The world crucified the Windows 8.x interface, and Microsoft's response was to bring back the Start menu in Windows 10, but after almost three years on the market, we can safely say that it returned only halfway. With no official solutions in sight, some developers decided to release alternative tools to fully restore the classic start, and one of the most popular was Classic Shell. However, its creator decided to conclude the project and release the code. The new Classic Start continues its story.
A good part of Windows 10 and Windows 8.x users were surprised to discover that the developer of the excellent Classic Shell had decided to end the project. Besides a personal lack of time, the programmer (known as Ivo Beltchev) highlighted that Windows 10 is updating too quickly, and with each version it moves further away from the Win32 model. In other words, it's only a matter of time before an update shatters Classic Shell's compatibility and stops working, but we have three good pieces of news. The first is that the last stable build of Classic Shell (4.3.1) works wonderfully on Windows 10 1803. The second is that Ivo decided to release Classic Shell's code. And the third is that the GitHub user passionate-coder made a fork to create Classic Start, a direct heir to Classic Shell.
All available executables of Classic Start are in preview phase, therefore they are not recommended for installation on general-use systems. Without going too far, the first build 4.4 created some problems in Windows 10 Insider environments, and received a hotfix six days later. From a technical point of view, Classic Start is a clone of Classic Shell. The three styles remain the same as always (Classic, Classic with two columns, and Windows 7), as do the advanced options. The factory setting (Windows 7) shows Control Panel as a cascading menu, but that can be easily modified. If the English language is a barrier, don't worry: Classic Start includes a fairly solid Spanish translation (go to the Language tab, choose Spanish, and press OK).
Since it is an open source program, honestly I don't expect any surprises with Classic Start, but I insist that it should still be seen as a preview. Although I haven't detected freezes or strange errors during my tests, it will need time before reaching a stable release. If you want to evaluate it yourself or prefer to throw it into a virtual machine, the link is below.
