Classic Shell™ is free software that improves your productivity, enhances the usability of Windows and empowers you to use the computer the way you like it. The main features are:
• Highly customizable start menu with multiple styles and skins
• Quick access to recent, frequently-used, or pinned programs
• Find programs, settings, files and documents
• Start button for Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10
• Toolbar and status bar for Windows Explorer
• Caption and status bar for Internet Explorer
Classic Shell has been in active development for 6 years and has tens of millions of downloads.
Download Classic Shell
Version 4.3.1 released [Aug 12th 2017]
New features in Classic Shell 4.3.1
• Alt+Enter keyboard shortcut to open Properties of Start menu items and jumplist items
• Highly customizable start menu with multiple styles and skins
• Quick access to recent, frequently-used, or pinned programs
• Find programs, settings, files and documents
• Start button for Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10
• Toolbar and status bar for Windows Explorer
• Caption and status bar for Internet Explorer
Classic Shell has been in active development for 6 years and has tens of millions of downloads.
Download Classic Shell
Version 4.3.1 released [Aug 12th 2017]
New features in Classic Shell 4.3.1
• Alt+Enter keyboard shortcut to open Properties of Start menu items and jumplist items
Other minor changes and fixes in Classic Shell 4.3.1
• Added a confirmation dialog when you cancel the changes made in Settings
• The Settings window remembers its maximized state
• Fixed the bug where <No Skin> was missing icons
• Fixed a crash where the search would crash if the programs tree in Windows 7 style was disabled
• Fixed the broken taskbar texture for Windows 10 Creators Update
• Fixed a bug where sometimes the jumplist items wouldn't work
• Fixed the broken Start Screen shortcut for Windows 8
• Fixed a bug where the taskbar color was wrong on Windows 8 if only the opacity was customized
• Fixed a crash when dragging an item from a submenu or a jumplist to the search box to pin it
• Fixed a crash with Windows 10 Creators Update when pinning UWP apps from search results
• Updated code signing certificate for this version
• Added a confirmation dialog when you cancel the changes made in Settings
• The Settings window remembers its maximized state
• Fixed the bug where <No Skin> was missing icons
• Fixed a crash where the search would crash if the programs tree in Windows 7 style was disabled
• Fixed the broken taskbar texture for Windows 10 Creators Update
• Fixed a bug where sometimes the jumplist items wouldn't work
• Fixed the broken Start Screen shortcut for Windows 8
• Fixed a bug where the taskbar color was wrong on Windows 8 if only the opacity was customized
• Fixed a crash when dragging an item from a submenu or a jumplist to the search box to pin it
• Fixed a crash with Windows 10 Creators Update when pinning UWP apps from search results
• Updated code signing certificate for this version
Version 4.3.0 (Jul 30th, 2016)
Version 4.2.7 beta (May, 2016)
• Quick fix for a crash on 32-bit Windows 10
Version 4.2.6 beta (May, 2016)
• Taskbar skinning - change background color, texture, and text color
• New Metallic skin with many new skin features
• New menu animations
• Ability to execute some start menu commands from the command line
• New buttons for Explorer to change folder settings and to create zip archive
• Ability to change the font and size of the status bar in Explorer
• Multiple minor improvements and bugfixes
Classic Shell 4.2.5c general release (May, 2016)
• New ability to uninstall Metro apps from the start menu
• Improved support for Windows 10
• Improved support for the Edge browser
• Improved search performance
Classic Shell 4.2.4 (Aug, 2015)
• New ability to save settings to XML files from command line: http://www.classicshell.net/faq/#install_xml
• New skin features, including glass for Windows 10, shadows for the text and fractional font sizes like 9.5
• New setting on the 'Menu Look' tab to control the opacity of the glass on Windows 10
• New setting to align the custom start button to the corner instead of the middle of the taskbar
• Multiple minor improvements and bugfixes