Helm
Quartzv0.1.1GPL‑3.0Windows 11
A new shell for Windows 11, laid over the old one.
Mantle draws its own bar, launcher, desktop, notifications and system pop-ups. Explorer keeps running underneath, so one keystroke puts Windows back exactly as it was.
Mantle-Setup.exe · 139.6 MB · Windows 11 · v0.1.1
Use it at your own risk. Mantle takes over parts of the Windows 11 shell (taskbar, Win key, Alt+Tab, notifications) and has been built and tested on one PC.
Mantle’s bar, working, on a mock desktop
Mantle quit and put Windows back.
A working model Rendered from Mantle’s own UI with mock data. Not a capture of a real desktop, but drawn to scale: a 1920 × 1080 screen at 125 %. Try the M, the pins, the clock and the icons beside it. The clock and System panes top left are Mantle’s desktop layer. Wallpaper: Snow peak by Daniel Leone, Unsplash.
01 · The bar
Your taskbar pins, on Mantle’s bar.
The bar stays out of sight until your mouse reaches the bottom of the screen, then rises as a glass island just above the edge. It reads the apps you pinned to the Windows taskbar, so it starts out in the order you already know, with a line under each running app, a clock and a calendar.
Quick settings hold Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, brightness, volume, power mode, game mode and hot corners.
If you use Helm, its icon on the bar shows how many chats are waiting on you or stopped on an error.
- The M
- Opens the launcher.
- Pins
- Your Windows taskbar pins, in order. A line under an app means it’s running.
- Helm’s count
- Chats waiting on you or stopped on an error.
- The menu
- Settings, Restore Windows taskbar, Restart Mantle, Quit Mantle.
02 · Its own windows
Launcher, desktop, and its own windows.
Press Alt+Space, type a few letters, press Enter. The launcher opens over whatever you’re doing. Behind your windows, Mantle’s desktop layer keeps a clock and your system stats on the wallpaper.
The everyday pop-ups, drawn by Mantle. Where Windows would show one of its own windows, Mantle shows its own: notifications, a Task Manager clone, Files, Settings, a media player, screenshots, a screen recorder, clipboard history, an emoji picker, snap layouts, an Alt+Tab switcher and a timer.
Task Manager
Files
Settings
Player
03 · Wallpapers
23 photographs in the box. Or your own.
Mantle ships with 23 photos from Unsplash and takes your own picture, GIF, video or web page as a wallpaper. It hands the desktop still to Helm and Quartz, so all three can show the same photo.
Each photo keeps its photographer’s credit. The photos are under the Unsplash License, not GPL-3.0.
Photos on Unsplash by Fabrizio Conti, Andreas Kind, Arindam Saha, Vulpyr Photography, Tobias Tullius, Dorel Gnatiuc, Kevin Lien, Dustin Scarpitti, Stephen Daws, Urban Vintage, Silas Baisch, Wolfgang Hasselmann, Daniel Olah, Jeremy Bishop, Henry Gressmann, Daniel Leone, Alessio Soggetti, Marleen Trommelen, Alberto Restifo, Sumner Mahaffey, David Angel, yucar studios, Zetong Li. Full credits ship with Mantle in CREDITS.md.
04 · The way out
Getting Windows back.
Mantle doesn’t replace Explorer. It sets the Windows taskbar to auto-hide and draws on top, and Explorer keeps running underneath.
Before Mantle changes anything, it writes your original shell state to a file, so the restore can put back exactly what was there.
-
The kill switch
CtrlAltShiftBackspace
Puts Windows back, then quits Mantle.
-
Quit from Mantle
•••Quit Mantle
Open the ••• menu on Mantle’s bar and quit. The tray menu can put Windows back too.
-
Restore Windows taskbar
Start → All apps → Mantle → Restore Windows taskbar
If the taskbar stays hidden, it’s in the Start menu.
-
Restart Windows Explorer
CtrlShiftEsc
As a last resort: select Windows Explorer, and choose Restart.
This exists because the first live run, in September 2026, wedged the taskbar and the PC had to be restarted. The rule that came out of it: a killed Mantle must leave Windows exactly as usable as before.
If the Windows taskbar disappears (README)05 · Privacy
The camera stays off unless you turn it on.
One feature uses the camera: Blur the screen when I look away. It’s off until you switch it on. A face detector runs on your PC, and no frame is saved or sent.
- The face detector (MediaPipe’s BlazeFace model) ships inside Mantle and runs locally.
- Windows' camera light is on the whole time the feature is watching.
Optional extras: Google Calendar in the clock, read-only, if you bring your own Google Cloud OAuth client. The Spotify controls are unofficial and can break.
Blur the screen when I look away
Uses the camera while it is on, so the camera light stays on. Pictures never leave your PC.
06 · Download
Read the risk, then install.
Use it at your own risk. Mantle takes over parts of the Windows 11 shell (taskbar, Win key, Alt+Tab, notifications) and has been built and tested on one PC.
-
Mantle
A shell layer for Windows 11: its own bar, launcher, desktop and pop-ups, with Explorer still underneath.
Mantle-Setup.exe · 139.6 MB · Windows 11 · v0.1.1 · 2026-10-30
At your own risk. Unsigned, so Windows warns you first. Per-user: no admin prompt.
9f2c42693daf0978d1beb8522591c688806f81008652ef1819cd584862ceb5c6
After you download
- Run Mantle-Setup.exe. Windows says
Windows protected your PC
because the installer isn’t signed. Choose More info, then Run anyway. There’s no admin prompt. - Mantle opens a warning first. Start Mantle turns it on; Not now changes nothing. Tick Also start Mantle when I sign in only if you want that; it’s off by default. A short welcome tour follows.
- To get Windows back at any time, use one of the four ways above.
Updates
When a new version is out, Mantle shows a banner with Download. Run the new installer: it puts Windows back, updates Mantle, and starts it again.
Uninstall
Settings → Apps → Installed apps → Mantle. It puts Windows back and checks the taskbar before it removes anything. Your settings stay.
Requirements
Windows 11 only. No Git or Node needed for the installer.
Prefer to build from source?
You’ll need Git, Node.js 24 and .NET Framework 4.x (which ships with Windows).
npm test opens three ordinary windows and changes nothing. npm run live is the real thing, with a 3-second warning first.
07 · Limits
What Mantle doesn’t do yet.
- It runs on Windows 11 only. Windows 10 isn’t supported.
- It has been built and tested on one Windows 11 PC, so your setup may hit things it hasn’t.
- Google Calendar needs your own Google Cloud OAuth client, and Google’s app verification isn’t done, so Google shows an
unverified app
screen. - The installer isn’t code-signed yet, so Windows warns you before it runs.