Cairo is an upcoming Windows shell replacement. What exactly does that mean? There are plenty of programs that change the way you launch programs or perform other basic functions in Windows. And Cairo started out as little more than a Windows taskbar replacement. But it's since evolved into a complete replacement for the Windows shell, with a custom file explorer, favorites manager, and live file previews.

In other words, Cairo will be a lot more than a simple Windows skinning program. The shell also changes the way you interact with your data. Cairo is still in pre-alpha, and while you can download a bunch of concept artwork, there's no working version of Cairo available for download yet. But the team plans to release milestone 1 to alpha testers soon.

[via WinBeta]