Install Start 10 and OldNewExplorer (do a net search). Windows 10 can look almost exactly like Windows 7.  Oh, and forget the touch screen and/or mouse pad stuff, just use a normal mouse.

Yeah, we've done all that, except for the Explorer part.... which I will investigate shortly.  I still have a bit of work to do on it to make it truly user friendly, but yeah, Win 10 sure is an ugly bitch and in desperate need of cosmetic changes if is going to survive the day.  The default start menu is an abomination and an eyesore... so glad Stardock developed Stat10.

Other than Win 10, this laptop is quite a nice unit with good looks and decent specs... though a SSD may be introduced in the future [as an as-well-as] to boost speed and performance.

Good machine think that you might be theoretically able a 64 bit linux too on it.

Secs looks good to work with. only thing it lacks is much usb ports , but it has a 3.0 one if it has real 3.0 speed no problem then.

DON`T forget  fence .

the only thing that has me stumped is how on earth am i meant to open up me  DVD drive,  its made for idiots like me not to open it lol

I downloaded it to take a look at it and saw two .dll files (one for x32 another for x64) included...a couple of minor questions:

1) Are these dll files "patches" á la uxstyles/msstyles? Do files bearing the same name exist on your system, and are you replacing them?

2) Will using this "utility" void warranties?

And a thought: Make sure you create a restore point (better, a backup and restore point) before installing this.

If you are talking about OldNewExplorer Doc, it just does registry changes as far as I know, and it cannot possibly void any warranties. You can turn it on and of very easily too. Been using it for ages on Windows 8.1, and also now on Windows 10 and never had any issues.  I highly recommend it for those who want to get rid of the Windows 10 look in explorer, and it works fine with Start 10 and Windowblinds 10 also.

Tom...if it only does registry changes, why are there two dll files included?

I dunno Doc, I am not a programmer. I could be wrong, but all I know is that it works and it works great.

Starkers is now working on it to make it easier for me to use im getting old now im 49 today too close to the big 50 lol. All this modern technology is doing my head in 

Well I've tweaked 10's privacy settings, plus making a few other adjustments, and now Shaunna's laptop is more to her liking   And Tom, thanks for the tip about OldNew Exploer, it has made all the difference.  Combined with Start10, Win 10 now looks and behaves much like Win 7 and is far nicer to use.

I still can't get over why MS thought 10 was fit for release.  Without 3rd party apps to correct a lot of damned awful and fugly stuff, out-of-the-box Win10 is the worst OS I have had the displeasure of using.  People bitched and moaned about Win 8 like it was a demon born in Hell, but this Win 10 bastard is its illegitimate spawn and is suffering multiple birth defects.

Thank you, thank you, thank you , i am a happy lil birthday girl now wooohoo yeah im a kicking back with a  glass of passion pop  my all time favorite drink

registry changes? not sure where you got this information or whether this is just wishful thinking of some kind. 

what OldNewExplorer does is patching system files (replacing resources in those files with resources from older versions of Windows). it does not replace files, it patches files in runtime memory. (as for example UxStlye does)

messing with files required by explorer.exe is more dangerous than messing with msstyles.dll. and of course it will void your warranty.

these dangers are all theory though. does a private user really care about warranty? on the other hand if you do such skinning/customizing shenanigans (incl. WindowBlinds, Fences, Rainmeter, etc) in a corporate environment, you deserve to get fired anyways.

personally i see nothing wrong with patching files either in memory or on the harddrive, it's how the whole the skinning thing started after all. 

btw: "it comes with dll files" is really irrelevant. a dll file is shared resource. that's all.

Thanks for the information moshi, I don't see anything wrong with patching system files in memory personally, as long as it works and causes no harm like OldNewExplorer does. If it wasn't for it and Start 10, I would not even be doing WB's for Windows 10, because I would never have installed Windows 10 in the first place.

I've never heard of OldNewExplorer until now. I'm quite satisfied with explorer just the way it is. To me its not a big deal.

As I wrote earlier, doing that might well void warranties from MS for the OS.

Going off topic......decided to try OldNewExplorer on W10 and when I click on the .exe I get an error message that says it cannot find the path or some other and deletes the .exe. Then Panda lists it as a virus. I scanned it with Panda prior to clicking on it and it says no threat detected. That's got to be a false positive. Yet it will not install on W10. I even ran it as administrator. Sorry for the hijack.

Where did you get the file from Ross? Sounds like you got a bad or altered copy somewhere. Try this one: https://skinpacks.com/oldnewexplorer-for-win10/

I googled it and went to softpedia. On a side note: I got rid of Panda as it disables Windows Defender and W10 doesn't like the shortcut claiming its a 16bit proggie and deleted it. Anyway...thanks Tom. Will give it a shot. Done and done. Works great.   Now to go put it on 8.1