Open-Shell (Classic Shell)

Open-Shell is a fork of the notorious Classic Shell by Ivo Beltchev and, similarly to its predecessor, it enables you to change and customize the start menu for Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10. As you can notice, the fork enables you to create a flexible start menu for the latest versions of Windows. Then again, if you are using Windows 2000 or XP, perhaps it is better to use the original app for this purpose.

The interface is slightly changed, as the tabs for customizing various options are available as a single menu dubbed Basic Settings. From here, you can specify the behavior of left click, Shift + Click, Windows key, all programs style, so on and so forth. As indicated in the bottom area of the UI, the modified settings are going to be displayed in Bold.

Nevertheless, you can access the Advanced Settings so that you can preview more options and make modifications suitable for your computer usage. In spite of the dramatic visual changes you can achieve with this tool, you will be happy to learn that it consumes very little of the computer's resources.

The application comes with several skin styles if you prefer to go all the way with the modifications, namely Window 8. Classic Skin, Metallic, Metro, Midnight and Window Aero. Each of them can be further customized with individual options like opacity, small icons, icon frames and user picture for the Metro skin for instance.

In the eventuality that you got used to a type of Start Menu that is no longer available with the Windows version you are currently using, do not fret. Open-Shell is an easy-to-use program that allows you to revamp the start menu so that it fits your needs and preferences.