Classic Shell

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.
 

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Version 4.3.1 released [Aug 12th 2017]

New features in Classic Shell 4.3.1
•    New command in the Backup button of the Settings window to clear the icon cache  without restarting the menu
•    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
•    Fixed an issue with the Start button in some cases appearing in fullscreen programs and games.
•    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)
•    Improved support for Windows 10 Redstone
•    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)
•    Updated version 4.2.5 with the latest security certificate
 Classic Shell 4.2.5 (Nov, 2015)
•    New transparency settings for skins
•    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)
•    Finalized support for Windows 10 - multiple bugfixes and performance improvements
Classic Shell 4.2.2 (Jun, 2015)
•    Improved support for Windows 10
•    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