Maximizing Your Start Menu

Did you love the start button functionalities from Windows 7, but dislike what happened with Windows 8 and Windows 10? We’ve got a hot tip for you that returns that feature with multiple options that you can tweak to your hearts content. It’s a shell replacement program called Classic Shell, which gives you that awesome Windows 7 start menu that we all knew and loved with both new and old functionality.

Go to http://www.classicshell.net/ to download the software to your computer so that we can get started. The program is no longer being actively developed by the original creator, but not to worry! Classic Shell has been around for many years with many features and solid stability that it will be good well into the future. Once you get the program installed you can immediately see it by pressing your start button like you always do… cool huh?  If you right click on the new start button you will see the new settings for the Classic Start Menu. Right click and go to Settings to get into the real fun. By default you will see the basic options for you to poke around in, but if you are feeling adventurous you can check the box that says Show all settings. If you like to tweak everything then this is perfect for you, otherwise keep it simple and just do the basics. Play around with the colors, themes, styles, and settings until you love your new start button experience. We rely on the start menu so much, so why not give it a splash of your own style and enjoy that awesome Windows 7 style button.

Once you get everything setup to your exact liking you do not have to worry about losing all of your hard work if something were to go wrong! In the options menu for Classic Shell there is a Backup button you can press to make a file backup of all the settings you just changed. Hit the Save to XML file option and save that backup file anywhere on the disk drive so that it will not get lost. Better yet… transfer that file to one of your cloud storage accounts so that it will never get lost. Some examples of cloud storage services would include Google Drive, Dropbox, or Box. Any of those will be the perfect place to keep your start menu settings online forever! When you are ready to restore that file just go to the Backup button and hit Load from XML file to get back up and running.

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