Classic Shell: Forum

If you type in the name of an executable, such as "cmd", from the search box you can often type too fast and the filter delay doesn't catch up by the time you press "Enter" and it will open whatever it has narrowed the search down at that exact moment in time. For me I have Adobe Master Suite installed and when I hit the start button and then immediately type "cmd" and Enter it will open Adobe After Effects. I have to type in "cmd" and then pause for a second to make sure it catches up.

Another bug is you can't type in UNC paths from the search box anymore. When I hit the start button and type in \\servername\share it will open up a window titled "Search Results in Indexed Locations" like it's trying to search for that string of text.

These are two HUGE bugs that are unbelievably annoying and I use every day. The old version worked fine, what happened?

What is the Windows version and exact Classic Shell version that you have installed? Try upgrading to the latest Classic Shell 4.0.4 release. IIRC, the UNC path issue was there in an earlier 4.x release but fixed in 4.0.4.

_________________
Links to some general topics:

● Compare Start Menus

● Read the Search box usage guide.

I am a Windows enthusiast and helped a little with Classic Shell's testing and usability/UX feedback.

I have the latest release (4.0.4) so I don't think the UNC path issue was full resolved. I'm on Windows 7 Professional 64bit.Something else just since I'm posting this, we roll this out to all our new users and we would LOVE an easy way to be able to specify a default settings.xml file that can be used for Start Menu Settings AND that will apply to all users. Right now we install it as an administrator but the settings we make only are for the current logged in user, when the normal user logs back in we have to manually set their settings.

What kind of UNC paths are you typing? See if something simple like \\localhost\ works for you.

As for "cmd", version 4.0.4 has a change where all programs are collected first and then presented. This way the results won't shuffle around as they are found. Since you are describing the old behavior, that makes me thing you are not using the latest version.

As for settings during install, you should use the new group policies (also introduced in 4.0.4). They can be installed for all users of the machine at once or even pushed to all users through the network. You have options to lock a setting or only change the default value as you wish.

I'm positive I have 4.0.4 because the installer is still on my desktop and when I go to Classic Shell Updater it shows nothing to update. The UNC paths I'm using are "\\servername\share" or I even tried just \\servername and that doesn't work either. I even tried localhost and that brought up the same thing.The "cmd" issue is not just with the executable "cmd" but with anything. I should have mentioned this though, it doesn't happen every time. It seems to happen the first time when I haven't opened the start menu in a while because I can go back afterward and type it in super fast and it works. Not sure if that helps or not.

Download the Classic Shell Utility from here: http://www.classicshell.net/downloads/
Run it and send me the log file.

Here ya go...

I replicated your settings and I'm still not getting that behavior. The only way for the start menu to launch a search in Explorer is to either select a search category or select "See more results".

When I type a network path starting with \\ I get two items in the menu. "No items matched your search" at the top (selected) and "See more results" at the bottom (not selected). When I press Enter the path is opened in Explorer.

Is it possible that somehow you are activating the "See more results" item? It can happen if your mouse is already over that item and wiggles a little bit, which selects the item. Then pressing Enter will activate it. BTW, this is the exact same behavior that happens in the Windows 7 start menu.

I think you are right! But it looks like that option is constantly selected and there is no way of unselecting it (at least for me) as soon as I type \\ and anything after it. Is that normal?

No, it is not normal. The item can be activated either with the mouse or by pressing the up or down arrow.

No what I'm saying is that seems to be my problem.... that is the ONLY option it's accepting so no matter what I enter after the "\\" as soon as I hit Enter it is the same as clicking on "See more results" (see screenshot). Does that make sense? Is there a way to disable the filtering all together so the search box acts just like entering a command from the Run window?

Ah, I see. You are using the Classic style. Now I can reproduce the problem. I will try to fix it for the next version.
In the meantime you can either switch to the Windows 7 style, or turn on autocomplete from the search settings.

Oh yea, the Classic style is the whole reason we started using this. 9 out of 10 of our users say they really miss the XP start menu and Microsoft as always changes things just for the sake of changing them, with no option to use the previous style. Mark my words, 30 years from now companies like Microsoft will still be making changes like that and claiming that is the "best way", as if the last 26 versions just couldn't get it right, lol.

What if you type a slash after the computer name or share name? e.g. \\Windows-PC\ in Classic style?

Edit: Oh OK I see you have autocomplete disabled. Then I can repro the issue.

_________________
Links to some general topics:

● Compare Start Menus

● Read the Search box usage guide.

I am a Windows enthusiast and helped a little with Classic Shell's testing and usability/UX feedback.

Nope, same thing.

Fixed in Classic Shell 4.0.5.

_________________
Links to some general topics:

● Compare Start Menus

● Read the Search box usage guide.

I am a Windows enthusiast and helped a little with Classic Shell's testing and usability/UX feedback.