Software Update: Classic Shell 3.9.1 Beta

With version number 3.9.1, the second beta release of Classic Shell 4.0 has been released. This open source program can make changes to the appearance of Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer, the start button, and the start menu in Windows 7 and 8. In Windows 8, it can add a start button and start menu, and cause Windows to boot directly to the desktop environment, instead of of the Metro interface. In version 4.0, support for Windows Vista has been discontinued and the Windows 7 skin has been greatly improved. The changelog for this release looks like this:

Version 3.9.1 beta

• The All Programs tree can be rearranged with drag and drop
• The start button settings are applied immediately and you can see a preview of the button image in the settings dialog
• The start menu can use the native Windows 8.1 start button
• The Windows 8.1 setting to skip the Metro screen can be accessed through the Classic Shell settings
• New item in the main menu to open the start screen (Windows 8 and 8.1)
• New setting for the Windows 7 style to control the height of the main menu
• The installer uses better compression that reduces the download size by half
• Many bug fixes reported for the previous beta version