Classic Shell: Forum

Hello,

To add tabbed file browsing to Windows 8.1 32-bit File Explorer on a system that is already using Classic Explorer (plus Classic Start Menu plus Classic IE), is there a preference among QTTabBars, WindowTabs, Clover 3, XYplorer etc.? I'd like to have tabbed file browsing, and of course want to avoid conflicts and performance problems. Perhaps there is no problem in combining such software with Classic Explorer, but I felt it would be best first to ask whether forum members have relevant experiences and recommendations.

Thanks,

Shelly

I can confirm that Both Clover
http://ejie.me/

And QTTabBar
http://qttabbar.wikidot.com/

Are compatible with Classic shell and windows 8.1

And I personally use a combination of them. Though Clover can be somewhat unstable at times (the worst i've seen it do is occasionally crash the explorer, so you likely wont loose any data, and I doubt itl cause any permanent damage to your system) Its still the most visually appealing of the options

I can confirm windows tabs works (with classic shells explorer toolbar, and the rest of classic shells features), though I cant say about its functionality, or stability, as I haven't spent much time using it..


XYPlorer works with the start button, and Classic IE, but you wont be able to use the classic explorer toolbar in it

UPDATE:
Heres a pic of QTTabs working inside Clover inside Windows Tabs Allowing 3 tiered foldered tabs XD (not that anyone would ever use it this way, but it all seems to function properly)

Classic Explorer is just an Explorer add-on, so any other add-on should technically work alongside it. The only one I tried in the past with Classic Explorer installed was QTTabBar (both Quizo's version as well as the open source Sourceforge version). Neither version of QTTabBar was stable for me, it crashed Explorer too frequently, plus it's not native code so it slowed down Explorer and increased its memory consumption. When I tried to Exit Explorer cleanly using Ctrl+Shift+right click, Explorer.exe wouldn't properly terminate when QTTabBar was being loaded.

QTTabBar is an awesome add-on, so feature-rich. The only serious issue with it was stability which is why I uninstalled it.

Edit: Just installed Clover. Seems to work ok so far. Will report here if I encounter crashes. Although I don't like the idea of replacing Explorer's icon and name in the title bar/taskbar with Clover's own - addons should not rebrand the core app. It also automatically and silently turned on the setting "Launch folder windows in a separate process" for me and breaks the feature to close the Explorer window by double clicking its icon. Overall a C- for the user experience. If you don't mind the rebranding of Explorer and can do without the ability to close a window by double clicking its top-left icon, Clover is not bad.

_________________
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.

Hey
Ive been playing around with windows tab bar for a while now and it seems somewhat stable, though I did have it crash on me once, and found 2 minor bugs

its seemingly more stable than QT, and clover for me, but it does have its downs (though I love how it can work on almost any window.. multiple notepads,gimps, or ms paints all neatly held together)

The 3 tab limit for the free version is really a bummer, and 20$ is just a lil high (were I to even be willing to buy it)

Jcee and GauravK, thank you very much for sharing your experience with those products. I’ve made a similar inquiry on the 7+ Taskbar Tweaker forum, and based on the response there and here I think the feature-rich QTTabBars will be the one I try.

Shelly

Sounds good; the tabs in the bottom of my pic are the ones from QT.
Just note that most of QT's features can actually extend well beyond just tabs (which is why I still use it even with clover installed)
When it comes to tabs specific; I would say clover might actually have the best feature-set (its the middle tabs in the picture I posted)