Classic Shell: Forum

Hi Ivo, i crashed my laptops hardware on win8 & moved back to win7, but even with the backups in xml, i still can't see the taskbar skin, only the startmenu button appears,
not the rest of the deskbar.. (( I even reinstalled 4.2.0 unsuccessfully, i stopped at that version before because it was causing me a headache in terms of changes..

Im not 100% but taskbar modifications are a newer feature and its likely they dont support windows 7. there are several other settings that are OS specific.

If your CSM version does have a taskbar settings tab,
double check the taskbar settings.
Transparency could be at 0 ?

If CSM version has taskbar texture skinning options,
I would reset the "Border sizes" back to 0,0
It's happened to me that I had high border numbers for a long skinned taskbar image,
then I switched to a shorter taskbar image and it became invisible.

thx juniper, im gonna try 0,0 cause theres apparently a lack of support for win7 for the taskbar
and i have a new strange thing cause i moved from win8 to win7 with the same previously tweaked skin,
my text in the start menu is bald................. & i never requested it

not working juniper..

its true that i have glass aero in win7 but if i use that crap, im blocked with desktop icons, forced to win a big squared background that takes space and even prevents me from selecting properly because it highlights itself between two icons in a very sensitive way

delicacy, I did a test.

I installed 4.2.0 on Win7.
There are no taskbar options except one "Disable taskbar transparency" in "Menu Look" tab that turns taskbar opaque black.

I installed Ver 4.2.6 which seems to be the version with the first "Taskbar" settings tab,
that allows taskbar skinning texture. Tried a taskbar image - works perfectly.

I never trust using an xml backup file going back and forth between older and newer versions,
because I think file will get corrupt due to options that were never made yet, or options that went obsolete later.

Same thing happens with menu skins that were made for a higher CSM version eg 4.3.0 - just get default white menu or CSM crashes on earlier versions.



Only thing I can suggest is reset all settings with the backup button, exit CSM, restart and set up personal options again.

too much work, i give up & hope to find another stupid dll for the taskbar online ((
moreover, i was trying the latest version, not 4.2.6 & loading a mini rectangular blue png didn't work.
also, if what u pretend is right, my xml would generate buggy results........ . & because it doesn't actally,
it means all new features where bypassed to check or not check..

About the xml file.
For myself, I never recall having a problem.
I don't trust it because others have.

I can only assume what happens is a user makes changes from a non-matching version, saves then uses that on a different version again.
Also, possibly xml file is edited by itself, not through CSM.
On wonky xmls that Jcee and I have fixed for people, here and on Open-Shell Github,
there are text changes that don't match up and need to be deleted/replaced with known good text.
It's like the information gets rewritten a different way on the wonky ones.
That's the ass in me just from xml comparison observations, not any technical knowledge about xml.

Hope you figure out how to get everything working.
Bye