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Posted on 12/04/2017 8:47:44 PM PST by dayglored
Long a mainstay of the old-fashioned Windows interface fan club, Classic Shell’s developer Ivo Beltchev has thrown in the towel, releasing the code to SourceForge
Hundreds of millions of downloads just doesn’t cut it, apparently. Ivo Beltchev, who first released the Start Menu replacement in 2009, has decided it just isn’t worth the effort any more. Yesterday he posted this on his official web blog:
After months of deliberation, I have decided to stop the development of Classic Shell… There were few factors that led to my decision:
- Lack of free time.
- Windows 10 is being updated way too frequently
- Each new version of Windows moves further away from the classic Win32 programming model… The new ways things are done make it very difficult to achieve the same customizations
It seems that the Win10 upgrade treadmill has claimed another victim.
I wrote about Classic Shell two years ago. It was, and is, a valuable crutch for folks who want to stick with the Win7 (or even WinXP!) way of working with Windows.
What will become of Classic Shell? Looks like Beltchev is going back to his roots: Classic Shell started as an open-source product. He pulled the source code and turned it into freeware after discovering that people were selling it with little or no modification. As of yesterday, the source code has been posted once again to the SourceForge site, where it’s available under the terms of the MIT license.
As for support, Beltchev says:
I will keep the MediaFire download mirror for another 6 months. The forum on http://www.classicshell.net/forum/ will stay open until the end of 2018, however I will not frequently participate in the discussions.
(Excerpt) Read more at computerworld.com ...
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It’s not just a handy, even vital, utility....it’s a metaphor for a multibillion dollar software company where the marketing tail has been wagging the dog for so long they’ve forgotten what operating systems and GUIs are supposed to be in the first place.
Microsoft claims every exasperating, inexplicable, unrequested change is an improvement. But would an actual improvement cause a developer to seek a way to preserve the old menu system? Would an actual improvement cause millions of users to unilaterally seek that which their OS provider had eliminated under the rubric of innovation?
Many, many good utility programs have come and gone by the wayside over the years. Many of them had nothing comparable as replacements.
Most of those utility programs were aimed at end users. The big developers (MS, Mozilla, etc.) forgot who the end users are and what they want/need.
Windows 10 is what brought me back to Windows, I had used Linux at home for years.
Just saying.
Over the years I have dumped many software programs because they changed or eliminated the one or more features I liked in the program. Ironically, many of those same programs went defunct over time because they ignored their customers/end users.
Really burns me up.
Leni
Programmers are like legislators; they fear extinction if they aren’t enacting change for the sake of change and they quickly lose sight of their original remit.
[[Microsoft claims every exasperating, inexplicable, unrequested change is an improvement.]]
Not only that but they suggest that anyone that doesn’t like the new changes are just being difficult- claiming that ‘many users have requested the changes’
welll that’s sad to hear- one of the best programs out there really- I assume though that the old versions will still work for many years to come?
That's actually a pretty serious concern. One of the stated reasons the original dev stopped working on it was that Windows 10 kept pulling the rug out from under the program:
"...Each new version of Windows moves further away from the classic Win32 programming model… The new ways things are done make it very difficult to achieve the same customizations..."Classic Shell will continue to work on existing releases of Windows (7, 8, 8.1) probably forever. But on Windows 10, two things conspire against it working for "many years to come".
Don’t get me started on user interfaces that use light grey font and no obvious fields or buttons to get anything done. Not everyone is 16 years old and can see the hairs on a gnat’s ass well enough to count them.
My warning to everyone who 16 to 25, nothing hammers you harder than time.
Since Classic Shell is now open source, I hope someone takes up the challenge of keeping the code up to date.
AOL is still around??? Wow, who knew...
And with all these changes and "improvements" they still have been unable to come up with a simple way to print a directory listing. It's truly astounding.
Their idea of improvements, for example, is to move the "show desktop" icon which used to be on the lower left to a hidden place on the lower right. Wow! Astonishing improvement.
>>But would an actual improvement...
It might, if the associated modifications obfuscated the MicroSieveware maze enough to force dependent malware to adapt apace.
Yet another reason to stick with my Win 7 machines.
[[So Classic Shell will be dependent on the open source community to keep it working.]]
Was afraid of that- I only use windows 10 crippled on virtual machine without access to the Internet (on my main os linux)- and windows 7 as my second os in dual boot config - so it will work with what i have- but folks who update windows 10 regularly won’t be able to us it :( - Must be frustrating having it work for a little while, then not work, then work again- hopefully someone will take up the project- I haven’t used many programs in the past- but classic shell was one of hte top ones I’d recommend to anyone- shame that windows 10 keeps breaking it- I don’[t for hte life of me understand why MS doesn’t offer an option to retain old menus
[[Their idea of improvements, for example, is to move the “show desktop” icon which used to be on the lower left to a hidden place on the lower right. Wow! Astonishing improvement.]]
Exactly!- Take something truly functional and easy to use and make it harder and more frustrating- that is their idea of progress i guess-
Open source is perfect for code like this. Classic Shell is the first thing I install on any new PC. Then Chrome, just so I don’t have to look at IE or whatever that new thing from M$ is longer than one or two downloads. I eliminate as much of the metro and modern M$ crap as I possibly can, as quickly as I can.
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