UltraWinBar is a fork of RetroBar, the upstream project.
Source tree and build instructions
Pining for simpler times? UltraWinBar teleports you back in time by replacing your modern Windows taskbar with the classic Windows 95, 98, Me, 2000, XP, or Vista style.
UltraWinBar is based on the ManagedShell library for great compatibility and performance.
- Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, or Windows 11
- Fresh installs of Windows 7 may require additional Windows updates.
- Microsoft .NET Desktop Runtime - When using the UltraWinBar installer, this is automatically downloaded and installed if necessary. If you're using the portable version, you will be prompted to download on first launch.
- Replaces default Windows taskbar with classic layout
- Native notification area with balloon notification support
- Native task list with UWP app support and drag reordering
- Quick launch toolbar
- Start button opens modern start menu
- Ability to show or hide the clock
- Ability to auto-hide the taskbar
- Locked and unlocked taskbar appearances
- Display taskbar on any side of the screen (even on Windows 11)
- Resizable taskbar with support for multiple rows
- Option to display the taskbar, notification area, and clock on multiple monitors
- Ability to show Vista-style window thumbnails
- Customizable XP-style collapsible notification area with drag reordering
- Input language and keyboard layout switcher
- Custom theme support
- System (Classic, XP, and Vista)
- Watercolor
- Windows 95-98
- Windows Me
- Windows 2000
- Windows XP:
- Classic
- Blue
- Olive Green
- Silver
- Royale
- Royale Noir
- Embedded Style
- Zune Style
- Windows Longhorn Aero
- Windows Vista:
- Aero
- Basic
- Classic
Additional themes can be installed through Properties > Advanced.
- Arabic (العربية)
- Basque (euskara)
- Belarusian (беларуская)
- Bulgarian (български)
- Catalan (català)
- Chinese (Simplified) (中文(简体))
- Chinese (Traditional) (中文(繁體))
- Croatian (hrvatski)
- Czech (čeština)
- Danish (dansk)
- Dutch (Nederlands)
- English
- English (United Kingdom)
- Finnish (Suomi)
- French (français)
- German (Deutsch)
- Greek (ελληνικά)
- Hebrew (עברית)
- Hungarian (magyar)
- Icelandic (íslenska)
- Indonesian (Indonesia)
- Italian (italiano)
- Japanese (日本語)
- Korean (한국어)
- Latvian (latviešu)
- Lithuanian (lietuvių)
- Luxembourgish (Lëtzebuergesch)
- Macedonian (Македонски)
- Malay (Melayu)
- Maltese (Malti)
- Norsk (bokmål)
- Persian (فارسی)
- Polish (polski)
- Portuguese (português)
- Romanian (română)
- Russian (русский)
- Serbian (Cyrillic) (српски)
- Serbian (Latin) (srpski)
- Slovak (slovenčina)
- Spanish (español)
- Swedish (svenska)
- Thai (ไทย)
- Turkish (Türkçe)
- Ukrainian (українська)
- Vietnamese (Tiếng Việt)
- Welsh (Cymraeg)
UltraWinBar supports custom languages and themes. You may install community-made theme files that you have downloaded in UltraWinBar Properties > Advanced.
You may manually install custom languages or themes by creating a Languages or a Themes directory in %localappdata%\UltraWinBar, and placing valid .xaml language or theme files there.
Themes use the XAML ResourceDictionary format. When creating a new theme, view the included example themes to get started.
Right-click a task and choose Pin to this taskbar. A closed pinned application keeps one icon; a running application shows a separate task button and title for each open window. Clicking a task activates that specific window. Launching a pinned icon assigns the application to that panel on the current Windows virtual desktop.
Task and pinned-icon context menus can copy the executable path or its containing
directory, including before a pinned application starts. Shortcut pins copy the
shortcut's target, not the .lnk path. Items are disabled when no filesystem
executable path is available.
When pinning an application running from the current temporary directory,
UltraWinBar asks for its permanent launcher (.exe or .lnk). If an existing
pin's launch file has disappeared, clicking it opens the same selection dialog;
cancelling leaves the pin unchanged, and a selection is saved for subsequent
launches. The window-matching identifier and panel position are retained.
With Try to keep opened windows on this desktop (experimental) enabled, pinned launchers and unmodified desktop-icon double-clicks follow this order:
- Reuse a matching window already available on the current desktop. Windows shown on all desktops count as available: activate them without moving them or creating another instance.
- If no matching local window exists, open a new browser window or Explorer
folder window here, leaving windows on other desktops unchanged. Folder
matching uses the actual folder path, not just
explorer.exe. - Notepad++ uses
-multiInst -nosession: a separate instance without restoring the previous session. - Other applications retain the existing window-transfer behavior.
Supported browser executables are Chrome/Chromium, Edge, Yandex Browser, Brave, Vivaldi, Opera, Firefox, Waterfox and LibreWolf. Shortcut arguments, working directory and the shortcut's administrator flag are retained.
This does not intercept links/documents launched from other applications or change file/URL associations. Tray activation keeps its existing behavior. Keyboard-modified desktop clicks are left to Windows.
Panel assignments, pinned applications, and task order are saved by virtual desktop ID. Restarting UltraWinBar preserves these settings for already-running windows. This does not relaunch applications or recreate windows after Windows reboots. Existing assignments without a desktop ID remain fallback rules; new assignments override them only on their own desktop. Existing pins are initially associated with the desktop active when this feature is first loaded.
The desktop assignment checks run without creating any windows:
dotnet run --project UltraWinBar/Support/tests/DesktopRules/DesktopRules.csproj
(build UltraWinBar/Support/BuildTools/UltraWinBar.sln for net6.0-windows first).
Logs are written to %LOCALAPPDATA%\UltraWinBar\Logs; ordinary information,
warnings and errors remain enabled. For detailed logging without restarting,
create %LOCALAPPDATA%\UltraWinBar\debug-logging.enabled (contents do not matter).
Delete that file to return to ordinary logging. Changes take effect on the next
background UI timer tick, normally within one second, and are recorded in the log.
The DebugLogging setting independently enables detailed logging, so removing
the flag does not override a setting explicitly enabled by the user. Existing
DebugLogMasks still apply.
You may need to adjust some Open-Shell Menu settings for the best compatibility with UltraWinBar. We recommend the following settings:
- Controls > Windows Key opens > Open-Shell Menu
- Menu Look > Align start menu to working area