FAQ
After you agree to the license terms, the installer will ask which features you want to be installed. Simply uncheck the components you don't want to install.
To safely uninstall Open-Shell, follow these steps:
- Stop the Start menu process if it is installed (right-click on the Start button and select “Exit”).
- Open a new File Explorer window
- Make sure the toolbar is hidden (if you uninstall while the toolbar is visible, the menu bar in Explorer will get stuck in the visible state and you won’t be able to hide it).
- Close all Explorer windows.
- Open Control Panel -> Programs and Features (Settings -> Apps -> Apps & features in Windows 10) and uninstall Open-Shell. Then follow the instructions. The uninstaller may require you to restart your computer in order to complete the process.
- If you installed any additional skins for the Start menu, you can delete them manually.
The Open-Shell update component regularly checks if there is a new version of Open-Shell and will show a notification.To disable the automatic check, run Open-Shell Update from the Open-Shell folder in the Start menu Programs list and uncheck "Automatically check for new versions".
You can also completely uninstall the update feature. Run the Open-Shell installer, select Change, then remove the Open-Shell Update component.
Many antiviruses and browsers show warnings or block newly released files for having a low reputation, meaning that the file is too new to be able to confirm its safety. Open-Shell is malware-free and recent changes to code can be seen here.
Open the General Behavior tab in the Open-Shell Menu Settings dialog and uncheck "Start automatically for this user".
You can change the Main menu animation, Main menu animation speed, Sub-menu animation and Sub-menu animation speed settings in the General Behavior tab of the Settings dialog. Another way is to change the global system setting. Search for "View advanced system settings" in the Start menu, click on the Performance Settings button, and check or uncheck the option "Fade or slide menus into view".
Check out the Skinning Tutorial.
You can customize and rearrange Start menu items in the Customize Start Menu tab of the Open-Shell Menu Settings dialog. Drag and drop menu items to change their order or create any new items you want.
In the Start menu, right-click and select "Unpin from Start menu (Open-Shell)". You can also find the setting "Show Start screen shortcut" in the Main Menu tab and uncheck it.
You can customize the Explorer toolbar from the Toolbar Buttons tab in the Classic Explorer Settings dialog. Drag and drop buttons to customize the toolbar as you wish.
Windows 7: Go to the View menu and check/uncheck the Status Bar item.
Windows 8/10: The status bar is implemented by Open-Shell. Enable/disable it from the Status Bar tab in the Classic Explorer settings. You may want to disable the built-in status bar from Explorer's Folder Options dialog. The setting is in the View tab of the File Explorer ribbon.
No. The Save As and Open dialogs are controlled by their respective applications - Notepad, Word, Photoshop, etc. Here's just a few of the problems with implementing this feature:
- Every application is unique. There is no way to ensure stable work for arbitrary applications. Often applications take steps to customize their dialogs, and this could conflict with Open-Shell's code.
- Doing anything like this is a guaranteed way to get an endless list of compatibility bugs, and Open-Shell cannot test compatibility with every existing program.
- Injecting code into external applications in this way is likely to be flagged by antivirus software as malicious. This could also negatively impact performance.
