A free, open-source desktop shell for Windows 11.
Download · Demo · Install guide · Shortcuts · Troubleshooting · Discord
Watch the 16:9 video · Vertical 9:16 version
These visuals are motion-design illustrations made in HTML/CSS. They are not screen captures.
Winlestia is a free, open-source desktop shell for Windows 11, bringing a Caelestia-inspired interface, dynamic themes, glass effects, a customizable dock and powerful desktop tools.
It replaces the surface of Windows, not the system. The taskbar is swapped for a dock, and a dashboard and glass panels sit on top of your normal desktop. Your files, windows and wallpaper stay where they are. The interface is a port of Caelestia (Qt Quick), and a .NET 8 service handles the Windows side. Panel colours can be derived from your wallpaper (see Wallpaper and dynamic theme).
The images in this section are motion-design illustrations made in HTML/CSS, not screen captures (see docs/illustrations).
Press Ctrl+F1. The dashboard has four pages: Dashboard (clock, calendar, weather, media), Media, Performance and Workspaces.
- Media: the track playing in Windows, with audio bars that run only while the panel is visible. Nothing is recorded.
- Performance: CPU, GPU, memory and storage readings.
- Workspaces: your applications, games, projects and documents, with search.
Applications, Games, Projects and Documents boards, your favorites, recent shortcuts and quick actions (Clipboard, Quick command, Add website, Customize).
- A dock instead of the Windows taskbar, with window previews on hover and a virtual-desktop indicator. The dock auto-hides: it slides away a fraction of a second (about 0.45 s) after the pointer leaves it, and appears when the pointer reaches the bottom edge of the screen. The Windows key opens the normal Windows Start menu.
- Ctrl+F2 opens the palette: calculator,
>emoji,>wallpaper,>filefor indexed files, open windows, Windows Settings pages and session actions (each asks for confirmation).
Quick controls include a Wi-Fi network list, per-display brightness (DDC/CI, external displays too) and a "Reduced effects" switch. Audio and per-application mixer panels are included.
Screen capture with annotation (Ctrl+F3), text recognition (OCR) on a captured area, colour picker, pixel ruler, clipboard history, focus timer, notes, pin a window on top (Ctrl+F8), a large-files view, and a recycle-bin / clipboard / zip drop zone that appears when you drag a file toward the top of the screen.
Win+Alt+W opens a full-screen wallpaper switcher with live preview and per-display targeting. A fresh install uses the Porcelain theme (light, warm), which is fixed and does not follow the wallpaper; the Automatic theme does. To get colours from the wallpaper, open Settings (Customize), then Appearance, then Theme, and select Automatic. Glass blur comes from Windows itself. The Automatic theme starts with a glass transparency of 5 %, adjustable in Settings.
Six pages with a search field: appearance, desktop and dock, file explorer, daily use, messengers and bookmarks. Screen frame, accent border on windows, desktop logo, quiet mode (dock and OSD hidden during fullscreen), on-screen indicators for volume, brightness and microphone, and optional automatic tiling (off by default; Ctrl+Alt+arrows).
Opt-in at setup: Command Prompt through Clink, with colours synchronized to the wallpaper palette. Reversible. Clink is downloaded at install time, so this option needs an Internet connection.
Also: a Files explorer, messenger and bookmark side rails, an optional push-to-talk dictation (hold AltGr, off by default), and a winlestia command line to script the running shell.
Requires Windows 11 (64-bit). No administrator rights needed.
- Download
Winlestia-Setup-0.9.0.exefrom the release. - Check it: run
Get-FileHash .\Winlestia-Setup-0.9.0.exe -Algorithm SHA256in PowerShell and compare the result with the SHA-256 printed in the release notes. - Run it. The binaries are not code-signed, so SmartScreen will likely warn: choose More info, then Run anyway.
After installing, move the pointer to the bottom edge of the screen to reveal the dock. The setup wizard is in French only. Full guide, options, updating and uninstalling: docs/INSTALL.md.
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| Ctrl+F1 | Dashboard |
| Ctrl+F2 | Command palette |
| Ctrl+F3 | Screen capture |
| Ctrl+F8 | Pin window on top |
| Win+Alt+W | Wallpaper switcher (Ctrl+Alt+W if Windows refuses it) |
| Ctrl+Alt+Backspace | Emergency rescue |
All shortcuts (reassignable in Settings), palette prefixes and the winlestia command: docs/SHORTCUTS.md.
The Windows taskbar is missing. Wait a few seconds (a watchdog restores it), press Ctrl+Alt+Backspace, use the Start menu shortcut "Restaurer la barre des tâches Windows", or run Panneaux.Glass.exe --restore-taskbar or RETABLIR_BARRE_WINDOWS.exe in the Glass-v5 folder of the install. See docs/TROUBLESHOOTING.md.
Why does Windows warn me about the installer? The installer and the programs it installs are not code-signed, so SmartScreen cannot show a publisher. Verify the SHA-256, then use "More info", "Run anyway". A matching checksum shows the file is the published one; it does not replace a signature.
Is there a notification centre? No. Only on-screen indicators and toasts.
Where are my settings and logs? In %LOCALAPPDATA%\Panneaux. The name is the project's former name, kept on purpose. Uninstalling keeps this folder; see Privacy and data below to remove it.
Why "Panneaux" in some file names? Same reason: legacy name.
- The installer wizard is in French only.
- The shell panels are translated into English and Spanish; some rarer labels derived from the system may still appear in French. The language is chosen automatically from the Windows display language. To force it, set the
languagekey (auto,fr,enores) in%LOCALAPPDATA%\Panneaux\Caelestia\language.json. Fallback text is French. - Not tested on a clean machine or virtual machine, and not tested after a real reboot or sign-in (the start-up scheduled task was launched manually).
- Binaries are unsigned, so SmartScreen may warn.
- Windows 11 x64 only.
- Temperature is shown in Celsius only.
- Not a notification centre.
- The optional terminal integration prints a welcome banner in French, with your session and computer names.
- When you confirm a wallpaper in the switcher, the previous one can flash briefly before the new one appears.
- Weather: when no city is set, your approximate location is found from your IP address through wttr.in (which therefore sees your IP address); the forecast comes from Open-Meteo. Set a city to avoid the IP lookup. Temperature is in °C only.
- Start-up: the installer writes a Run value named
PanneauxunderHKCU. On the first shell start it is migrated to a per-user scheduled task,WinlestiaShell, and the Run value is removed. - After uninstalling, the registry value
HKCU\Software\Winlestia\DisplayNameand the profile folder%LOCALAPPDATA%\Panneauxare kept so a later update can reuse them. To remove them, delete the folder and runRemove-Item -Path HKCU:\Software\Winlestia -Recursein PowerShell.
Shipped in 0.9.0: Wi-Fi panel, per-display brightness, dashboard audio bars, fullscreen quiet mode, full-screen wallpaper switcher, richer command palette, settings search, tiling shortcuts, winlestia command line. See CHANGELOG.md.
Ideas, not promises: a notification centre, support for enterprise and hidden Wi-Fi networks, more testing on other display layouts, and a code-signed installer.
Issues and pull requests are welcome; see CONTRIBUTING.md. Report security problems privately: SECURITY.md.
Winlestia is released under the GNU GPL v3.0. It is a port of and is inspired by Caelestia by caelestia-dots and contributors (GPL-3.0). The optional terminal integration uses Clink (GPL-3.0), fetched at install time. Qt/PySide6, .NET, NAudio, LibreHardwareMonitor and other components, are listed in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.
Bundled wallpapers. The 10 images in assets/wallpapers were supplied by the maintainer and are shipped as unmodified original files. They are not covered by the GPL-3.0 licence: rights remain with their owners and their licence has not been established. See assets/wallpapers/CREDITS.txt. A rights holder can ask for an image to be removed by opening a GitHub issue.