cassowary VS Open-Shell-Menu

I'm using virtualbox on my x220, of I really need windows. However, if you setup a VM from scratch anyway, I would rather go with KVM/QEMU and maybe even try https://github.com/casualsnek/cassowary, to launch the windows programms directly under Linux, with the VM running "in the background".

Overall, don't be afraid to switch distro (use Ventoy, load a few ISOs just in case), try to make sure you have an easy way of backing up your stuff (be it with a separate /home partition, or like I do with storing everything important in a separate drive and then using symlink to make it 'appear' in their 'default' places), and you can always use VM in a pinch (consult this guide or use quickemu or gnome-boxes)

In case some things you do absolutely needs Windows, keep this guide for setting up VM in mind, or use quickemu's GUI.

How are integrated VM solutions like cassowary on the surface pro? I need to run OneNote (this is a must as I am set all work on OneNote) to a decent level, with pen support.

Well, if I actually need office 365 for collaborating with someone, I use https://github.com/casualsnek/cassowary to actually run the Office Suite in a Windows VM and have it seeminglessly integrated into Linux.

Microsoft Office run in a Windows VM and integrated into Linux via Cassowary (https://github.com/casualsnek/cassowary). This requires installing libvirt and virt-manager in a rootful Distrobox (apparently Distrobox supports this only for Alma Linux and Tumbleweed, so the default Tumbleweed guest should be okay as long as you can run it with root) and installing the Python application Cassowary ("pip install cassowary") that then "finds" Microsoft Office in the VM and integrates it via FreeRDP so that you can for example click on an XLSX file in Dolphin and it opens in MS Excel running in the VM. Can this approach still work all in a Distrobox? So that basically I click on an XLSX file and it then opens in MS Excel running in the Windows VM in the Distrobox via Cassowary in the Distrobox? There's a lot of layers here, namely: MicroOS -> Distrobox -> [Cassowary + FreeRDP + Virt-Manager + libvirt] -> Windows VM -> MS Office, and I wonder if this would even work.

Imo QEMU/KVM has better performance than VirtualBox. There are also some tools like Cassowary to make Windows apps run as if they're native apps (e.g. without opening VM first). It's harder to setup than VirtualBox, though.

If you need to use complex Windows-only programs, use the KVM with GPU passthrough and cassowary. If it's reported to be working fine by the Wine's AppDB, you may want to use wine flatpak.

I've been very happy happy with https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu as a Start Menu replacement. If ads have rolled out to my Windows install, I wouldn't even notice.

Whenever I set up a new computer for older family members, despite it being windows 11, I always install open shell[1] and retro bar[2]. Between the two, I've made the operating system look very close to Windows XP visually, and they always appreciate it.

[1] https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu

[2] https://github.com/dremin/RetroBar

There's Open-Shell but it's not exactly a full WM replacement.

Hi yall, I used Open-Shell to change the icon.

There is also Open Shell, a free and open source tool which performs a similar function.

I wish so bad there is a port (a fork) of the Legacy Kickoff start menu for Windows: https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu/issues/1083

Classic Start Menu

I use Open Shell (fork of Classic Shell) as a replacement to original Start Menu. This gives me full control over what appears in start menu - no results from internet, animated tiles, etc (I am on Win 10 though, from what I read the Win 11 is supported, but not yet officially [1]). It could be a solution to the ads appearing in start menu.

[1] https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu/issues/1564

Looks like you're going for an XP theme. May I suggest using open-shell to skin the taskbar, start menu, and start button if you wanna take that extra step? You can also find the taskbar skin and start button here. Also, I would remove the search bar, task view button, and news & interest area of the taskbar just to bring things together. This is all just a suggestion, you don't have to if you don't want to.