Classic Shell: Forum

When you right click a Classic Start Menu 4.2.4 folder entry and rename it using the context menu, the rename is not reflected in the Windows 10 menu and makes the entry unavailable in the Win10 menu. The reason appears to be that the Win10 start menu folder name is changed but Win10 does not know about the change and continues to use the old folder name. Clicking on the old folder name results in the link not being found.
Using the Classic Start Menu context to rename a program/file link within the folder, correctly results in the new name being reflected in the Win10 menu and is therefore accessible.
I assume that if the user is not interested in ever using the Win 10 menu and the change does not effect any other parts of the OS, maybe its not an issue. However, ...

I started using Classic Start Menu for two reasons.

One, I have a large number of programs installed and the Classic Start Menu's 'foldable' side menu tree made access to the programs at the bottom of the menu easier without scrolling.

Two, I was able to use the Classic Start Menu context menu to rename and delete entries in the menu. Many program installs result in start menu entries that are not very meaningful. By renaming entries and deleting unuseful links, I was able to organize the start menu and make it more readable.

This approach seemed to work for three generations of Windows, that is, Windows XP, 7 and 8. The above problem suggests that maybe this approach might not work in Windows 10.

I say seemed to work on Windows 7 and 8. When I switched to the Classic Start Menu, I did not revert back to the original Windows start menu, everything seemed to work for years so I was not aware of any under the hood inconsistencies. I used the Windows Update process to perform a Windows 10 update on two completely different machines. One a Win 7 Pro and another a Win 8 Pro. The two computers had many of the same programs installed and many not the same. One thing they had in common was that they both had Classic Start Menu installed and the program was used to organize the start menu as described above.

Microsoft indicated that using the Windows update process would result in previously user installed programs being carried over to Windows 10. Based on the overall success rate of Win10 updates across the world, I would assume that the majority of computer configurations were such that user installed programs were in fact accessible after the upgrade.

In my case, the upgrades were uneventful until I logged into my Win10 account. I discovered that the desktop icons of my installed programs had disappeared, the Win 10 start menu had some of my program entries but was missing most of them, and none of the links pointing to executables worked. The reason for the latter was that none of the user installed programs were carried over to the Win10 'Program Folders' folder. The 'Programs and Features' settings indicated the programs were still installed but naturally an uninstall would not work since the uninstall executable links were pointing to the 'Program Folders' folder, and the executables were missing. I worked with Microsoft to identify the cause of the update failures on two totally different computers two months apart, and was told that they had heard of a few similar situations and "were working on identifying cause and fix" but the only solution for me was to perform a clean install.

I had always been under the assumption that, using the Classic Start Menu context menu to organize the Windows start menu folders, did not cause any changes that would bite me in the ... some time in the future. But after observing the effect on Win10 of using this procedure it got me thinking, what if changing the Windows 7 and 8 start menu folders manually resulted in under the hood changes that did not effect the operation of Windows, but that these changes caused the Win10 update to fail. Say, what if the Win10 update used some Win 7 and 8 startup menu information buried somewhere in the bowels of the os to determine which programs are installed and that information was no longer in sync with the names in the current modified start menu.

I think that that may be a bit of a stretch, which is why I pose the following question to the forum. Is there anybody who used Classic Start Menu to make changes to the start menu by renaming entries and deleting links in Win7 and 8, who performed a Win 10 update with similar results?

In the end I hope to be able to continue to use Classic Start Menu to organize my Win 10 menu but at minimum that would require a mod to ensure that changes that are made are reflected in the Win10 version of the menu. And if there are others who have reported similar Win 10 update problems, maybe there are changes to be made simultaneously somewhere else in the os bowels. If that can't be done, maybe it is necessary to remove the options from the context menu.

The item inside the Start Menu folder are all link files (shortcuts) and renaming/deleting them does not break the OS operation. Your issues with installed programs after the Windows 10 "upgrade" are caused by incompatibilities with the program itself or poor migration methods used by Microsoft. Also, the Windows 10 Start menu is broken in many ways and is very poorly designed. It uses a database for All Apps portion and has a limit on number of shortcuts it can show! Also, pinned shortcuts in the Windows 10 menu break if they are renamed.

Organizing Start Menu shortcuts (moving them, renaming or deleting) is a harmless operation. Some system shortcuts inside the All Programs folder are protected by read only attributes and permissions - don't touch them. The only side effect is if you rename, move or delete shortcuts, the uninstaller will fail to remove them when the app is uninstalled. Other than this, there are no issues unless you use broken by design menus like the Windows 10 menu.

_________________
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.

My observations using the Classic Start Menu for years are in total agreement with what you are saying. My use of CSM for many years to manage my start menu has been without issue through three OSs. I also don't think that my Windows 10 update failures had anything to do with CSM but I am hoping that maybe some members of the forum have run into similar update experiences and we can compare notes.

In the past, using CSM to make changes to the start menu folders and links would immediately be reflected in both CSM and the Windows start menu because when you switched to the Windows start menu, the folders and files list was refreshed (reread, reloaded, ...) before displaying. The fact that any change to start menu folder names by CSM is no longer reflected in the Windows start menu may in fact be due to a bug in Windows 10. This is suggested by the fact that Windows will see the change in the name of a link and displays it but does not display a change in the folder names for the start menu entry.

I submitted this as a bug of CSM not to suggest that there is an error in CSM coding, but due to the fact that the Windows 10 start menu does not have a context menu that allows easy access to changing folder names but CSM does (possibly because Microsoft does not want you to do that because if you do, it will bite you one day, with or without start menu bug). But if you change the name of a start menu folder (and you don't need CSM to do that, you can use a simple file manager), the next time you login to a Windows account on that PC, the Windows explorer (desktop) will hang trying to load the Windows 10 start menu. A restore may recover from that. I was able to recover by using task manager to start up a file manager to access the Windows start menu and correct the rename. Until this Windows 'bug' is fixed your CSM users should be aware that using the context menu to change Windows startup folder names will prevent them from loging into their Windows accounts.