Straight Dope Message Board

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

You know how, in Windows 10, if you click on the Start menu it will show a bunch of large, ugly icons such as photos, the weather, a few games, etc.? These icons, for reference, are the ones that occasionally spin randomly to show you different photos, for example.

Well, somehow my desktop has been taken over by these things. I want my old desktop back, with the small, non-spinny icons that line up where I want them and stay put.

I'm not sure...maybe these are "app" icons?

How can I restore my old-school desktop?

Thanks much! 1

[jz78817]

somehow "tablet mode" got turned on. I'll boot up my Win 10 PC and look for where that setting is.

edit: turn the circled setting to "off."

https://i.imgur.com/4Nf75p6.png 2

[I Love Me, Vol. I]

Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard

You know how, in Windows 10, if you click on the Start menu it will show a bunch of large, ugly icons such as photos, the weather, a few games, etc.? These icons, for reference, are the ones that occasionally spin randomly to show you different photos, for example.

Well, somehow my desktop has been taken over by these things. I want my old desktop back, with the small, non-spinny icons that line up where I want them and stay put.

I'm not sure...maybe these are "app" icons?

How can I restore my old-school desktop?

Thanks much!

I'm scared. I'm going to have to get Windows 10 soon for a new video editing computer build. Is there any way to make the thing run in "grown-up" mode?

I completely avoided Windows 8 because I didn't want any part of a Playskool "My First Computer" OS. Please tell me there is a way to turn off the cartoons and any smart-phone type uselessness. 3

[Mind's Eye, Watering]

When I very recently upgraded my desktop from Windows 7 to Windows 10, I used this website to help me get Win10 to a place that was a lot more familiar.

I also downloaded and installed Classic Shell as shown in the site above. 4

[I Love Me, Vol. I]

Oh my yes. Classic Shell is a must. I'm glad to hear it works for Windows 10, too. 5

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Originally Posted by jz78817

somehow "tablet mode" got turned on. I'll boot up my Win 10 PC and look for where that setting is.

edit: turn the circled setting to "off."

https://i.imgur.com/4Nf75p6.png

That wasn't my precise answer, jz, but you led me down the proper path.

I owe you an adult beverage.

Thanks! 6

[PastTense]

Classic Shell's author has quit updating it. There is a new open source replacement Open Shell:
https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/det...sic_start.html 7

[albino_manatee]

Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard

" That wasn't my precise answer, jz, but you led me down the proper path. "

same as jz78817 offered you knowledge … perhaps you could state exactly what you did to resolve the issue? tomorrow or the next day … someone is bound to come across the same situation … and you will have helped him in turn … full circle. 8

[ftg]

Originally Posted by PastTense

Classic Shell's author has quit updating it. There is a new open source replacement Open Shell:
https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/det...sic_start.html

It is very hard to adapt such a program to each release of Windows 10 when MS seems to be deliberately modifying things to throw such programs off. It takes a lot of effort to do things like find out where/what is that registry setting now?

I recently did an update/refresh install and an amazing number of tweaks and settings were lost. 9

[albino_manatee]

agreed … two weeks after buying my win-8 laptop … ended up installing classic-shell … been using it ever since (upgraded to win-10.1903). if not for classic-shell … i'd probably have gone mac-osx or linux. 10

[EinsteinsHund]

Originally Posted by albino_manatee

same as jz78817 offered you knowledge … perhaps you could state exactly what you did to resolve the issue? tomorrow or the next day … someone is bound to come across the same situation … and you will have helped him in turn … full circle.

The quickest way to toggle between desktop and tablet mode is to click on the action bar (the rightmost icon in the taskbar) and click the tile for "tablet mode on/off". 11

[Mangetout]

Honestly, what's all the drama? If you unpin the tiles from 'start', you get a rather conventional-style start menu with no tiles and no empty space where tiles might have been. 12

[jz78817]

Originally Posted by albino_manatee

agreed … two weeks after buying my win-8 laptop … ended up installing classic-shell … been using it ever since (upgraded to win-10.1903). if not for classic-shell … i'd probably have gone mac-osx or linux.

See, I don't get this. You can't deal with Microsoft making some changes to the Start Menu, so you think moving to a platform with a significantly different user interface will be easier?

Originally Posted by Mangetout

Honestly, what's all the drama? If you unpin the tiles from 'start', you get a rather conventional-style start menu with no tiles and no empty space where tiles might have been.

people don't like having their cheese moved. 13

[EdelweissPirate]

I think your second response might answer the question you raised in your first: a user who switches to Gnome or KDE is moving one’s own cheese, which is much more palatable than the alternative. 14

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Originally Posted by albino_manatee

same as jz78817 offered you knowledge … perhaps you could state exactly what you did to resolve the issue? tomorrow or the next day … someone is bound to come across the same situation … and you will have helped him in turn … full circle.

Of course.

The key, for me, was realizing that it was "tablet mode" that I was looking at. Once I was made aware of that, I searched within settings to find where the Table Mode settings lived. There are options to have it activate when using a tablet, or to never activate (which is what I selected).

Sorry, don't remember exactly where in settings this is located; just search for Table Mode.

ETA: The toggle jz directed me to was already in the off positin. 15

[BigT]

Originally Posted by jz78817

See, I don't get this. You can't deal with Microsoft making some changes to the Start Menu, so you think moving to a platform with a significantly different user interface will be easier?

While Macs have a completely different interface, Linux distros have very close approximations of the Windows interface available, and are the default in most.

And it's not the interface that is the problem for most people. It's the extra widgets and the horrible search. The former can indeed be removed, but the latter is built in. I mean, people will type the exact name of the program they want into search and Search won't find it and will instead show a Bing search result. It's ridiculous how bad it is.

Not to mention several updates (including a very recent one) that can break the start menu. What used to be the most stable part of Windows is now loaded with junk that messes things up. 16

[RaftPeople]

Originally Posted by Mangetout

Honestly, what's all the drama?

Here's the drama in a nutshell:
1 - MS announces new UI geared towards mobile devices
2 - MS announces same UI for desktop
3 - The entire planet vomited in unison (except for about 8 people) 17

[mjmlabs]

Originally Posted by RaftPeople

Here's the drama in a nutshell:
1 - MS announces new UI geared towards mobile devices
2 - MS announces same UI for desktop
3 - The entire planet vomited in unison (except for about 8 people)

Actually, that estimate was updated to "about 8.1 people" almost immediately. "About 8 people" is no longer supported.

[d/r] 18

[jz78817]

Originally Posted by RaftPeople

Here's the drama in a nutshell:
1 - MS announces new UI geared towards mobile devices
2 - MS announces same UI for desktop
3 - The entire planet vomited in unison (except for about 8 people)

No they didn’t. 19

[I Love Me, Vol. I]

Originally Posted by jz78817

No they didn’t.

That's true. I didn't.

I just laughed at all the idiots who bought 8 or 8.1.

Now I might vomit a bit because soon I'll have to get Windows 10 on a new computer and I'm scared that it has some stupid shit for phone-swipers that'll either be a pain to workaround or not possible to work around. 20

[jz78817]

Originally Posted by I Love Me, Vol. I

That's true. I didn't.

I just laughed at all the idiots who bought 8 or 8.1.

Now I might vomit a bit because soon I'll have to get Windows 10 on a new computer and I'm scared that it has some stupid shit for phone-swipers that'll either be a pain to workaround or not possible to work around.

I had no issues with Windows 8. Guess that makes me an idiot. Thanks. 21

[Mangetout]

Originally Posted by RaftPeople

Here's the drama in a nutshell:
1 - MS announces new UI geared towards mobile devices
2 - MS announces same UI for desktop
3 - The entire planet vomited in unison (except for about 8 people)

We're talking about Windows 10 22

[SmartAleq]

Originally Posted by Mind's Eye, Watering

When I very recently upgraded my desktop from Windows 7 to Windows 10, I used this website to help me get Win10 to a place that was a lot more familiar.

I also downloaded and installed Classic Shell as shown in the site above.

Originally Posted by PastTense

Classic Shell's author has quit updating it. There is a new open source replacement Open Shell:
https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/det...sic_start.html

You'll be reinstalling a lot of stuff every time Microsoft gets a wild hair across its asshole. Take a screenshot of your add/remove programs and stash it somewhere so you can remember all the stuff it will break and uninstall for you in order to put you back to that fucked up excuse for a start menu. 23

[RaftPeople]

Originally Posted by Mangetout

We're talking about Windows 10

I think you are trying to say something like:
"the intro was with Win8, now that we are at Win10 it can't be considered the source of the drama anymore because it was a previous version."

If that is what you are attempting to say, I think it's pretty obvious why the source of the drama can be due to a change that happened in a previous version.


Or maybe you are thinking that the Win10 UI is very different from what people vomited over and that my "source of drama" doesn't apply to Win10 because there is zero similarity between Win10 and Win8? 24

[RaftPeople]

Originally Posted by jz78817

No they didn’t.

While my post was an exaggeration, objectively, there was and is significant unhappiness with the Win UI changes after Win7. 25

[Mangetout]

Originally Posted by RaftPeople

I think you are trying to say something like:
"the intro was with Win8, now that we are at Win10 it can't be considered the source of the drama anymore because it was a previous version."

If that is what you are attempting to say, I think it's pretty obvious why the source of the drama can be due to a change that happened in a previous version.


Or maybe you are thinking that the Win10 UI is very different from what people vomited over and that my "source of drama" doesn't apply to Win10 because there is zero similarity between Win10 and Win8?

It wouldn't be true even to say that there is ZERO similarity between Windows 8 and OSX.

As I mentioned upthread - if you don't like the tiles on the Win10 start menu, it takes a few seconds to make them go away forever, and you end up with something that looks and behaves like a more modern, mostly-better version of Windows 7

People resist change because it causes them pain
Change causes pain when it is big
Change gets big when you resist it for too long, and get left behind

Windows 8 wasn't all that bad. It was the wrong product for the market, but the reaction and drama was very silly - it wasn't bad in the technically-flawed way Vista or ME were bad - it just 'looked scary' to a lot of people, and got badmouthed by a lot of people who never even really tried it. 26

[RaftPeople]

Originally Posted by Mangetout

As I mentioned upthread - if you don't like the tiles on the Win10 start menu, it takes a few seconds to make them go away forever, and you end up with something that looks and behaves like a more modern, mostly-better version of Windows 7

Just because there is a remedy doesn't mean it's not disruptive and a net negative to have to figure out how to revert the system to a more usable state.

Windows 8 wasn't all that bad. It was the wrong product for the market, but the reaction and drama was very silly - it wasn't bad in the technically-flawed way Vista or ME were bad - it just 'looked scary' to a lot of people, and got badmouthed by a lot of people who never even really tried it.

It reduced usability for a significant percentage of users with no long term net positive. That is a technically flawed UI. 27

[Mangetout]

Originally Posted by RaftPeople

Just because there is a remedy doesn't mean it's not disruptive and a net negative to have to figure out how to revert the system to a more usable state.

Most Windows users perform some sort of customisation after installing or buying any version of Windows. You're making something out of nothing.

Windows 10 is a stable, relatively secure, capable modern OS - it can be very simply made to behave in a comfortably similar way to Windows 7 without any need for third party skins or add-ons. There is very little reason to fear it, and plenty of good reasons to embrace it.

That is the helpful assistance I am trying to offer the OP, or anyone else faced with the fear of upgrading from Win7. 28

[Spiderman]

Originally Posted by Mangetout

Windows 10 is a stable, relatively secure, capable modern OS - it can be very simply made to behave in a comfortably similar way to Windows 7 without any need for third party skins or add-ons. There is very little reason to fear it, and plenty of good reasons to embrace it.

That is the helpful assistance I am trying to offer the OP, or anyone else faced with the fear of upgrading from Win7.

My problem with it, & I've avoided getting it on my PC by still using Win7, is that they broke stuff that was around since the beginning of Windows, at least 3.1.

I'm a keyboard user, meaning I use lots of shortcuts, <Ctrl> + {This}, <Alt. + {That}, etc. instead of doing things I could with a mouse. In Win 10 they put in that @#$%& ribbon that they introduced in Orifice 2007 but in doing so, they broke or at least altered the shortcut keys that have been around for literally decades. One must use the mouse as the keyboard shortcuts take more steps & you can't do certain things unless you're in the right part of the ribbon.

I'm not a violent person but if a sereral nuclear ICBMs were to suddenly fall on Redmond, WA I wouldn't shed a tear. 29

[carnivorousplant]

Originally Posted by Mangetout

it can be very simply made to behave in a comfortably similar way to Windows 7 without any need for third party skins or add-ons.

Have you a link about how to do that? 30

[Mangetout]

Originally Posted by carnivorousplant

Have you a link about how to do that?

Here you go:
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-c...10-start-menu/

The part you want is 'pin and unpin tiles', but it's so simple I might as well quote it here:

To unpin a tile, right-click the tile and click Unpin from Start.

Once you have unpinned all the existing tiles from the Start Menu, the tile area will collapse down and the Start menu is then just a single column of folders, shortcuts, etc. 31

[Mangetout]

Originally Posted by Spiderman

My problem with it, & I've avoided getting it on my PC by still using Win7, is that they broke stuff that was around since the beginning of Windows, at least 3.1.

I'm a keyboard user, meaning I use lots of shortcuts, <Ctrl> + {This}, <Alt. + {That}, etc. instead of doing things I could with a mouse. In Win 10 they put in that @#$%& ribbon that they introduced in Orifice 2007 but in doing so, they broke or at least altered the shortcut keys that have been around for literally decades. One must use the mouse as the keyboard shortcuts take more steps & you can't do certain things unless you're in the right part of the ribbon.

I'm not a violent person but if a sereral nuclear ICBMs were to suddenly fall on Redmond, WA I wouldn't shed a tear.

Which shortcuts are you missing in Windows 10? I have to confess I don't use keyboard shortcuts a lot outside of the very basic copy/paste/insert within applications - but as far as I can tell, the ribbon items in, say, Windows File Explorer still seem to have keyboard shortcuts (at least where a keyboard shortcut makes sense) 32

[slash2k]

Originally Posted by Mangetout

Most Windows users perform some sort of customisation after installing or buying any version of Windows. You're making something out of nothing.

Cite?

In my experience, Windows users seem to fall into three categories.

1. Those who are too scared or too uncomfortable to change ANYTHING.

2. Those who do experiment and customize.

3. Those who are using a computer on which their corporate IT dept discourages or actively prevents any changes whatsoever.

I'd be very surprised if categories 1 & 3 don't substantially outnumber 2. 33

[jz78817]

Originally Posted by BigT

While Macs have a completely different interface, Linux distros have very close approximations of the Windows interface available, and are the default in most.

And it's not the interface that is the problem for most people. It's the extra widgets and the horrible search. The former can indeed be removed, but the latter is built in. I mean, people will type the exact name of the program they want into search and Search won't find it and will instead show a Bing search result. It's ridiculous how bad it is.

funny, I'd think the fact that macOS and Linux don't run any of the programs they use would be a bigger problem, but what do I know? 34

[carnivorousplant]

Originally Posted by Mangetout

Here you go:
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-c...10-start-menu/

The part you want is 'pin and unpin tiles', but it's so simple I might as well quote it here:


Once you have unpinned all the existing tiles from the Start Menu, the tile area will collapse down and the Start menu is then just a single column of folders, shortcuts, etc.

Thanks, Mangetout. 35

[slash2k]

Originally Posted by jz78817

funny, I'd think the fact that macOS and Linux don't run any of the programs they use would be a bigger problem, but what do I know?

Anymore, the main program used by a huge percentage of people on their desktop is simply a web browser, and Firefox/Chrome are available on all of the major platforms.

Desktop apps are a declining market. Even so, Microsoft Office is available for macOS, and can be made to run on Linux; the same is true for the Adobe Creative Cloud. 36

[Mangetout]

Originally Posted by slash2k

Cite?

In my experience, Windows users seem to fall into three categories.

1. Those who are too scared or too uncomfortable to change ANYTHING.

2. Those who do experiment and customize.

3. Those who are using a computer on which their corporate IT dept discourages or actively prevents any changes whatsoever.

I'd be very surprised if categories 1 & 3 don't substantially outnumber 2.

I have no cite - it's merely my impression from experience of supporting both corporate and personal users that the folks most resistant to change tend to be the 'got it just how I like it' mindset - i.e. they have tinkered with a few appearance settings, shortcuts, folder structures and are comfortable with the changes they have made. 37

[Mangetout]

Originally Posted by carnivorousplant

Thanks, Mangetout.

No problem. Oh, I forgot to mention:
Left click the Start Menu button to get the main start menu - mostly folders, but a few shortcuts to power down, log out, etch
Right click the Start Menu button to get a different menu of more administrative, Control Panel-y sorts of things 38

[RaftPeople]

Originally Posted by Mangetout

I have no cite - it's merely my impression from experience of supporting both corporate and personal users that the folks most resistant to change tend to be the 'got it just how I like it' mindset - i.e. they have tinkered with a few appearance settings, shortcuts, folder structures and are comfortable with the changes they have made.

What you are ignoring is that for most people there was no need to customize for something like Win7 UI to be a reasonably productive model of interaction.

This is precisely why there was such a massive backlash, because MS broke something that didn't need fixing in the first place for people that never had to customize anything in the past. 39

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Originally Posted by Mangetout

Here you go:
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-c...10-start-menu/

The part you want is 'pin and unpin tiles', but it's so simple I might as well quote it here:


Once you have unpinned all the existing tiles from the Start Menu, the tile area will collapse down and the Start menu is then just a single column of folders, shortcuts, etc.

I did exactly this and it's a beautiful thing. 40

[jz78817]

Originally Posted by RaftPeople

What you are ignoring is that for most people there was no need to customize for something like Win7 UI to be a reasonably productive model of interaction.

what you are ignoring is that every version of Windows introduces changes to the UI which causes relentless bitching for months afterward, yet somehow people manage to get used to it. I'm serious, this happens LITERALLY every new release of Windows.

- people bitched relentlessly about Windows XP and promised to cling to Windows 98SE forever
- people bitched about Vista/7 relentlessly and promised to cling to XP forever
- People bitched about Windows 8.x relentlessly and promised to cling to 7 forever

oddly enough, once they're done throwing the toys out of the pram and actually use the new version of Windows, they get used to it. 'cos Macs and Linux haven't really moved the needle on marketshare for a long while. 41

[md2000]

Originally Posted by jz78817

what you are ignoring is that every version of Windows introduces changes to the UI which causes relentless bitching for months afterward, yet somehow people manage to get used to it. I'm serious, this happens LITERALLY every new release of Windows.

- people bitched relentlessly about Windows XP and promised to cling to Windows 98SE forever
- people bitched about Vista/7 relentlessly and promised to cling to XP forever
- People bitched about Windows 8.x relentlessly and promised to cling to 7 forever

oddly enough, once they're done throwing the toys out of the pram and actually use the new version of Windows, they get used to it. 'cos Macs and Linux haven't really moved the needle on marketshare for a long while.

In this millennium, it seems every other version of windows desktop is good, and the intermediate ones are crap.

98 was good, ME was crap. XP was good, Vista was crap. Windows 7 was good, 8 was crap. 10 is actually pretty good. It seems that rather than running the upgrade treadmill, MS seems to be committed to continuously updating 10 going forward. Time will tell whether this will be good, because in some cases, going backwards is not a option. 42

[md2000]

Its my observation about Microsoft - if a feature is useful or important in Windows or MS Office, then Microsoft will hide it or delete it in the new version.

I have real problems with a number of feature changes in the interface. The control panel is familiar, so of course it is deprecated and you get totally unfamiliar panels for the purpose of doing the same thing - often without the "Save changes" final commit button that has been a staple of most graphical interfaces since they appeared 30 years ago. Plus, you go through the new and clever interface to get to the guts of various system settings, only to find what is essentially the same panel as you saw in Win7 or Win XP. This makes me think that the re-write effort was only expended on cosmetic changes, n ot in actually fixing issues with the base level of the program. 43

[PastTense]

Originally Posted by jz78817

funny, I'd think the fact that macOS and Linux don't run any of the programs they use would be a bigger problem, but what do I know?

Any is the wrong word. Linux and MacOS run lots of the same programs and there are alternatives available for most of the rest of the commonly used applications but for most users there are specialized programs you can't find anywhere else than Windows (business applications and games seem to be the biggest problems)--so why switch to running two separate operating systems instead of one? 44

[guizot]

Originally Posted by slash2k

Cite?

In my experience, Windows users seem to fall into three categories.

1. Those who are too scared or too uncomfortable to change ANYTHING.

2. Those who do experiment and customize.

3. Those who are using a computer on which their corporate IT dept discourages or actively prevents any changes whatsoever.

I'd be very surprised if categories 1 & 3 don't substantially outnumber 2.

That may be. All I know is that by putting myself in group #2 I don't have to exert any energy complaining about how 10 is different from 7.

I like both, and still occasionally find myself using a 7 machine at work. I can't really say that there is anything about 10 that substantively makes me do things differently than I do in 7, except for one: the recent folders shortcut when using the "save as" dialog. That can be put back in with a regedit; the only issue is that you have to put it back in again after a major update.

Other than that, though, I agree with Mangetout: If you like 7, then it isn't very hard to customize 10 to something which is pretty much the same. 45

[Mangetout]

Originally Posted by RaftPeople

What you are ignoring is that for most people there was no need to customize for something like Win7 UI to be a reasonably productive model of interaction.

This is precisely why there was such a massive backlash, because MS broke something that didn't need fixing in the first place for people that never had to customize anything in the past.

<shrug> People I know and worked with customised XP to make it look and behave more like Windows 98; people customised Windows 7 to make it look more like XP.

Windows 8 was a massive UI change, and that upset a lot of people; maybe the change was too big - but the core problem here is that the outcomes that arise from resistance to change tend to make people resist change all the more - it's a self-reinforcing pattern.

In terms of where we are now; if Windows 8 had never existed and windows 10 (in its recent state) had been the natural successor to Windows 7... People would probably still be complaining, and trying to get their Aero Glass look and feel, or some such, even though the UI differences between Win7 and Win10 are not so huge. 46

[Mangetout]

Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard

I did exactly this and it's a beautiful thing.

Personally, I don't mind the tiles - you can resize them down so they look more like large icons - and it then just becomes a customisable launchpad for programs - just like shortcuts on the desktop or on the taskbar. 47

[wolfpup]

Originally Posted by BigT

While Macs have a completely different interface, Linux distros have very close approximations of the Windows interface available, and are the default in most.

And it's not the interface that is the problem for most people. It's the extra widgets and the horrible search. The former can indeed be removed, but the latter is built in. I mean, people will type the exact name of the program they want into search and Search won't find it and will instead show a Bing search result. It's ridiculous how bad it is.

Not to mention several updates (including a very recent one) that can break the start menu. What used to be the most stable part of Windows is now loaded with junk that messes things up.

Man, I am just so glad I've standardized on Windows 7 everywhere. It's a beautiful, almost-perfect OS. For me it used to be XP but that stopped being viable due to security certificate and .NET framework dependency issues. I hope I never have to face Windows 10 or its successors.

As for Linux, with acknowledgment of all its millions of users, sorry, but for me Linux will always be synonymous with "doesn't work". No, Linux fans, I'm not going to try the amazing new version you just installed that does everything perfectly. It's a case of "fool me once" repeated several times. Never again. I just don't have the time or patience to fiddle with low-level techie crap when I just want to get something done. 48

[jz78817]

Originally Posted by PastTense

Any is the wrong word. Linux and MacOS run lots of the same programs and there are alternatives available for most of the rest of the commonly used applications but for most users there are specialized programs you can't find anywhere else than Windows (business applications and games seem to be the biggest problems)--so why switch to running two separate operating systems instead of one?

I run Ubuntu on my laptop, mostly because I don't do much of anything important on it. And most of those "alternatives" suck. They're typically feature-deficient, poorly designed, and/or poorly maintained. 49

[Pardel-Lux]

Originally Posted by I Love Me, Vol. I

[...]Please tell me there is a way to turn off the cartoons and any smart-phone type uselessness.

Don't worry, there is what you are looking for. 50