What's New? Highlighted Features:

• A Faster, Smarter Way to Launch Apps.

The new All Programs tab provides a powerful new way to browse and launch applications from shelves, drawers and Grid Stacks. Instead of navigating through nested Start Menu folders, all applications are displayed together in a single alphabetically sorted list with letter separators, making it much easier to find what you want at a glance.

Just start typing and the Search Box will appear automatically, filtering the list in real time as you type. This makes the All Programs tab especially effective for quickly locating installed applications without the distractions of the Windows Start Menu.





Version 26.4 also introduces a new Programs tab type that displays the contents of the Start Menu All Programs folder with program groups opening as Grid Stacks. A shortcut to a 7x5 All Programs Grid Stack is now included by default on the dock, giving new users immediate access to this feature.



• Full Hotkey Control at Your Fingertips.

Hotkeys are now more powerful and easier to manage than ever. You can assign hotkeys to sub-docks, Grid Stacks and LaunchPads, making it possible to instantly open them wherever the mouse pointer is, or close them again if they are already open.

Version 26.4 adds a new Hotkey Manager to the Troubleshooting Options dialog. It provides a convenient overview of all defined hotkeys, including their location, current status and any conflicts, and also allows hotkeys to be edited or removed directly from a single place.







• Significantly Improved Search Performance.

Search is now much faster and more responsive across shelves, drawers and Grid Stacks. Instead of retrieving items from disk every time the search filter changes, the application now keeps using the existing in-memory data unless a file system change is detected in the source folder or tab.

Simply start typing to activate search - items that don't match are automatically filtered out.

The result is a smoother and more fluid experience while typing, especially when used together with the new All Programs tab.

Shelves and drawers no longer auto-collapse while the Search Box is open, and the Search Box can now be closed by clicking the magnifying glass icon (in addition to pressing ESC as before).







• New Grayscale Mouseover Effect.

A new option lets the grayscale effect be combined with other icon mouseover effects. When enabled, all icons appear in grayscale until hovered. As the mouse moves across the dock, the focused icons magnify and transition smoothly back to full color, producing a clean and elegant effect that makes the active item stand out immediately.

For animation effects such as bounce or push, the icon switches to full color during the animation and then returns to grayscale afterward. For particle effects, the icon itself remains grayscale while the particle animation is shown in color.







• Winstep Start Menu Organizer Updated.

The Winstep Start Menu Organizer has been updated to version 2.0 and is now properly included as the Pro version with Winstep Xtreme.

Although modern versions of Windows no longer rely on the old Start Menu folder structure, the Organizer can still be very useful for managing and cleaning up the shortcuts shown in the Programs sub-menu of the main NextSTART menu.

This update was prompted by the move of Winstep's default data folder from Public Documents to ProgramData. Because the Organizer had not been updated since the Windows 7 era, it was still looking in the old location for the Xtreme license key and therefore failed to unlock itself as the Pro version. This has now been corrected.

Version 2.0 also brings the Organizer up to date visually and technically, adding support for all Winstep UI modes, including dark mode, as well as per-monitor high DPI support for modern displays.







• Language Updates.

Expanded language support and improved international compatibility





• Added Chinese Traditional HK language file.
• Updated Chinese Traditional, Chinese Simplified, Portuguese, Portuguese (BR), Russian, German, Spanish, Italian and French language files.
• Fixed a DBCS parsing issue that could merge lines and produce corrupted characters in languages such as Japanese, Chinese and Korean.
• Added full support for the Chinese-market SKU, including localized resources, licensing adjustments and region-specific configuration handling.



• Many other Improvements to Usability, Integration and Reliability.

Version 26.4 also includes a wide range of other improvements throughout the suite:





• Added Page Up, Page Down, Home and End navigation in shelves, drawers and Grid Stacks, allowing faster navigation in larger containers.
• Drag & drop files can now be passed as arguments to UWP applications.
• Shortcuts dropped from the Windows Start Menu or Shell:AppsFolder are now resolved correctly, avoiding file not found issues and ensuring running indicators behave properly.
• Monitor names are now read directly from the monitor itself, showing the correct model name instead of Generic PnP Monitor.
• The RAM Meter now defaults to Private Memory on new installations for a more meaningful per-process memory reading.
• Balloon tooltips for shortcut files now display full target file details alongside the shortcut description.
• Preferences now close automatically when resetting to factory settings via the Troubleshooting dialog, ensuring the new settings are applied immediately.
• Windows 11 users can now run a Speed Test directly from the context menu of the Network tray icon.




• Fixes and Stability Improvements.

This release also contains a substantial number of bug fixes and reliability improvements.





• Fixed Critical Explorer Crash When Dragging Files from Folder Tabs.
• Fixed a long-uptime overflow issue that prevented SMART data from being retrieved by the Disk Meter after 24.87 days of uptime.
• Minimizing windows to the dock no longer stops working if Explorer crashes.
• Fixed a potential hang when mousing over a dock while the current foreground window belonged to a frozen application.
• Fixed an issue where clicking the Desktop could incorrectly be detected as WIN+D, causing the first click of a desktop icon double-click to be ignored.
• Fixed an issue where a shelf or drawer set to auto-collapse on launch could become unresponsive if it launched an application that changed the reserved screen area on the same edge.



• Many other features plus performance and stability improvements! Please see complete change log below...

WorkShelf v26.4 complete change log:

• Added Chinese Traditional HK language file.
• Updated Chinese Traditional language file.
• Updated Chinese Simplified language file.
• Updated Portuguese language file.
• Updated Portuguese (BR) language file.
• Updated Russian language file.
• Updated German language file.
• Updated Spanish language file.
• Updated Italian language file.
• Updated French language file.
• You can now drag & drop files as arguments to UWP applications.
• Ensured text for disabled items remains readable even when the item is selected regardless of current UI mode (e.g. Alarm Manager with Dark UI modes).
• On new installations the RAM Meter module now shows Private Memory (total process-owned memory) instead of Working Set (physical RAM currently in use) for each process.
• Changed the moon and sun weather icons used for light cloudy days.
• Shelves and Drawers no longer auto-collapse/hide if the Search Box is currently on the screen.
• It is now possible to close the Search Box by clicking on the Magnifying Glass icon. Previously this required pressing the ESC key or deleting all search characters.
• Optimized performance of the Search filter by not retrieving the items from disk every time the search filter changes, unless there has been a file system change in the source folder/tab.
• Added a new "Programs" tab type to shelves, drawers and grid stacks: shows the contents of the Start Menu "All Programs" folder, with Program groups opening as Grid Stacks.
• A new “All Programs” tab type has been added to shelves, drawers, and grid stacks. This tab displays the full contents of the Start Menu’s All Programs folder, but without any program groups or subfolders. All applications are shown together in a single, alphabetically sorted list, complete with letter separators similar to the Windows 11 Start Menu. Because everything appears on one level and is neatly organized, this tab type is highly optimized for quickly locating applications. Just start typing and the Search Box will appear automatically, filtering the list in real time to show only the items that match your query.
• Monitor names are now read directly from the monitor itself, so you’ll see the correct model name instead of the usual "Generic PnP Monitor".
• Added Page Up, Page Down, Home and End keyboard navigation shortcuts to shelves, grid stacks and drawers.
• Shortcuts targeting file system applications pinned to the Windows Start Menu or from the Shell:AppsFolder are now properly resolved when dropped into the Winstep application, so they do not potentially result in a "file not found" error when trying to run them due to the automatic 32 bit to 64 bit re-direction. Likewise, running indicators now light up properly for those type of shortcuts.
• Windows 11: added "Perform Speed Test" option to the context menu of the Network tray icon, opens Speedtest.net on a browser page.
• More stable scrolling in shelves, drawers and grid stacks, PGUP and PGDN also scroll smoothly.
• Added new "Combine with the Grayscale effect" setting to the Mouseover effects. When enabled, all icons appear in gray scale until hovered. For animation effects (bounce, push, etc), the icon switches to full color during the animation and returns to gray scale afterward. For particle effects (burn, heal, etc), the icon stays gray scale, but the particle animation itself displays in color.
• Any on-screen balloon tooltip is now hidden before the animation to open a Grid Stack, Launch Pad or sub-dock starts.
• Improved the icon selection performance of shelves and grid stacks when screen sized and fully expanded.
• Miscellaneous minor performance optimizations to text drawing.
• Building the jumplist table is no longer automatically performed at startup if the Jumplist feature is disabled.
• You can now assign hotkeys to sub-docks. Pressing the hotkey will open the sub-dock where the mouse pointer is (or close it if already open).
• You can now execute LaunchPads and open Grid Stacks and sub-docks with a hotkey.
• When adding a Grid Stack or Launch Pad, the default name now matches the name displayed on the tab tile.
• Renaming the parent icon of a Grid Stack or Launch Pad will now automatically rename the corresponding Grid Stack or Launch Pad.
• Added a new Hotkey Manager to the Troubleshooting Options dialog. It provides an overview of all defined hotkeys, including their location, status, and any conflicts. Hotkeys can also be edited or removed directly from this dialog.
• Balloon tooltips for shortcut (.lnk files) now display full target file details alongside any description.
• Preferences are now automatically closed when resetting to factory settings via the Troubleshooting dialog, ensuring changes are applied immediately.
• The default configuration now includes a shortcut to a 7×5 All Programs Grid Stack on the dock.
• Added full support for the Chinese‑market SKU, including localized resources, licensing adjustments, and region‑specific configuration handling.
• Fixed overflow issue that would prevent SMART data from being retrieved for the Disk Meter after 24.87 days of system uptime.
• Mitigated Access Violation exception reading from 0xC that happened on some systems right at startup while initializing a 3rd party DLL required for HTTPS web access. Actual cause still unknown although interference from 3rd party software is suspected. It was possible to recover and continue, but this required pressing Retry 17 times. The exception dialog no longer appears but HTTPS access is not possible if the exception happens silently. The Check Internet Access test in the Troubleshooting Options dialog will let the user know if he is affected by this or not.
• Minimizing windows to the dock no longer stops working if Explorer crashes.
• Blank separators in shelves, grid stacks and drawers would appear selected when smooth scrolling a multi-selection area.
• A Grid Stack opened via NextSTART would not show the opening animation under certain conditions.
• Floating menus were not being automatically resized when changing that monitor's DPI settings.
• Fixed potential issue that could cause the Winstep application to hang/freeze when you moused over a dock if the current foreground window belonged to a frozen application.
• Shelf's Grayscale mouseover effect was mixed with Push effect.
• The Icon Browser dialogs failed to retrieve an icon image from a PNG file if the filename had commas in it.
• When accessed from the Dock Properties Effects tab, changing the "Combine with Magnify effect" option in the Effects Panel did not update the corresponding setting in the Effects tab.
• When selecting multiple icons with the mouse and auto-scrolling outside a shelf or grid stack, some icons outside the selection box could remain selected or unselected until the mouse pointer was moved.
• Items with keyboard hotkeys were being executed even if the parent shelf/dock was disabled.
• Fixed bug that was causing language files to be parsed in "slow mode".
• Fixed a DBCS parsing issue that could merge lines and produce corrupted characters in languages such as Japanese, Chinese and Korean.
• Fixed an issue where clicking the Desktop could incorrectly be detected as WIN+D (Show Desktop) being active, causing the first click of a double‑click on a desktop icon to be ignored.
• Fixed a bug in the cartoon moon module style renderer that could trigger an access violation.
• Fixed an issue where a shelf or drawer set to auto‑collapse on launch could become unresponsive if it launched an application that changed the reserved screen area on the same edge.
• Fixed MAJOR bug introduced in v25.0 that would actually crash Explorer when trying to drag one or more files from a Folder type tab to an Explorer window.

NextSTART v26.4 complete change log:

• Added Chinese Traditional HK language file.
• Updated Chinese Traditional language file.
• Updated Chinese Simplified language file.
• Updated Portuguese language file.
• Updated Portuguese (BR) language file.
• Updated Russian language file.
• Updated German language file.
• Updated Spanish language file.
• Updated Italian language file.
• Updated French language file.
• Ensured text for disabled items remains readable even when the item is selected regardless of current UI mode.
• Monitor names are now read directly from the monitor itself, so you’ll see the correct model name instead of the usual "Generic PnP Monitor".
• Shortcuts targeting file system applications pinned to the Windows Start Menu or from the Shell:AppsFolder are now properly resolved when dropped into the Winstep application, so they do not potentially result in a "file not found" error when trying to run them due to the automatic 32 bit to 64 bit re-direction. Likewise, running indicators now light up properly for those type of shortcuts.
• Windows 11: added "Perform Speed Test" option to the context menu of the Network tray icon, opens Speedtest.net on a browser page.
• Added full support for the Chinese‑market SKU, including localized resources, licensing adjustments, and region‑specific configuration handling.
• Due to a change in v26.1 to improve the way the application deals with Unicode filenames that cannot be directly converted to ANSI, it was no longer possible to drag & drop data from the NextSTART tasklist (by pressing SHIFT or CTRL + left click while over the icon) into another Winstep application (including NextSTART itself).
• Minimizing windows to the NextSTART taskbar no longer stops working if Explorer crashes.
• A Grid Stack opened via NextSTART might now show the opening animation under certain conditions.
• Detached menus were not being automatically resized when changing that monitor's DPI settings.
• The Icon Browser dialogs failed to retrieve an icon image from a PNG file if the filename had commas in it.
• Fixed a DBCS parsing issue that could merge lines and produce corrupted characters in languages such as Japanese, Chinese and Korean.
• Fixed an issue where clicking the Desktop could incorrectly be detected as WIN+D (Show Desktop) being active, causing the first click of a double‑click on a desktop icon to be ignored.

Winstep Start Menu Organizer v2.0 complete change log:

• Added Chinese Traditional HK language file.
• Updated Chinese Traditional language file.
• Updated Chinese Simplified language file.
• Updated Turkish language file.
• Added Multi-Monitor support.
• Added per-monitor high DPI support.
• Added Standard, Dark Mode (Black), Dark Mode (Gray), Light Mode and Winstep User Interface modes to the View menu.
• License keys could be rejected as invalid if the user used a registration name so long that it caused the license key to exceed the size of the buffer allocated for it in memory. This has been fixed by doubling the size of the buffer.
• Fixed issue that made the organizer always look for a license key in the old C:\Public Documents folder.