Making Win10 look and act like Win7

[lehnerus2000]

Its worth noting that as long as programs never run the only annoyance is they take up space, and win10 takes up significantly less space than win7 even if you do not uninstall anything, so its not really a big deal either way.

Interesting.

My W7 Ultimate SP1 (64 bit) clean install (updated to December 2014) is <12 GB.
The Macrium Reflect Backup Image is <7 GB.

 

[RoWin7]

There's a plethora of bewildering jargon. For example, I have no idea at all what "defcon 1, 3 ... whatever" means or its' relevance.


All sorts of caveats suddenly appear on the horizon. As I understand your initial post, installing Sledgehammer into a Win10 setup allows a cmd file to be run that blocks intrusive MS upgrades unless you permit them. Sounds great and simple ... but then:


we have defcon, askwoody, green graphs. What on earth ?


And interestingly, Google finds the Sledgehammer 2.6.0 in search and lists a few links, including Softpedia. Yet the Softpedia search box itself comes up empty. So Google accurately lists the download screen for Softpedia, yet Softpedia itself insists it cannot find it. Clearly MS dislikes Sledgehammer a lot.

(OT--there's an entire world outside Google. Try Duckduckgo and Startpage, both of which don't record your IP address.)

 

[ian50]

> " ... Try Duckduckgo and Startpage ..."


That's not my point. Google found Softpedia's Sledgehammer listing but Softpedia itself will not. The inference I draw from this curious fact is that Softpedia is somewhat fearful of MS (probably with reason) and MS most definitely dislikes Sledgehammer, again with reason.


This gives me comfort that Sledgehammer is a potent tool. Hence my thanks to Johnoh for the post. It's an important one and I like the suggestion above that with a bit of polishing it should be lodged with the other excellent tutorials on this site.

 

[Megahertz07]

- Classic Shell
Site: Classic Shell - Start menu and other Windows enhancements

- Winaero Tweaker
Site Winaero - Free small and useful software for Windows
Downloads / Software / Winaero Tweaker

- Sledgehammer 2.6.0 - Manage Win 10 Updates
Control Windows Updates with Sledgehammer (formerly WUMT Wrapper Script) - gHacks Tech News
Download Sledgehammer (formerly WUMT Wrapper Script) - MajorGeeks


Disable Cortana How to Disable Cortana in Windows 10 [2019 Guide] - Driver Easy
Remove Cortana How to uninstall and remove Cortana in Windows 10

 

[Lance1]

Hi johnhoh! I took your post and added links to it for more help to the reader. Please review and tell me if you approve. I left out screenshots as the links have such.

 

[johnhoh]

Hi johnhoh! I took your post and added links to it for more help to the reader. Please review and tell me if you approve.

Looks good Lance, though I found two things that may be typos

when formatted, this line appears as:

"(I only proceed if Defcon isn't level 1 or 2)"Refer to link above""

and I assume you did not mean for Refer To Link Above to appear like that, and for the line

"I created a shortcut on my start menu Command Prompt, PowerShell or Run Dialog Box which goes straight to it"

I assume you meant for the red text to read something like How to Make a Shortcut to Win10 Settings

 

[Lance1]

My old eye aren't what they used to be. Thank for catching those. So you OK or discard..

 

[hazel123]

This should get a whole lot easier soon! W10 version 1903 has a "light theme" that looks very much like Windows 7! And the start menu is much simpler. Personally I'm not upgrading to 1903 until it's been out a bit longer.

 

[Firestorm31]

that's some useful tips in this thread.

 

[Lance1]

OK!! I Bit The Bullet.. I Ran the media creation tool for Windows 10... Closed my left eye, stuck my tongue in my right cheek, crossed toes on both feet, crossed my fingers on my left hand, "I need my right hand for the mouse" AND!! ................... I Click Upgrade :shock:...OMG! What Have I Done!! I finished the upgrade, I lit my torch and pulled my sword and made my way into the depths of darkness.. Actually! It's not that bad! I ran Sledgehammer, already have Classic Shell as you can see. I don't need Winaero Tweaker.. I'm running the dark theme. I like it. All In All! Good. Time to start digging around To make changes. I'm no stranger to Windows 10... Just being melodramatic and having fun! Interesting that some app's like Everything still come up white. Does this mean that I can't post in the windows 7 forum?? No problem.. I'll split the drive and ghost the image I created prior to the upgrade and dual boot. Always come prepared for disaster.

 

[johnhoh]

OK!! I Bit The Bullet..

Congrats Lance. What you have is a W10 system where microsoft is banned from intrusion thanks to sledgehammer. Pretty cool. Myself I prefer W10 to look and work exactly like a carbon-copy of W7, which requires all the winaero tweaker tweaks.

 

[Lance1]

Congrats Lance. What you have is a W10 system where microsoft is banned from intrusion thanks to sledgehammer. Pretty cool. Myself I prefer W10 to look and work exactly like a carbon-copy of W7, which requires all the winaero tweaker tweaks.

YA! I,m thinking of running that this morning. I'll post a screenshot.

 

[cornemuse]

Next make 10 look/act like XP!!!!
At least similar, each new version is sooo different from the last. I have 10 on two comps, have not used it (on either) for a year. Have not used 7 in months, I allus have figured out how to make XP serve my purposes.

-c-

(FWIW, In case anyone ever wondered, my avatar is 'floppy disk #1 of 17 to install "Chicago" precurser to W 95)

 

[Megahertz07]

When win 10 was announced in 2015 I joined the Insiders program and also Windows 10 Help Forums.
As I didn't like Win 10 (I do have a HDD with Win 10 Pro with v1903), I remain using Win 7 HP as my main OS (also have Lubuntu on another partition)
On last Monday I logged into tenforums.com to see what are the main problems facing Win 10 users.
I was astonished to find so many problems related to Win 10 "bugs".
Can imagine those who needs windows to daily work facing problems just because M$ didn't do their homework.
And when those "bugs" are patched and fixed, Win 10 updates to a new version that brings new "bugs".
That may explain why, even with the free "upgrade" 35% of all computers still remain running win 7. (win 10 has now 45%)
Operating system market share

 

[teckneeculler]

...That may explain why, even with the free "upgrade" 35% of all computers still remain running win 7. (win 10 has now 45%)
Operating system market share

Actually, the chart shows: (June 2019)

W10 - 40.28%
W7 - 38.3%
W8.1 - 4.56%
Mac - 3.32% (OS X 10.14)
WXP - 3.24%
Linux - 1.51%

I suspect that many computer users are unaware that it's possible to keep W7 running.

 

[johngalt]

The hardest part is for people who buy new hardware and are unable to get device drivers running on the older OSs. My machine was built in 2011, and while I've upgraded some components, namely video card and internal storage, the bulk of what I have can actually still be used on Win7.


However, I prefer WinX to Win7 - the backend stuff alone makes WinX more than worth it. I have all tiles turned off, using a start menu that is similar in look and function to Win7, but the enhancements made to things like Task Manager make 3rd party solutions not be a necessity any longer, just a convenience. The enhancements to other facets, like the Windows File Explorer (copying / moving files, detecting duplicates, etc.) make it a godsend over the old Win7 Explorer and it's sheer lack of usability when encountering duplicate file names, much less show extremely little information on progress bars when copying / moving.


To each his / her own. I'll take the backend enhancements over the older limited OS any day.


As for installation metrics, if you look just at June 2019, you get Operating system market share

 

[Lance1]

Hi johngalt! Can't see your system Pic's! Time for an Update!

 

[johngalt]

Thanks for the alert - that link is so old now lol.


The album should be fixed within 15 minutes of this post.

 

[johnhoh]

The album should be fixed within 15 minutes of this post.

What does your L stand for in John L Galt?

 

[Lance1]

Thanks for the alert - that link is so old now lol.


The album should be fixed within 15 minutes of this post.

Nice pic's! Did that RAD come damaged??