Classic Shell

Classic Shell, with a name that like you probably expect it to make Windows 7 look like Windows XP, or maybe Windows 3.11. This program does some of that, but more importantly it gives the explorer shell some functions that you may have gotten use to.

What's So Great About It?

Well Classic Shell has alot of features I'll talk about my most used ones first. In Windows XP and newer that was a button in the explorer window that would cause you to go up a folder. For some reason Microsoft thought they could remove this button, and no one would notice. To be fair they did add some functionality in the form of breadcrumbs but it just isn't the same.

Another thing I can't stand in Windows 7 is the new copy file dialog. You'll notice that if you copy a file into a directory, where there is a file that exists with the same name, explorer will ask you what you would like to do. In XP it was obvious, it said overwrite the existing file? You could say Yes, Yes to All, No, No to All (using the shift key), or Cancel. In Windows 7 there is a huge dialog where I find my self re-reading the paragraph statement trying to understand what option I want. I do like how in Windows 7 it will tell you which file is larger, or newer but I can't stand the dialog. Classic Shell brings back the old dialog keeping the new feature of file size and date for the files.

A few other features I don't use very often are the classic start menu, and the custom toolbar items in Explorer. I like the new Windows 7 start menu and am happy with its search capability. But if you like to go retro, you can. By installing Classic Shell you can disable it so don't think you have to have a retro start menu. For me the start menu works like normal, unless I hold Shift and click the start button. Then it will shows a start menu that is organized in the way XP and older would show it.

Alright I'm convinced

If you want one, or all of the featured listed above then go checkout Classic Shell. If you really like them and want to support their on going development, feel free to donate, otherwise the download and use as you want, it's freeware.