This may be a little off subject, but for those of you who use or are interested in trying using alterante shells to Explorer, I suggest that you try SharpE. I have been using it for some months and it has just been updated to a much better version. Try it, you may like it : http://www.sharpe-shell.org/news.php

Thanks, leveck. Some of them are pretty nice. Will try it.

sigh... sharpE not bad , i d used *box for years...

I gave Aston a try awhile back. (It is Eyes-Only's true love. ;-) ) But, while Aston works very well for Eyes-Only on his 98, it only confounded things for my XP.

Mainly it wouldn't let me switch back and forth cleanly--it wrecked some things in Windows Explorer, and finally I did a complete re-format and re-installed XP. Wasn't happy.

There are a number of things I'd like to do differently than in XP, but XP nonetheless can create a very nice desktop. Multiple desktops are a cinch, and so are various toolbars on any of the four margins; disappearing toolbars and whatever. I think sometimes people use M$ products only in their default style, and then they go to 3tdf party programs to do all their experimenting. Quite often the other programs are just offering what M$ can do anyway.

One detail I never found in Aston was my lower case a.m. and p.m., or am/pm, which I prefer to upper case. It didn't matter a lot--I just dumped it altogether, because I generally know whether it's morning or afternoon!

Anybody ever try any of the Blackbox derivative shells for Windows (BB4Win, Xoblite, BBlean)? They run like magic on 98SE, and even better on XP.

I tried bblean but didn't like it. I found it to be *too* lean. I also wasted a lot of time trying to figure out how to configure it, and finally I decided that it wasn't worth the trouble.

I haven't given up on alternate shells, though. I've heard good things about Geoshell and Serenade, so I am going to give them both a try.

Phil

Yeah, BBLean isn't for everyone; some people aren't exactly enchanted by text editing .rc files. And, while the default configuration is pretty spartan, I like things that way; it gives me a sort of "clean canvas" to do what I want.

I think you'll like Serenade (I know I did when I ran it) but the configuration may take some getting used to for some folks (it uses a GUI-type editor). I'd also consider Geoshell if I weren't satisfied with my current choice (BBlean 1.16). Neither shell is a bad choice IMHO.

I've tried a few shells, and used LiteShell + TrayModule extensively under Win 98SE. However, particularly after moving to Win 2000, the replacement shells caused so many anomalies (for example, the system tray was never happy) that I adopted a very much simpler approach. For any interested minimalists, this is what I have done:

1) Cleared the Desktop completely, hiding all icons using the method at http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article05-012
2) Set up a hierarchy of folder and shortcut menus using the tiny freeware menu program MenuApp at http://www.desktopapps.co.uk/menuApp.html. (I tested many launchers, but this was the most powerful for its size, and the least intrusive. Good documentation too, and the providers do listen to reported bugs. Also, it is easy to keep MenuApp menus updated over our home PC network.)
3) Cleared everything from the Quick Launch bar except for a shortcut to the main MenuApp menu (I've set it so it can also be accessed via the single 'Applications' keys).
4) Loaded RBTray from http://rbtray.narod.ru/ at startup, so that any window can be minimized to the System Tray.

I know this approach will not be for everyone, but boy, is it fast n'clean!

Sorry, made a typo there in 3). It should read:
(... 'be accessed via the single 'Applications' key).
[This is the key between the right-hand Windows and Ctrl keys]

Well, I also clear the entire default screen. I have a picture that fills my monitor screen, and there is nothing else there. No icons at all; no toolbar.

When the mouse goes there, the toolbar flicks on. Usually it is on the left margin.

I have a Start button (this is XP) and about five to eight short titles, viz
Desktop
Files
Cleanup
Ops [= Operations]
Kinetix [= kinetics; anything that moves]
Words
On Line

If you press any one of those, a small menu pops up with the relevant programs to that heading. Press "Words" and you get
Word 2000
EditPad
PDF Reader

. . . like that.

I also have a Start Menu that (finally, after all these years) is honed to the very same idea, only it has more categories, and pretty well all my programs are included there. However, only the shortcuts I really use; none of the superfluous ones that programs try to set up during install.

For ages I didn't really "get" the Start Menu concept. One day I finally sat down and untangled the thing.

I don't use any of the "My Computer," "My Documents," "All Programs," etc. headings or files. They don't show up at all on my system.

Douglas, can you upload a screenshot of your setup? It sounds interesting.

Douglas

U R the MAN, really impressive configuration

well, mine is bblean + turbolaunch[[url=http://www.savardsoftware.com/]]http://www.savardsoftware.com/][/url] , i love TL coz it supports dragn'drop and app priority tuning , more than that , i have netmeter[[url=http://readerror.gmxhome.de/]]http://readerror.gmxhome.de/][/url] , they are stable and liteweight

Cheers!

Here's a screenshot of my basic desktop, based on MenuApp:
http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/1349/menuapp8am.gif

Note the three level MenuApp menu which I've called up in the middle of the screen; the icon I'm using for MenuApp in the Quick Launch bar, and the icon showing Irfanview minimized to the System Tray using RBTray. (The volume controller is also in the System Tray - such extravagance!)

I forgot to mention that I also use the miniature but effective BossKey at http://keir.net/bosskey.html to create extra virtual desktops as required. Also, I've stripped the Start menu down too.

@Douglas, nice and clean.

(You can do that identical layout in XP though, so identical you couldn't tell the two apart. Including multi desktops and stripped down Start menu.)

@Douglas, that's really impressive. I also like the fact that your setup has a very unlikely chance of instability since you're not really substituting the default shell itself (just slightly changing some of the behavior). In fact it has inspired me to do something similar with my explorer default. Nice work!

Aww, hell, if you're using Pretty Pictures 98 or 95, just load c:\windows\system.ini into Notepad, then type a ; in front of SHELL=EXPLORER.EXE, hit enter, then type
SHELL=C:\COMMAND.COM for a new shell, then save it off.

Oyaa, now restart Windows.