Browse free open source C++ System Shells and projects below. Use the toggles on the left to filter open source C++ System Shells by OS, license, language, programming language, and project status.

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  • 1
    Classic Shell

    Classic Shell

    Start menu and Windows enhancement software

    Classic Shell adds some missing features to Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and Vista like a classic start menu, toolbar for Explorer and others. Note: The software available here is not the latest version. Visit the new website www.classicshell.net to download the latest version and to access the new forums and documentation.
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    Downloads: 257 This Week
    Last Update:
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  • 2

    Process Manager for Windows (PMW)

    A easy to use task manager that lets you control your apps

    Process Manager for Windows is a smart Task Manager that lets you manage priority, transparency, visibility of your processes with few clicks. It lets you kill one process or all processes in with just shortcut key and let you gain control of your unresponding windows computer and let you regain all the resources back, of course when killing apps you always have the risk of losing the unsaved data. ================= This tool flourished from 2008 to 2013, and was downloaded over 200K times, However, it was decommissioned in 2013 by the sole developer Arif Ali Saiyed This tool was free with optional donations to milaap.org that raised about $1400 and just that small amount helped 15,372 needy people through microlending and created a new source of income stream for 3401 entrepreneurs. Check out the link below to see the impact you all made by donating. https://milaap.org/users/6877/impact
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    Downloads: 17 This Week
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  • 3
    A Windows Installer Database To XML Bi-Directional Converter. The command line tool msi2xml converts Windows Installer Databases (.msi) to text based XML files. The complementary tool xml2msi reconstructs the .msi from the XML file.
    Downloads: 35 This Week
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  • 4
    Swish
    Access your remote files over SFTP directly from Windows Explorer and 'My Computer'.
    Downloads: 12 This Week
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  • 5
    fish

    fish

    The user-friendly command line shell

    Finally, a command line shell for the 90s. fish is a smart and user-friendly command line shell for Linux, macOS, and the rest of the family. fish suggests commands as you type based on history and completions, just like a web browser. Watch out, Netscape Navigator 4.0! fish supports 24 bit true color, the state of the art in terminal technology. Behold the monospaced rainbow. fish is fully scriptable, and its syntax is simple, clean, and consistent. You'll never write esac again. For those lucky few with a graphical computer, you can set your colors and view functions, variables, and history all from a web page. Other shells support programmable completions, but only fish generates them automatically by parsing your installed man pages. fish will delight you with features like tab completions and syntax highlighting that just work, with nothing new to learn or configure.
    Downloads: 2 This Week
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  • 6
    Blackbox for Windows is an alternative shell for Microsoft Windows. It is based stylistically on the Blackbox window manager for the X Window System, however it does not use the same codebase except for the gradient rendering code.
    Downloads: 14 This Week
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  • 7
    KonsolScript: Automate and Orchestrate

    KonsolScript: Automate and Orchestrate

    Embeddable scripting runtime for live behavior, AI, and automation.

    KonsolScript is an embeddable scripting runtime for games, tools, automation, and AI-driven applications. Add a live scripting layer to any C++ application. Hot-reload behavior, patch running apps, and orchestrate AI workflows - without rebuilding or redeploying the binary. Ship once. Evolve forever. Key capabilities: - Embed into any C++ app with a single header - Hot-reload scripts at runtime without restarting - AI-safe: validate or reject scripts before execution - Orchestrate LLMs (OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, Ollama) in .ks scripts - Built-in: String, File, JSON, CSV, Math, Regex, and more - Plugins: HTTP, SQLite, MySQL, TCP, Redis, Crypto, JWT, Zip - Push behavior updates to remote instances over TCP Use cases: - Scriptable game engines (hot-patch rules mid-session) - AI event bridges (natural language to live app behavior) - Automation pipelines (CI, log triage, file processing) - LLM orchestration workflows Docs: https://konsolscript.sf.net/kookbook.html
    Downloads: 9 This Week
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  • 8
    The Technical Library Template Interface is a library capable of providing standardized interfaces in Creative Commons EAL-4 standards to the open source community.
    Downloads: 5 This Week
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  • 9
    Alternative Windows Console v2

    Alternative Windows Console v2

    Alternative Windows(tm) Console - extended interface to Windows shell

    Download it for free for any use!
    Downloads: 6 This Week
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  • 10

    Kobo XCSoar Launcher

    a customizable boot menu for your Kobo Mini

    Mainly this project aims at easing startup and use of XCSoar (see xcsoar.org) on Kobo Mini. But the scope of use should not be limited solely to XCSoar. The Launcher should be small in code size, reuse most of the original libraries, provide flexible configuration to any application that might be ported to the Kobo Mini. It supports customizable fonts, toolbox-pages, buttons (also graphical), labels, autostart and sleep timers.
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    Downloads: 13 This Week
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  • 11
    SoupToNuts is a repository of technical articles and example software covering Postfix, OpenSSH, C and C++, Live Linux CD, MySQL, SQLite, Berkeley DB, Bash and System Administration.
    Downloads: 13 This Week
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  • 12
    mp3ext
    This is Michael Mutschler's famous mp3 shell extension, also available for Windows7 and 64 bit.
    Downloads: 11 This Week
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  • 13
    GeoShell is a Windows Shell Replacement. It replaces the standard 'Start Menu', 'Desktop', 'Task Bar' and 'system tray' of windows with a smaller, faster, and more configureable program, with an extensible bar-oriented minimal interface.
    Downloads: 4 This Week
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  • 14
    A modular framework for implementing a CISCO-like CLI on a *NIX system. Arbitary command menus and actions can be defined using XML files. This software handles the user interaction, and forks the appropriate system commands to perform any actions.
    Downloads: 7 This Week
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  • 15
    Squirrel Shell is a cross-platform alternative to system shells like bash in Linux and cmd.exe in Microsoft Windows. It is based on scripting language "Squirrel".
    Downloads: 2 This Week
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  • 16
    RemCom is RAT [Remote Administration Tool] that lets you execute processes on remote windows systems, copy files, process there output and stream it back. It allows execution of remote shell commands directly with full interactive console.
    Downloads: 7 This Week
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  • 17
    Larsen Commander for OS/2 and eCS

    Larsen Commander for OS/2 and eCS

    Source code is here - https://sourceforge.net/projects/lcmd-git/

    Source code is now developed using GIT. Please use new project page here - https://sourceforge.net/projects/lcmd-git/ Larsen Commander for OS/2 Warp and eCS. Consists of two parts; 1) the underlying C++ G-Lib framework that build directly on top of native 32 bit OS/2 APIs and 2) the Larsen Commander application it self, written in C++ on top of that G-Lib framework.
    Downloads: 5 This Week
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  • 18
    KontrolPack
    KontrolPack is a cross-platform network controller. The objective is to improve system interoperability by connecting computers, regardless of their operating system. Remote access, remote shell, file transfer, etc...
    Downloads: 6 This Week
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  • 19
    This program is a simple shell. chdir, echo, mkdir,rmdir,cat, history, variables, a little help, ... are supported. For more info see the changelog! There's also a script installer/uninstaller. (you can run it using GabySH!!!). Win32 Plateform.
    Downloads: 4 This Week
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  • 20

    Context Menu (Shell Extension)

    Free configurable Windows Explorer context menu extension.

    ContextMenu is a free configurable shell extension allowing users to define their own menu items to be included in the Windows Explorer’s context menu. This project consists of two DLLs (x86 and x64) written in native C++ with plain access to the Win32-API representing the shell extension, a composer written in C# to be used to configure all shell extensions at once as well as of a help file explaining all necessary details. The composer is also available as x86 and x64 version. Note this shell extension is tested under Windows XP (64) and under Windows 7 (32). Furthermore, a parallel usage (multiple installations) of this shell extension is also possible.
    Downloads: 3 This Week
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  • 21
    The goal of the Basic Operating System (BOS) project is to write a new modular and fast operating system in NASM and GCC.
    Downloads: 2 This Week
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  • 22
    RunAsAdmin Explorer Shim is a tool that lets administrators to keep and easily use their administrative rights but still enjoy safety of using least privileged accounts.
    Downloads: 2 This Week
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  • 23
    Windows Native Unix Shell (wnus prompt)

    Windows Native Unix Shell (wnus prompt)

    A comprehensive Unix/Linux-like shell environment for Windows 7+ 64bit

    This project is implemented entirely in C++ without external dependencies. Windows Native Unix Shell (wnus prompt) (pronounced Wenus) brings the power and familiarity of bash sh ash commands and common terminal utilities to native Windows, with full NTFS support and Windows API integration. . It contains 342 fully implemented commands built-in , encompassing file managements operation and so much more. It has a comprehensive help system. This doesn't require WSL to work, or any other outside compatibility layer. Just download and manage files like you would in bash. It requires git, gcc, g++, and docker exes in path if you wish to use them. otherwise you do not need them for wnus to run. Windows 10 or Windows 11 highly recommended. Screenshot are of older version the app still looks the same, Now sh has access to all built-in commands from subshell.
    Downloads: 2 This Week
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  • 24
    flom

    flom

    Free Lock Manager

    FLoM is a free open source distributed lock manager that can be used to synchronize shell commands, scripts and custom developed software. When used in a shell environment, FLoM manages process synchronization in the same way that "nice" manages process prioritization. Shell commands, scripts and custom programs can be synchronized inside a single system or in a network of IP connected systems. FLoM supports different types of abstract resources: simple, numeric, set, hierarchical and transactional sequence. libflom, the library shipped with FLoM, allows you to develop your own application using a simple C, C++, Java, Perl, PHP or Python client API. SSL/TLS security for network communication, X.509 certificates for peer to peer mutual authentication.
    Downloads: 1 This Week
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  • 25
    Shell Explorer is a GUI based X-Terminal which supports telnet & FTP. This provides ease and convenience of GUI for working with remote files.
    Downloads: 1 This Week
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