Calmira    

The best freeware in the world?  Maybe?....!

Written by Li-Hsin Huang, and now developed by a team of very enthusiastic amateurs (in the best sense of the word), this is for all those of us who are still very happily using Windows 3.1 (3.11) and don't really want to change to Windows 95 either because our machines are underpowered, or because we worry about hardware and legacy software compatibility issues.

Calmira is a shell for Windows 3.x which gives users a new interface to Windows that looks (and feels) almost identical to Win 95 without all the installation hassles (etc. ... you all know what I mean!). I've known many knowledgeable individuals to be completely fooled by this and think it was 95 they were using, its so close to the 'real thing' in style and functionality. You get all the good things without any of the bad! Examples ---

Some Good Things it PROVIDES

• Desktop icons
• Folders in windows
• Start button menu
• Taskbar and applet tray
• Right-click functionality
• Drag-and-drop for almost everything (!)
• Recycle bin

A few Bad Things it AVOIDS!

• Sloooooooowwwwww operation of Windows 95 on anything less than a Pentium
• Major crashes and disk trashing every five minutes
• Incompatibilities at the drop of a hat

All in all this is an excellent bit of programming, and the best bit yet is that it is FREEWARE!

The latest version (and further information) is available HERE

Go get it if you still use Win 3.x on any machine...

take it from your honest Uncle Bob that it's a damn good idea!

Back to my main page       Other Calmira users out there, e-mail me about your experiences (and any tips)!