Windows 7: Window Explorer Toolbar - Remove

A year on (and a bit) after my first experiments with Windows 7 -- which died and prompted a reformat back to XP when I couldn't get Exploder looking how I wanted -- I considered trying it again, and remembered I'd posted to this thread waaaay back when. Needless to say, I was very thrilled to log back in and see kookster had an update that was less than a month old that included a non-aero patched ready-to-rumble file!

Kookie ol' son, your new patch works a treat -- I am now enjoying Windows 7 as I want it to be (well, almost, but nuking FolderBand was a MAJOR block that's now gone!)

*sigh*

I spoke too soon. If I then add Classic Shell (to eliminate the rest of the Windows 7 crud) it breaks, badly.

Seems I can have Classic Shell to get a Windows2000-like Explorer look but with the godsawful FolderBand, or no FolderBand but then I'm stuck with the rest of the godsawful Windows 7 Explorer window.



Ah well. Back to XP, until someone can figure out how to get the real W2K/XP Explorer runing as the default.

I have Classic Shell with no problem. Hmm. If you post your working shellstyle.dll I can make the changes to it for you.

This is absolutely fantastic. I'm *very* thankful for your help in my War on Screen Clutter.

Thanks for the tutorial but for some reason the toolbar has diapered like it should on all of the menus except for "Documents,Music,Pictures,Videos" i have no idea why, can you help me.

But will it work if I normally use the normal non-aero theme instead? Or will it work under aero only?

i got mine to work,, i am running win 7 starter 32 bit..
just follow step 1 download the shellstyle extract x86
then go to
C:\Windows\Resources\Themes\Aero\Shell\NormalColor and rename the shell.dll file into whatever you want it to be just make sure there is still .dll at the end of the name
but also before doing so check the security tab of that folder make sure you have the permission to change the name,
assume that you do know how to change permission right??
after successfully changing the name close the folder and run as administrator shellstyle x86.
if your not sure it runs just re run it and restart your pc,, am sure toolbars is gone now..

God bless......

I know this tutorial is pretty old, but still seems to have some activity every once in awhile, im just wondering, did anyone ever manage to fix the problem with 64 bit Windows users using the Windows Classic theme? I know its fixed for the 32 bit version, but dont know if anyone ever figured anything out for the x64 version (trying to repeat same process used in system32 in syswow64 is for some reason ineffective).

Signed up especially to thank author of this post.

It works with every theme, just too bad the paths to the .dll's are hardcoded.
Im using a custom theme, not Aero, its just that the file you have to modify has to be located in the Aero folder. Im on Windows 7 Ultimate x64.

---Use my solution for other styles than Aero below at own risk.---

1. If you want this on another theme than Aero make sure the theme you want is NOT selected, also Aero may NOT be select.

2. Backup your shellstyle.dll for your theme you want to mod and for Aero. (Backing up the SysNode64 one and modifying it works exactly as in OP post, so I will not mention it here.)

3. Take ownership of both the one you want to mod and orginal Aero .dll.

4. Delete Aero .dll (orginal, not backup!).

5. Copy the shellstyle.dll you want to modify to the Aero folder.

6. Run authors provided tool, the shellstyle.dll in Aero should now be modified.

7. Copy shellstyle.dll back to the theme you want to mod.

8. Restore original Aero .dll.

9. Select your Theme. This one should be modded and Aero should not be changed.


@Aquifel, maybe this helps you as well.

When I swap the shellstyle.dlls, the folder will freeze and I can't access the folder. I use a customized windows classic theme.

If anyone has trouble like I did with this shellstyle.dll, you can simply edit the shell32.dll file to remove the toolbar. Follow the instructions here to remove it.