Is it safe to install Open Shell in Windows 11?

[Dave-Rado]

Hi

According to this article it is, but on the downloads page , Windows 11 isn't listed as a supported OS, which is odd if it's really safe to use with Win 11. Any ideas?

Dave

[ge0rdi]

You should use latest Open-Shell build on Windows 11.
Official release (4.4.170) doesn't support Windows 11 yet.

[Dave-Rado]

Many thanks, @ge0rdi. Just to clarify, is release 4.4.189 in beta and therefore potentially buggy? If not, I was wondering why it still has a status of "pre-release".

Just want to check whether installing it on my mum's computer is a good idea or whether it might be risky.

Thanks again.

Dave

[ge0rdi]

We don't have reported any issues with that build.
In general we are trying to fix any regressions in pre-release builds, so I believe they are safe to use.
There are few minor things I'd like to polish before releasing it as official (though no eta for that).

If you want to use Open-Shell on Windows 11 then you simply have to use pre-release builds (or live with improper support in official release).

[Dave-Rado]

Thanks, @ge0rdi. I've just installed it but I can't see any way of ungrouping the WiFi, Sound and Battery Charging icons in the notification area of the Taskbar. That was my biggest reason for wanting to install Open-shell, because having those three buttons grouped so that clicking on one of them brings up a dialog for all three at once is horrible. I had assumed that Open-shell would allow me to configure the Taskbar notification area to behave as it did in earlier versions of Windows. Is this possible?

Dave

[ge0rdi]

Nope. That's not what Open-Shell does. I'm sorry.

[Dave-Rado]

What a shame - it does allow one to configure the start menu and File Explorer to look and behave like earlier versions of Windows - and now that the Windows 11 Systray has become so horrible I'd assumed it would allow one to fix that too. Oh well.