voodoo47 on 9/11/2025 at 15:16
I know, I could google, or dig through some windows support forums, but more often than not, TTLG has the best and most practical answer.
so this is an older, but still capable computer of an elderly person where I had to upgrade windows from 7 to 10, and I would like to sevenify the interface as much as possible, in the least intrusive way (I actually did google a bit, but the few top results were all starting with MAKE SURE TO CREATE A RESTORE POINT BEFORE YOU START, uhh, I don't know). so, if someone has an idea, I'm all ears.. thanks.
baeuchlein on 13/11/2025 at 00:16
A full backup never hurts. I don't know whether a restore point is equivalent to a full backup.
That said, I think you should try to limit "7-ifying" to the things you really need to change. Whenever I think about making one OS mimick another OS, or even make it mimick another version of the same OS, I end up with "you can't bake a different cake and make it exactly smell and taste like the original one".
On the other hand... since even going from Win7 to Win10 in several cases here in our home was only close to successful in one of these cases... erm... just forget it, okay?
I know this thing with old persons not being very happy about large changes to their long-time environment, especially since I'm also getting older, but I also see the limits of adjusting everything to these people's needs. My parents are both headed for dementia (my father already being diagnosed with Alzheimer's), and the limits of adjusting the environment to them are about reached, especially since I don't get proper time to care for my own health. Currently, I still try to find out who of these two "specialists" started a fire in the food area of the microwave a few days ago, without apparently bringing anything highly flammable into the device. So I also wonder how that person did it.
If people don't want to change just a tiny little bit, they're headed for being put in a care home which more resembles a prison than a home. We cannot change the whole world so that these people can still live "just like they want", and every other being on Earth spends the whole time warping and wrapping reality around the unwilling. There comes the time when the other residents of this planet have to isolate the unwilling in order to protect the majority of people from some unwilling people's weird ideas in their warped reality.
Starker on 13/11/2025 at 04:46
It's seems it's no longer in development, but I've used something called (
http://www.classicshell.net/) Classic Shell to change Windows UI in the past. A cursory search shows that there's a fork of the project called Open Shell, however: (
https://openshellmenu.com/)
voodoo47 on 13/11/2025 at 08:10
yeah, not looking for some total conversion, just for something that would make the basic folder navigation easier.
ooh Classic Shell, I haven't heard that for a while. will check, thanks. //yeah, that did the trick, enable win7 start menu and aero, disable breadcrumbs and metro, remove quick access (this is a separate registry tweak, majorgeeks has it), combine buttons on taskbar set to never, disabled search and whatever that dumb thing that shows you weather is, and there we go, 90% of win10 bs is gone. ought to be enough. thanks again.
baeuchlein on 15/11/2025 at 23:06
Well, a non-total conversion looks like something that can actually be done. Didn't know that any descendant from Classic Shell was still around.
R Soul on 15/11/2025 at 23:24
Something also worth doing is running "Shutup10" on that PC, which can disable a lot of the components that violate people's right to privacy (e.g. Telemetry). It may also turn off some of the visible things (which will help with achieving the Win7 appearance) but most of its work is behind the scenes.
voodoo47 on 16/11/2025 at 06:49
the person is 88 and I'm paid in pickles (literally). the most important part was making the shutdown button look the same so they'd be able to turn the computer off - Classic Shell (it's the original, as far as I can tell)+that reg tweak is plenty.
might explore that for personal use sometime later though.
bassoferrol on 18/11/2025 at 21:31
StartAllBack
