Classic Shell: Forum

I used to have wide useful icons that displayed info (in particular, CPU Temp displayed CPU temperatures).

But after installing Classic Shell, now the icons are tiny, yet, oddly, they are still spaced widely, which both wastes space and hides useful information that could go in the unused space.

Also, there are no program notifications on the right (it used to display Kaspersky, etc.).

How do I restore the taskbar to normal behavior, while still running Classic Shell so my start menu isn't insane?

I really don't want to have to choose between a screwed-up start menu or a screwed-up taskbar.

The Taskbar is not part of Classic Shell. Running the Classic Start Menu should not cause any effect on taskbar icon spacing or size. Are you using a custom theme/visual style or maybe some other program which mods the taskbar colors or spacing?

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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.

It does this even with the default Windows 10 theme.

I'm not aware of running anything other than Classic Shell that would tweak appearance.

When I run with a high-contrast theme, then it shows the missing icons, but in that case the screen is hideous. And even in high-contrast mode, the icons are still teeny and widely spaced.

It looks like you have the taskbar set to use small icons and have labels being always displayed, but the label text isn't appearing for some reason, resulting in a blank space. The missing icons can also all be manually toggled off in settings, so not having them isn't horribly broken. My one concern is the lack of notifications, I don't think there's normally a way to completely get rid of them. Even when hidden, you still should see that little up symbol.

Maybe you somehow got caught halfway between settings? I'd go to the taskbar properties through right clicking, and System->Notifications & Action->"Select which items appear in the taskbar"/"Turn system icons on or off", and see if flipping all of those settings off and back on fixes anything.

You could also try restarting the Explorer process. In the task manager, go to "Windows Explorer" in the processes section, right click it, and choose Restart. That should reset your start menu and toolbar, if what you're seeing is your taskbar having slipped into an abnormal state.

If you're concerned about whether the Classic Shell process is causing this (I don't expect this to be the case, but weird interactions are inevitable when it comes to this sort of programming), you can try right clicking on the start icon and choosing exit, which will disable the replacement start menu (as well as the taskbar recoloring, if you chose to mess with that). To get it back without needing to restart, just run the classic start menu settings and it'll automatically bring the replacement menu back.

Indeed, try exiting the Start Menu by right clicking on the Start button -> Exit. If your taskbar issue is still not fixed, then something else is the cause. Also try reverting to the default Windows theme.

_________________
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.

Turning on system icons at least displays them in the lower right, but they don't all display, and there still isn't an up arrow to see the rest of the icons.

Restarting explorer doesn't help.

Uninstalling Classic Shell doesn't help.

This was all working fine before the upgrade from 8.1 to 10 today.