Windows 10 calendar looks kinda shitty now with the light grey background to it.
Plus, I've found that while I prefer the Classic taskbar design over that of the Superbar, the classic bar is kinda tiny on modern screens now. Setting the Windows 10 taskbar options to large icons, it's effectively the height of the Superbar (while still showing program titles) and the Superbar has a height that'd be a bit more appropriate today, but then the open program titles inside their taskbar buttons are awfully tiny. So what I'd need would be a way to resize the font on those program titles in the taskbar, and the taskbar to be at approx. 75% height of the Superbar, but with the classic taskbar layout.
Maybe something akin to the ReactOS desk applet here:
www.winclassic.net/post/1762/thread could help to fix the title bars and title bar buttons?
And finally, I've noticed the ReactOS taskbar looks a tiny bit neater than Classic3.msstyles, by virtue of having that tiny original classic theme separator between the Start button and the minimized windows. Does the ReactOS taskbar also work with StartIsBack?
