Classic Shell no longer in development, and now open source

[Brink]

Sad news, everyone.

After months of deliberation, I have decided to stop the development of Classic Shell.

It was a great adventure for me that lasted 8 fun and exciting years. It started back in 2009 as a simple weekend project and over time grew to be a hugely popular software brand with many millions of downloads. It was in large part due to all of you, the active Classic Shell community, that reported issues, suggested features, provided translations, developed new skins and participated in forum discussions. My thanks go to you for your continued support and encouragement.

And of course, special thanks to Gaurav Kale, who stuck with me from the early days to the end. His passion for all things Windows was instrumental to the Classic Shell success.

There were few factors that led to my decision:
1) Lack of free time. I have other hobbies that demand my time, some related to software and some not. It requires a lot of effort to add new major features to Classic Shell and keep it relevant. Even keeping it running on newer version of Windows is a lot of work. That leads me to point #2

2) Windows 10 is being updated way too frequently (twice a year) and each new version changes something that breaks Classic Shell. And

3) Each new version of Windows moves further away from the classic Win32 programming model, which allowed room for a lot of tinkering. The new ways things are done make it very difficult to achieve the same customizations

So, moving forward, I am making the latest version of Classic Shell open-source and adding it back to SourceForge (Classic Shell download | SourceForge.net), where it all began. I encourage other people to fork it and go with it.

I will keep the MediaFire download mirror for another 6 months. The forum on Classic Shell Index page will stay open until the end of 2018, however I will not frequently participate in the discussions.

Thanks again, everyone
All the best
Ivo Beltchev

Source: Classic Shell View topic - Classic Shell no longer in development. Source code released

 

[Brds7t7]

What a shame to see the dev go. It's a great piece of software and one of the first things I install on every system I set up.
I'd find Windows 8.1 a lot less fun to use without it.

Hopefully it'll continue in some form with somebody else on board.

 

[TechnoMage2016]

If it works for you today, then it should work for you till the cows come home....why not?
That is, if you don't get a MS update that kills it! Keep good backups!

Happy Holidays, Mates,

 

[Brds7t7]

That is, if you don't get a MS update that kills it!

Exactly what I was thinking!

 

[lffoar]

Exactly what I was thinking!

Oh well, we can live in hope!