What's New? Highlighted Features:

• Language Updates.

French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish language files fully updated to the current version.







• Launch Pads: Instant Workspaces at Your Fingertips

A Launch Pad is a stack of shortcuts—apps, documents, URLs, internal commands—that launch together with a single click. Whether you're coding, designing, writing, or just switching gears, a Launch Pad lets you start an entire workflow instantly.

Launch Pads are similar to Grid Stacks in form and function, but unlike Grid Stacks they only accept shortcuts to applications, documents, URLs and Internal Commands.

To add a Launch Pad right-click any dock, shelf, drawer, or grid stack → Add New Item → Launch Pad.

Launch Pads expand automatically as you drag items into them, making setup fast and intuitive.

To open an existing Launch Pad, right-click and select Open, or hold Alt and left-click.

Clicking the Launch Pad icon starts the whole set at the same time.

By default, items launched from a Launch Pad follow the global setting "Do not launch multiple sessions of the same application". To force a new session click the Launch Pad icon with your middle mouse button instead of the left button.

If any of the items in the Launch Pad requires elevation, it is critical that you check the 'Run as Administrator' setting in that item's Properties dialog. This ensures that any UAC prompt appears full screen, not minimized, and prevents Windows from discarding elevation requests for other apps launched at the same time, guaranteeing that all elevated apps in the Launch Pad are launched properly.

Windows will ignore elevation requests if a UAC prompt is already active - so setting this option is essential for seamless multi-app launches.



• Multi-select for shelves, drawers, and grid stacks.

Before, you could only pick up and manipulate one item at a time, making bulk operations tedious and error-prone, especially when organizing large stacks or shelves. Now you can select many items at once and move, delete, or organize them together, just like in a modern file explorer.




Marquee Selection: Click and drag your mouse to draw a selection box around multiple items. All items within the box are selected.

Modifier Keys:
SHIFT + Click: Selects a range of items between the first and last clicked.
CTRL + Click: Toggles selection of individual items without affecting others.
CTRL + A: Selects all items in the current container (shelf, drawer, or grid stack).

Click an empty area outside the selection to de-select all items.

You can drag a selection of items onto a Grid Stack, Launch Pad, or Sub-dock—these containers will automatically expand while you're hovering, making it easy to drop items exactly where you want them.

To delete all currently selected items, simply press the DEL key. If confirmation is enabled (which it is by default), you'll be prompted before deletion.

Important: If you're working inside a Folder-type Shelf or Grid Stack, pressing DEL will delete the actual files from disk—not just shortcuts. Use caution when bulk-deleting in these containers.

If you prefer the old single-item behavior or wish to use the shift modifier keys as before, you can disable multi-select: Properties → Behavior → More Options → turn off Multi-select.



• Multi-Time Zone Support in the Iconic Clock Module.

The iconic Clock module now supports multiple time zones by adding more than one Clock item, each configured to a different region. Whether you're coordinating with colleagues in Tokyo, monitoring server uptime in New York, or staying connected with family abroad, this feature provides a clear, customizable view of global time—right from your desktop.




To set it up add a new clock item to your dock, shelf or grid stack, then right-click the clock and select Item Properties. In the Item Properties dialog select the desired time zone and enter a custom label (optional). Repeat for each time zone you want to track.



DST is automatic. No manual offsets needed: when a region enters/leaves daylight saving time, the displayed time adjusts on its own.



• Nexus Icon Factory: full color customization for the Dock Control Icon.

The Nexus Icon Factory introduces a powerful new dialog that lets you customize the native Nexus dock control icon with precision. Instead of relying solely on preset styles, you can now fine-tune the icon’s appearance using Hue, Saturation, and Luminance sliders—independently for both the background shape and the overlapping “Nexus” text.




Use Cases:
• Match the dock icon to your current theme’s palette—whether vibrant, muted, or monochrome.
• Create high-contrast icons for better visibility in dark mode.
• Design subtle variants for different docks (e.g., main dock vs. sub-docks).
• Use color cues to distinguish between different workspace contexts.



• Shelf tab colorization — make tabs faster to scan.

Tab colorization lets you give each shelf tab its own color. It’s great for visual grouping (e.g., green = apps, purple = documents). While not all themes support this feature, compatible themes let you assign distinct colors to each tab using one of three colorization methods: Hue Shift, Tint, or Tone Monochrome Bitmaps.




To enable tab colorization click the new “Tab Color Settings” button in the Appearance tab of the shelf’s Properties dialog. From there, choose the colorization method that works best for that particular theme and assign colors to each tab.

Alternatively, you can set the color for a specific tab directly via its Tab Properties dialog—ideal for quick adjustments or fine-tuning.



• Restored Tray Icon Customization in Windows 11 22H2+

Starting with Windows 11 22H2, direct access to native system tray icons—such as Battery, Volume, and Network—is no longer possible. Winstep now provides functional clones of these core icons.



These Battery, Volume, and Network system tray icon clones can now be customized using the same built-in mechanism available in earlier Windows versions.



• Default Data Folder Relocation.

In fresh installations, the default data folder—used for storing user-writable content such as themes, licenses, and profiles—has been relocated from Public Documents to C:\ProgramData.




This change helps avoid repeated issues where overly aggressive anti-virus software to mitigate ransomware threats blocks write access simply because the folder resides under Public Documents.

Since ProgramData is a hidden system folder, a new button has been added to the About tab in Preferences to quickly open the current Winstep data folder.



• Bug Fixes and Stability Improvements.





• After v25.6 the application could crash if a theme used fonts that weren’t installed on the system.
• Moving or copying nested grid stacks could lead to cross-linked items or orphaned stacks.
• Deleting shelves containing nested grid stacks could cause structural corruption.
• Docking via the Position tab or right-click context menu might only work reliably on dual-monitor setups. On systems with three or more monitors, docking to a middle screen could require manually dragging the floating dock to the desired monitor, then selecting a screen edge from the context menu.
• Should have resolved race condition issues affecting reserved screen areas and object positioning - particularly noticeable after waking from low power states such as sleep or hibernation.



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

WorkShelf v25.9 complete change log:

• Updated Japanese language file.
• Updated Korean language file.
• Updated Italian language file.
• Updated French language file.
• Updated Spanish language file.
• Updated German language file.
• Updated Portuguese language file.
• In new installations the folder used to store data the user needs to write to (themes, licenses, profiles, etc) has been moved from Public Documents to C:\ProgramData. This is to help prevent recurring situations of ransomware-paranoid anti-virus software blocking the writing of data to Winstep's own folder just because it is under Public Documents.
• Battery, Volume and Network system tray icons under Windows 11 22H2 and above can now be customized using the same bult-in systray icon customization mechanism used for previous versions of Windows.
• The application will now show the real Systray under Windows 11 22H2 and above if Explorer Patcher is running.
• Added a "Nexus Icon Factory" dialog that allows full color customization of the native Nexus dock control icon via Hue, Sat and Lum sliders for both the background shape and the overlapping "Nexus" text. Previous color presets are still available and a new preset, Gray Metal, has been added.
• Previous Nexus icons were added to the \Winstep\Icons\Samples\ folder...
• Users can now select multiple items at once on shelves, drawers and grid stacks, either by click-and-drag-selection (marquee selection) or by pressing SHIFT (for multiple items) or CTRL (for single items) while left clicking to select an item. CTRL+A selects all items. The new behavior can be turned off in the More Options sub-dialog in the Behavior tab of any shelf, drawer or grid stack Properties dialog.
• Icon in the delete confirmation dialog is now a warning symbol instead of a recycler if the item is about to be PERMANENTLY deleted.
• Added new 'Launch Pads'. A Launch Pad is a one-click workflow launcher: you add the apps you use together — IDE, terminal, browser, notes, whatever—and clicking the stack icon starts them as a bundle. It’s the fastest way to switch contexts and get an entire workspace ready instantly. Launch Pads can be added as icons to docks, shelves, drawers and grid stacks. To open a Launch Pad to configure its contents, right click and select "Open" or press the ALT shift key while left clicking the stack icon. Launch Pads only accept "launchable" shortcuts (e.g. applications, UWP apps, documents, URLs, internal commands, etc). Each Launch Pad has individual settings that can be accessed by right clicking the icon and selecting 'Launch Pad Properties'. To add a new Launch Pad, right click, select 'Add New Item' and then Launch Pad.
• Open Grid Stacks and Launch Pads now automatically expanded in size as you drag & drop items into them.
• Added new "Open Data Folder" button to the About tab of Preferences. Opens the user-modifiable Winstep data folder where themes, icons, license keys, etc, are stored. This folder in new installations now lives in ProgramData (which is a hidden folder by default) instead of Public Documents.
• Improved visual stability of docks when the insertion point changes while dragging items over them.
• Added "Date Created" as a sort option for tabs types that can be sorted in Shelves, Drawers and Grid Stacks.
• Docks (but not sub-docks), Grid Stacks and Launch Pads can now be directly added to NextSTART menus or the Quick Launch area in the NextSTART taskbar via drag & drop.
• You can now drag & drop the control icon of a dock and copy it's contents as a sub-dock of the target object by pressing the CTRL key while dragging. Previously only moving the dock was allowed.
• Added "Draw clock hands" setting for the iconic analog clock. Will force the clock hands to be drawn instead of using bitmaps.
• Digital iconic clock module is now the no-calendar version by default.
• The iconic version of the Clock module now supports multiple time zones, enabling users to view the current time across various global locations simultaneously. This enhancement includes dynamic time zone handling, automatic daylight saving adjustments, and customizable labels for each clock instance. Time zones can be individually configured via the Item Properties dialog, allowing precise control over each displayed clock.
• Added new "Recovery Shelf" to hold orphaned items if Check Integrity of Docks and Shelves finds any problems.
• Shelf tabs can now be individually colorized. While not all themes support this feature, compatible themes allow you to assign unique colors to each tab using one of three available colorization methods. To enable colorization, customize tab colors and specify a colorization method: click the new "Tab Color Settings" button located in the Appearance tab of the shelf's Properties dialog. Alternatively, you can set the color for a specific tab directly via its Tab Properties dialog.
• Under Windows 10 and 11 the default "fade in" menu opening animation was not being displayed properly because the menu background blur was being applied even if menu itself was not yet visible.
• The position of the Language and Keyboard symbols in the Language Bar IC was off if using Windows 11 style icons, the IC used the key background, and the two symbols were present.
• Items pointing to shortcuts to UWP apps (lnk files could still appear as blank document icons.
• Question mark ("?") characters could sometimes appear in dates shown in balloon tooltips.
• Moving or copying nested grid stacks could result in cross-linked items or orphaned stacks.
• Deleting shelves with nested grid stacks could result in general corruption of the whole structure.
• If theme(s) were missing when restoring from a backup, the default theme might not be applied to all shelves.
• In v25.6 and v25.7, due to the font caching method added in v25.6, applying a theme that referenced a font not installed on the system could either crash the application or make it unstable. This is because the raster font "MS Sans Serif" was being used as a replacement for the not installed font and GDI+ has trouble creating or deleting non-TrueType/OpenType fonts.
• Improved issues with reserved screen areas and positioning of screen objects due to race conditions, especially after returning from a low power mode (e.g. sleep, hibernation).
• Setting the Monitor to dock via the Position tab in the Dock Properties dialog or the right click context menu was only working properly on two monitor systems. With three monitors or more docking a dock in the middle monitor(s) would only be possible by dragging a floating dock to that monitor and then selecting a screen edge via the right click context menu.
• Setting the Monitor to dock a shelf or drawer in the Docks & Shelves tab in Preferences could result in the shelf or drawer appearing in the wrong monitor after restarting the application on a 3+ monitor system.

NextSTART v25.9 complete change log:

• Updated Japanese language file.
• Updated Korean language file.
• Updated Italian language file.
• Updated French language file.
• Updated Spanish language file.
• Updated German language file.
• Updated Portuguese language file.
• In new installations the folder used to store data the user needs to write to (themes, licenses, profiles, etc) has been moved from Public Documents to C:\ProgramData. This is to help prevent recurring situations of ransomware-paranoid anti-virus software blocking the writing of data to Winstep's own folder just because it is under Public Documents.
• Battery, Volume and Network system tray icons under Windows 11 22H2 and above can now be customized using the same bult-in systray icon customization mechanism used for previous versions of Windows.
• The application will now show the real Systray under Windows 11 22H2 and above if Explorer Patcher is running.
• NextSTART now uses a new icon.
• Added new item type to invoke WorkShelf Launch Pads. WorkShelf Launch Pads can now be invoked/activated directly from NextSTART through hotspot buttons on the desktop, Quick Launch buttons in the taskbar, and even directly from menus. Press the ALT key when left clicking the Launch Pad icon to open the pad instead of launching the contents.
• Added new "Open Data Folder" button to the About tab of Preferences. Opens the user-modifiable Winstep data folder where themes, icons, license keys, etc, are stored. This folder in new installations now lives in ProgramData (which is a hidden folder by default) instead of Public Documents.
• Docks (but not sub-docks), Grid Stacks and Launch Pads can now be directly added to NextSTART menus or the Quick Launch area in the taskbar via drag & drop.
• NetSTART taskbar could fail to respect reserved screen areas when set to have one taskbar per monitor.
• If the NextSTART taskbar was set to "always on top" the tasklist and the systray could sometimes "disappear" (in reality they would actually be behind the taskbar).
• The position of the Language and Keyboard symbols in the Language Bar IC was off if using Windows 11 style icons, the IC used the key background, and the two symbols were present.
• When deleting an item in the Menu Editor some controls might not be disabled properly as they should.
• Deleting actual files or folders from NextSTART menus or shortcuts in the Quick Launch section was never asking for confirmation first.
• Toggle Task Management entry in the Settings sub-menu of the main NextSTART menu was not properly toggling between task management on and off.
• Improved issues with reserved screen areas and positioning of screen objects due to race conditions, especially after returning from a low power mode (e.g. sleep, hibernation).