ANN: Classic Shell - start menu and other features

Ivo said:

anonemous said:

I installed Classic Shell, logged in as administrator, and then right-clicked folders/apps to hide programs that I do not want users to access. Just for fun, I uninstalled classic shell, logged in as a new standard user, and the folders/programs in the original Windows 7 start menu remained hidden (and therefore inaccessible)! Your program enabled me to sneak a custom default Windows 7 start menu for my users. Thanks!

I don't understand - are you saying that you deleted some shortcuts in the classic start menu, and then they were gone in the Windows 7 menu? How is that surprising? Both programs show the contents of the same "start menu" folders. You don't need classic menu to delete stuff, just open the Windows 7 menu, find the shortcut and delete it. Or delete it from Explorer.

Am I missing something?

Sorry, I went into too much unnecessary detail. My point is that the classic menu made it very easy to find out the paths of various programs/folders (something the new Windows 7 start menu tries to hide - with limited success). And I thank you for that.

GEORG said:

I will the user picture for Win7 start menu in the classic start menu we maked it see screenshot ???

I'm sorry, I don't understand. Can you please rephrase that?

OK, so you want to place the user picture at the top of the main menu.
This is not possible at the moment. However you can modify the skin file to and add a specific image (logo, user picture, whatever) as part of the background.
The downside is that if you change your user image you will have to edit the skin again.

The process takes a bit of patience and requires some skills with Photoshop and Resoure Hacker. Take a look at the skin tutorial first: Classic Start Menu Skinning Tutorial
If you can't figure something out I can help you with it.

OK, let's get started.
1) Extract bitmap #2. It is a 32-bit bitmap with alpha channel. Hopefully GIMP can handle those.
2) Make the bitmal wider. Let's say your image is 48x50 pixels. You have to increase the width of the bitmap by about 48 pixels. You can't just stretch it. You have to preserve the left-most 5 columns and the right-most 5 columns.
3) Place your image near the top-right corner of the bitmap. You may want to make the alpha behind your image more opaque.
4) Add the edited bitmap to the skin file as a new bitmap resource #9. You can't just replace bitmap #2 because it is also used by the sub-menus.
5) Locate the portion of the SKIN resource that says:
[NOT CAPTION]
Main_bitmap=2
Main_bitmap_slices_X=0,0,0,13,2,13
Main_padding=8,6,6,4

Change it to:
[NOT CAPTION]
Main_bitmap=9
Main_bitmap_slices_X=0,0,0,13,2,61
Main_bitmap_slices_Y=63,314,8
Main_padding=8,54,6,4

9 is the ID of the new bitmap
61 is the original 13 plus the 48 new pixels added to the width
63 is the original 13 plus the height of the image (50)
314 is the original 364 minus the height of the image
56 is the original 6 plus the the extra 50 pixels where the image is

Horizontally the background will preserve the first 13 and the last 61 columns, and stretch the middle 2 to fill the space.
Vertically the background will preserve the first 63 and the last 8 rows, and stretch the middle 314.
There will be 54 pixels from the top of the menu to the first item, leaving enough space for your image.

Important:
* If your image is not 48x50, you should adjust the rest of the numbers accordingly
* If you have UAC enabled, make sure you are actually overwriting the .skin file (it is usually in Program Files, which is a UAC-protected folder)
* You may have to tweak the numbers a bit to achieve the desired effect

Excellent! I'm glad it worked for you.