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Comment by ajdude | Hacker News Reader

Whenever I set up a new computer for older family members, despite it being windows 11, I always install open shell[1] and retro bar[2]. Between the two, I've made the operating system look very close to Windows XP visually, and they always appreciate it.

[1] https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu

[2] https://github.com/dremin/RetroBar

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My grandpa in particular is very technologically savvy but his real expertise stops around 1999. He uses windows 11 but detests it and frequently encounters issues that no one else on the internet have. One time while visiting, I set up windows 3.1 in a virtual box VM and he lit up like a candle. He was very excited about getting his old pascal programs running again.

You're probably already aware there are some hilarious drivers for I think VirtualBox that let ~Win3.1 achieve practically infinite VGA resolution.

And then you have your choice of networking via eg SLIP or (more sanely lol) a program that can mount VHDs offline.

I hate it when visual oriented products make it difficult or impossible to see a screenshot of how they look like. Both of those products' github pages don't have screenshot, the first does have a website but no screenshots or links to them there either.

Do you have to install a tool that modifies the internals of your OS in order to see how it could look like? Imagine if you had to set up a painting on your wall before you could even see what it's a painting of.

Open shell could definitely benefit from some screenshots.

For retrobar, at least, there is a screenshot on the first line of the readme (it really does just look like the windows XP, windows 98, etc. taskbar nothing special going on).

Retro bar has a screenshot right at the top

I haven’t gone looking yet but is there a tool to make sure you have all tracking, bing, IE, and anything else like that turned off, uninstalled, or disabled? I usually just go through it as I see things that annoy me but I’m probably missing some privacy and default overrides.

This one is my favorite. Just a series of switches. Run it after a large update. https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10

Awesome thank you!

How do those compare to WindowBlinds and Start11?

I'm still on Win10, but I use WindowBlinds to skin it to look like Win2K. Eventually, when I upgrade my CPU, I'm going to need Win11 to get the Intel Thread Director, so I know I'm going to need to either buy a new version of WindowBlinds and Start11. Would be nice to run a FOSS alternative.

Thanks. Definitely worth a look.

regrettably no arm64 compat for classicshell :(

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