Open-Shell-Menu VS Sandboxie

I've been very happy happy with https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu as a Start Menu replacement. If ads have rolled out to my Windows install, I wouldn't even notice.

Whenever I set up a new computer for older family members, despite it being windows 11, I always install open shell[1] and retro bar[2]. Between the two, I've made the operating system look very close to Windows XP visually, and they always appreciate it.

[1] https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu

[2] https://github.com/dremin/RetroBar

There's Open-Shell but it's not exactly a full WM replacement.

Hi yall, I used Open-Shell to change the icon.

There is also Open Shell, a free and open source tool which performs a similar function.

I wish so bad there is a port (a fork) of the Legacy Kickoff start menu for Windows: https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu/issues/1083

Classic Start Menu

I use Open Shell (fork of Classic Shell) as a replacement to original Start Menu. This gives me full control over what appears in start menu - no results from internet, animated tiles, etc (I am on Win 10 though, from what I read the Win 11 is supported, but not yet officially [1]). It could be a solution to the ads appearing in start menu.

[1] https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu/issues/1564

Looks like you're going for an XP theme. May I suggest using open-shell to skin the taskbar, start menu, and start button if you wanna take that extra step? You can also find the taskbar skin and start button here. Also, I would remove the search bar, task view button, and news & interest area of the taskbar just to bring things together. This is all just a suggestion, you don't have to if you don't want to.

I used to use sandboxie so I could emulate multiple browser sessions without worrying about cached creds or the different portals screwing up my context. It works decently.

Use Sandboxie on Windows. It's open source these days, and isolates processes from making changes on your system. It's perfect to install and run potentially unsafe programs. Sandboxie exists since 2003, and yet we still have people in business worlds running viruses from mail attachments.

Sandboxie

You can allow applications inside a Sandboxie to communicate with each other through sockets even when network access by Sandboxie is blocked1. You can enable Sandboxie network access and use Windows firewall outside Sandboxie to block all applications inside the Sandboxie from accessing the network1. It is also possible to specify ports that cannot be accessed by boxed applications2. However, it is not possible to specify IP’s or IP ranges that cannot be accessed by boxed applications2.

In addition to just taking all privileges way from the process, like Chrome does, there's also Sandboxie [1] and the official Windows Sandbox [2]

1: https://github.com/sandboxie-plus/Sandboxie

2: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-pr...

2b: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-pr...

VirtualBox dropped 3D acceleration for old OS like XP a while back, you can see it it running "dxdiag" on your windows XP and running the tests, it will do DirectDraw only since the game is a 32 bit windows game it should run on modern windows like 10 and 11, I saw that the main problem is the DRM, so you will need a "cracked/pached" exe, I can't help with that, but do your own search, if you want to be "safe" you can try running it using something like SandBoxie-plus https://github.com/sandboxie-plus/Sandboxie/releases

With those pre-reqs, is there anything Windows Sandbox can do that Sandboxie can't?

https://github.com/sandboxie-plus/Sandboxie

Could you pls. test if the vulnerability can be mitigated by using Sandboxie-Classic (that is the free version)?

I also want to recommand this piece of small software but it's very neat, Sandboxie: https://github.com/sandboxie-plus/Sandboxie