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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.
Shell | Software license | Windows versions | Development status | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
3.1x | 9x | 2000 | XP | Vista | 7 | 8 | 10 | 11 | |||
Blackbox | GPL | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Active |
BumpTop | Apache License | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Discontinued |
Cairo Shell | Apache License | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Active [1] |
Calmira | GPL | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Discontinued |
Emerge Desktop | GPL | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Discontinued [2] |
LDE(X) | GPL | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Discontinued [3] |
LiteStep | GPL | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Stalled [4] |
Packard Bell Navigator | Proprietary | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Discontinued |
ReactOS Explorer | GPL | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Active [5] [6] [7] |
TabWorks | Proprietary | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Discontinued |
Talisman Desktop | Trialware | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Stalled [8] [9] |
The graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicators such as primary notation, instead of text-based UIs, typed command labels or text navigation. GUIs were introduced in reaction to the perceived steep learning curve of command-line interfaces (CLIs), which require commands to be typed on a computer keyboard.
The history of the graphical user interface, understood as the use of graphic icons and a pointing device to control a computer, covers a five-decade span of incremental refinements, built on some constant core principles. Several vendors have created their own windowing systems based on independent code, but with basic elements in common that define the WIMP "window, icon, menu and pointing device" paradigm.
Microsoft Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for servers, and Windows IoT for embedded systems. Defunct Windows families include Windows 9x, Windows Mobile, and Windows Phone.
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturing on July 14, 1995, and generally to retail on August 24, 1995, almost three months after the release of Windows NT 3.51. Windows 95 is the first version of Microsoft Windows to include taskbar, start button, and accessing the internet. Windows 95 merged Microsoft's formerly separate MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows products, and featured significant improvements over its predecessor, most notably in the graphical user interface (GUI) and in its simplified "plug-and-play" features. There were also major changes made to the core components of the operating system, such as moving from a mainly cooperatively multitasked 16-bit architecture to a 32-bit preemptive multitasking architecture, at least when running only 32-bit protected mode applications.
GNUstep is a free software implementation of the Cocoa Objective-C frameworks, widget toolkit, and application development tools for Unix-like operating systems and Microsoft Windows. It is part of the GNU Project.
In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphical shell. The desktop environment was seen mostly on personal computers until the rise of mobile computing. Desktop GUIs help the user to easily access and edit files, while they usually do not provide access to all of the features found in the underlying operating system. Instead, the traditional command-line interface (CLI) is still used when full control over the operating system is required.
In computing, a windowing system is a software suite that manages separately different parts of display screens. It is a type of graphical user interface (GUI) which implements the WIMP paradigm for a user interface.
In computer software, an operating environment or integrated applications environment is the environment in which users run application software. The environment consists of a user interface provided by an applications manager and usually an application programming interface (API) to the applications manager.
The Taskbar is a graphical user interface element that has been part of Microsoft Windows since Windows 95, displaying and facilitating switching between running programs. The Taskbar and the associated Start Menu were created and named in 1993 by Daniel Oran, a program manager at Microsoft who had previously collaborated on Great ape language research with the behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner at Harvard.
Program Manager is the shell of Windows 3.x and Windows NT 3.x operating systems. This shell exposed a task-oriented graphical user interface (GUI), consisting of icons arranged into program groups. It replaced MS-DOS Executive, a file manager, as the default Windows shell.
A window manager is system software that controls the placement and appearance of windows within a windowing system in a graphical user interface. Most window managers are designed to help provide a desktop environment. They work in conjunction with the underlying graphical system that provides required functionality—support for graphics hardware, pointing devices, and a keyboard—and are often written and created using a widget toolkit.
In computing, a theme is a preset package containing graphical appearance and functionality details. A theme usually comprises a set of shapes and colors for the graphical control elements, the window decoration and the window. Themes are used to customize the look and feel of a piece of computer software or of an operating system.
In computing, a virtual desktop is a term used with respect to user interfaces, usually within the WIMP paradigm, to describe ways in which the virtual space of a computer's desktop environment is expanded beyond the physical limits of the screen's display area through the use of software. This compensates limits of the desktop area and is helpful in reducing clutter of running graphical applications.
In computing, a file shortcut is a handle in a user interface that allows the user to find a file or resource located in a different directory or folder from the place where the shortcut is located. Similarly, an Internet shortcut allows the user to open a page, file or resource located at a remote Internet location or Web site.
The Start menu is a graphical user interface element that has been part of Microsoft Windows since Windows 95, providing a means of opening programs and performing other functions in the Windows shell. The Start menu, and the Taskbar on which it appears, were created and named in 1993 by Daniel Oran, a program manager at Microsoft who had previously collaborated on Great ape language research with the behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner at Harvard.
In computing, a shell is a computer program that exposes an operating system's services to a human user or other programs. In general, operating system shells use either a command-line interface (CLI) or graphical user interface (GUI), depending on a computer's role and particular operation. It is named a shell because it is the outermost layer around the operating system.
A desktop environment is a collection of software designed to give functionality and a certain look and feel to an operating system.
In computing, the trash, also known by other names such as dustbin, wastebasket, and others, is a graphical user interface desktop metaphor for temporary storage for files set aside by the user for deletion, but not yet permanently erased. The concept and name is part of Mac operating systems, a similar implementation is called the Recycle Bin in Microsoft Windows, and other operating systems use other names.
The pop-up notification is a graphical control element that communicates certain events to the user without forcing them to react to this notification immediately, unlike conventional pop-up windows. Desktop notifications usually disappear automatically after a short amount of time. Often their content is then stored in some widget that allows the users to access past notifications at a more convenient time.
Comparison of user features of operating systems refers to a comparison of the general user features of major operating systems in a narrative format. It does not encompass a full exhaustive comparison or description of all technical details of all operating systems. It is a comparison of basic roles and the most prominent features. It also includes the most important features of the operating system's origins, historical development, and role.