List of alternative shells for Windows
This is a list of software that provides an alternative graphical user interface for Microsoft Windows operating systems. The technical term for this interface is a shell. Windows' standard user interface is the Windows shell; Windows 3.0 and Windows 3.1x have a different shell, called Program Manager. The programs in this list do not restyle the Windows shell, but replace it; therefore, they look and function differently, and have different configuration options.
| Shell | Software license | Windows versions | Development status | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.1x | 9x | 2000 | XP | Vista | 7 | 8 | 10 | |||
| Blackbox | GPL | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Active |
| BumpTop | Apache License | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Discontinued |
| Cairo Shell | Apache License | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Active[1] |
| Calmira | GPL | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Discontinued |
| Emerge Desktop | GPL | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Discontinued[2] |
| KDE Plasma Workspaces | GPL | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Discontinued on Windows[3] |
| LDE(X) | GPL | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | Discontinued[4] |
| LiteStep | GPL | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Stalled[5] |
| Packard Bell Navigator | Proprietary | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | Discontinued |
| ReactOS Explorer | GPL | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Active[6][7][8] |
| TabWorks | Proprietary | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Discontinued |
| Talisman Desktop | Trialware | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Stalled[9][10] |
See also
References
- "Cairo Shell Homepage". Cairo Development Team. 30 May 2020. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
- "emergedesktop.org has shutdown". Emerge. Archived from the original on 11 May 2015. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
- Funk, Kevin (18 June 2016). "KDE on Windows status update". Personal Blog of Kevin Funk. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
- phil (18 April 2007). "The road ahead is a cliff face". LDE(x) Forums. Archived from the original on 26 October 2007. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
- Donelle (11 January 2017). "Re: Added .NET Framework interoperability to the core and started a c# binding library". GitHub. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
- "ReactOS Explorer". ReactOS Project. Retrieved 16 May 2014.
- "ReactOS Explorer source code". ReactOS Project. Archived from the original on 8 July 2017. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
- Fuchs, Martin. "ReactOS Explorer (original author, details)". Retrieved 16 May 2014.
- "Talisman Desktop". LightTek Software. Retrieved 15 July 2016.
- "Talisman Desktop News, no updates since Aug 15, 2011". LightTek Software. Retrieved 15 July 2016.
External links
- Liming, Sean (August 2003). "Windows XP Embedded – Different Shells for Different Users". Microsoft Developer Network. Microsoft. Retrieved 15 November 2011.
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