Classic Shell: Forum

Hello,
I am running a dersktop with Windows 8.1 and installed Classic Shell 4.0.2. I selected the shell as start button.
But after each reboot, on the desktop, the start button is gone and in its space sits a white Windows 8.1 start button.
This white start button will covered by the real Windows 8.1 start button flying in, when I move the cursor to this area.

The only way to get the Classic Shell Start button back is to switch to Windows 8.1 start screen and click on classic
start menu settings to make the settings window appear.
At the same time, the shell button appears to.

Any idea what I am doing wrong?
Here is the settings file:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Settings component="StartMenu" version="4.0.2">
<MenuStyle value="Classic2"/>
<WinKey value="WindowsMenu"/>
<Hover value="ClassicMenu"/>
<ShiftRight value="0"/>
<SkinC2 value="Windows 8"/>
<SkinVariationC2 value=""/>
<SkinOptionsC2 value="E55CEDD3|C26EAF5D|86F3669C|5225DC46|5D3248DC|1FC64124|5EA361A2|6EDFA36A|2E838408|22C9A1E2|0663DC39|"/>
<SkinW7 value="Windows 8"/>
<SkinVariationW7 value=""/>
<SkinOptionsW7 value="C26EAF5D|5D3248DC|1FC64124|5EA361A2|6EDFA36A|2E838408|22C9A1E2|0663DC39|"/>
<EnableStartButton value="1"/>
<SkipMetro value="0"/>
<DisableHotCorner value="DisableNone"/>
<OpenMouseMonitor value="0"/>
</Settings>


The strange thing is that this is a new installation of Win8 with upgrade to Win8.1. Before I had noproblems, but at that time I started
from Win7, upgrade to Win 8 and then to win 8.1, and it worked fine.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Thomas

Upgrading Windows from 8 to 8.1 breaks the start menu. You need to run the installer again and select Repair.

Thanks for the reply.

I apologize that I did not make myself.

I did install Classic Shell only when Windows 8.1 was already installed/upgraded.

THis means it was a brand new install on top of W8.1!

Do you have 32-bit or 64-bit Windows?

It is W8.1, 64bit on an Intel I7 CPU.

Run regedit and go to HKCR\CLSID\{ECD4FC4D-521C-11D0-B792-00A0C90312E1}. See if you have a sub-key named "TreatAs" and tell me what it says.

Hi,
there is no subkey called TreatAs.
Only a key standard with the value "Shell Rebar BandSite".
cheers

Are you sure? There should be at least a sub-key named "InProcServer32".
Anyway, run the installer again and Repair. Let's at least get that out of the way. Keep an eye for error messages.

Well, the repair seemed to have done the trick.
after the reboot that it did, the shell start icon is still there!

And in the registry, under the CLSID value you gave, there are now 2 entries, one TreatAs and one InProcServer32.
Inprocserver has the values standard with %systemroot%\system32\explorerframe.dll, and the 2nd value is ThreadingModel = Apartment.
TreatAs = {D3214FBB-3CA1-406a-B3E8-3EB7C393A15E}

hope this helps.

OK, so your symptoms match what happens when you install Classic Shell in Windows 8 and then upgrade to 8.1. If you are confident that it is not what happened, then the installer must have failed the first time. It should have given you an error though (something about "can't register a DLL").