RetroBar puts a Windows 95 taskbar on a Windows 11 desktop

It replaces the shell taskbar, and leaves the Start menu alone

The taskbar is the strip, not the desktop. RetroBar takes over the modern Windows taskbar and draws a classic one in its place, which means the window list, the notification area and the clock are all custom surfaces rather than a repaint of the original. Windows 7 SP1, 8.1, 10 and 11 are the supported systems, and Windows 7 needs a caveat the project states plainly: fresh installs may require additional Windows updates, tracked as issue 1319.

The clearest detail in the feature list is also the one that undercuts the nostalgia pitch. The Start button opens the modern start menu. Pick the Windows 95 theme and you get a 95 era taskbar wired to a Windows 11 start menu, a search box with pinned apps and a tiled app list. RetroBar itself does not replace that half of the shell; the README only recommends Open-Shell Menu settings for users who run it alongside, and that gap matters more than the skin does for anyone who cares about the look.

The rest is genuine shell work. The notification area is native, with balloon notification support. The task list handles UWP apps and drag reordering. Vista style window thumbnails are optional, and the XP style collapsible notification area can be customised and reordered by drag. You can also park the taskbar on any screen edge, on Windows 11 included, resize it, give it multiple rows, and mirror the taskbar, notification area and clock onto extra monitors.

ManagedShell carries the shell replacement, XAML carries the look

RetroBar is built on the ManagedShell library from cairoshell, which is where the actual taskbar replacement logic lives. The repository is C# and the solution file sits at the root beside installer.iss, the Inno Setup script that produces the installer, and version.json.

The look is a separate layer. Themes use the XAML ResourceDictionary format, and the shipped set covers System (Classic, XP and Vista), Watercolor, Windows 95-98, Me, 2000, XP in eight variants including Blue, Olive Green, Silver, Royale and Zune Style, plus Longhorn Aero and Vista in Aero, Basic and Classic. Shading is handled outside XAML: shader_invert.hlsl and shader_compile.bat in the repository root compile the effect shaders.

That split is also why custom themes can be installed by hand without a rebuild.

Two install routes, and one runtime prompt you cannot skip

The installer and the portable build are not the same deal. With the installer, Microsoft .NET Desktop Runtime is downloaded and installed automatically if necessary. With the portable build, you are prompted to download it on first launch. That is the whole install story the documentation gives: no command line, no package manager entry, no repository clone step, just a download from the project's releases.

First use is short. Launch it, and the classic taskbar takes the place of the modern one. Change the theme in RetroBar Properties. Community theme files you have downloaded install through RetroBar Properties > Advanced. If you have Open-Shell Menu installed alongside it, two settings matter: set Controls > Windows Key opens to Open-Shell Menu, and set Menu Look > Align start menu to working area, which the README recommends for the best compatibility.

The trade-off between the two routes is the runtime, and it is the one thing to decide before you download. The installer handles the dependency. The portable build leaves a network download sitting in front of first launch, which is awkward on a locked down machine or an offline one, and the README documents no way to pre-stage that runtime.

Hand installed themes drop into %localappdata%\RetroBar

Custom languages and themes install two ways: through RetroBar Properties > Advanced for downloaded files, or by hand. The manual route is a directory called Languages or Themes inside %localappdata%\RetroBar, holding valid .xaml language or theme files. No installer step, no registry entry, no restart prompt described.

That makes the theme layer the cheapest part of the project to hack on, and it is the only documented extension surface beyond Open-Shell Menu compatibility. Valid XAML in the right directory is the whole contract. The README points at the included example themes under RetroBar/Themes as the starting point.

The boundary is sharp, though. Nothing outside the taskbar is themeable this way, so a theme cannot restyle the modern start menu that the Start button opens. And because the contract is only file placement plus valid XAML, there is no listed fallback for a dictionary that parses but paints invisible text.

Fifty languages are listed, and the custom language file format is left undefined

The language list runs from Arabic through Welsh and includes both Chinese scripts, both Serbian scripts, and separate English and English (United Kingdom) entries. The input language and keyboard layout switcher sits inside the taskbar itself, so the same panel that holds the clock also switches layouts.

Here is the catch a skim misses. The same mechanism that accepts a hand dropped .xaml file into the Languages directory is offered for your own translations, yet the documentation names the directory and the file extension and stops. It does not document how keys inside the language file are named or matched to strings in the interface. There is no published list of required keys to check against.

That matters for the audience that would care most about the language support. For a user switching between the shipped English and Chinese languages, the file placement rule is enough. For a translator, the first real task is guessing a key naming convention, and the README will not confirm it.

Where Open-Shell Menu already owns the same ground

The documentation names Open-Shell Menu as a project RetroBar can sit beside, which makes it the honest alternative to compare against. The difference is in approach rather than in output. Open-Shell Menu is a start menu and taskbar replacement you configure inside its own settings, where you set what the Windows key does and how the menu aligns to the working area. RetroBar keeps your modern start menu and confines its changes to the taskbar surface.

That boundary is RetroBar's advantage and its limit. It leaves the app list, search and UWP entry points that Windows 11 users rely on intact. What you give up is any single point of control over the whole shell, because the desktop you end up with is a Win9x era taskbar attached to a 2020s start menu.

If you want the period look to extend past the strip of icons at the bottom, the README's answer is to run Open-Shell Menu alongside RetroBar with its recommended settings.

There is no uninstall procedure and no settings reference page

The gaps in the documentation cluster in one place. Nothing describes how to uninstall RetroBar or how to restore the Windows taskbar if the shell fails to start. Nothing lists what each entry in RetroBar Properties does, beyond the Advanced page used for theme and language installs. There is no documented command line interface, no documented configuration file, and no statement about what happens on a Windows feature update, where the built-in taskbar changes underneath a replacement.

Two omissions have practical consequences. If a theme dictionary fails to load, there is no documented safe mode and no documented way to force the System theme from outside the interface. And a machine managed by an image or a package, where the taskbar has to come back on a schedule, has nothing documented to script against.

RetroBar is released under the Apache-2.0 licence and the last push to the repository was on 2026-11-01. That recency says the shell code is still being worked on; it says nothing about whether the gaps above will be closed.

Editorial conclusion

RetroBar fits a Windows 10 or 11 machine that needs UWP task list entries, a real notification area and multi-monitor taskbar placement, and it fails you if you are on Windows 7 without the extra updates named in issue 1319, or if you expect a fully period-correct desktop. Check first that the .NET Desktop Runtime installs cleanly on your machine, because the portable build asks for it on first launch and the README names no offline path around that prompt. Then check that your custom themes still parse, since a dictionary that stops loading leaves a taskbar with no documented way back to the System theme.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. Official README
2. Project repository
3. Release notes