List of alternative shells for Windows

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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.

Contents

Shell Software license Windows versions Development status
3.1x 9x 2000 XP Vista 7 8 10 11
Blackbox GPL NoNoNoYesYesYesYesYesYesActive
BumpTop Apache License NoNoNoYesYesYesNoNoNoDiscontinued
Cairo Shell Apache License NoNoNoNoNoYesYesYesYesActive [1]
Calmira GPL YesNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoDiscontinued
Emerge Desktop GPL NoNoYesYesYesYesNoNoNoDiscontinued [2]
LDE(X) GPL NoNoYesYesNoNoNoNoNoDiscontinued [3]
LiteStep GPL NoYesYesYesYesYesYesYesNoStalled [4]
Packard Bell Navigator Proprietary YesYesNoNoNoNoNoNoNoDiscontinued
ReactOS Explorer GPL NoNoNoYesYesYesYesNoNoActive [5] [6] [7]
TabWorks Proprietary YesNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoDiscontinued
Talisman Desktop Trialware NoYesYesYesYesYesYesYesNoStalled [8] [9]

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">GNUstep</span> Open source widget toolkit and application development tools

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Windowing system</span> Software that manages separately different parts of display screens

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Program Manager</span> Graphical shell for early Windows systems

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trash (computing)</span> Temporary storage for deleted files

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References

  1. "Cairo Shell Homepage". Cairo Development Team. 30 May 2020. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
  2. "emergedesktop.org has shutdown". Emerge. Archived from the original on 11 May 2015. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
  3. 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.
  4. Donelle (11 January 2017). "Re: Added .NET Framework interoperability to the core and started a c# binding library". GitHub. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
  5. "ReactOS Explorer". ReactOS Project. Retrieved 16 May 2014.
  6. "ReactOS Explorer source code". ReactOS Project. Archived from the original on 8 July 2017. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
  7. Fuchs, Martin. "ReactOS Explorer (original author, details)" . Retrieved 16 May 2014.
  8. "Talisman Desktop". LightTek Software. Retrieved 15 July 2016.
  9. "Talisman Desktop News, no updates since Aug 15, 2011". LightTek Software. Retrieved 15 July 2016.