HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

Change the value of Shell from Explorer.exe to progman.exe

=)


And the result:


Don't ask me why its still there. It frightens me to know that its there though...

Yup. Knew about that for a LONG TIME, since back in Win95 when a virus changed the win.ini code to make that the shell.

BEWARE, HOWEVER. IT CAN BE A HUMONGOUS PAIN IN THE REAR TO RETURN TO ITS ORIGINAL SETTINGS. ESPECIALLY IF YOUR FRIEND DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO FIX IT.

By doing the above, you remove all computer illiterate's little safe haven, their Start button. There's no start button, no task manager, nothing. It just opens that. Not fun at all.

Technically, you can have anything be your 'shell', even Windows Media Player. I wouldn't recommend it, since its near impossible to change back after you do that, but you can.

If you just want to mess around with it, and not screw up your system, just go to start>run>progman
Hit ok, and it'll run. Feel free to play till your hearts content. You'll still have your start button and everything, it'll just run like a program, with an X in the corner to close it.

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"The future is not determined by a throw of the dice, but is determined by the conscious decisions of you and me."
I am addicted to ellipses!!! AHHH!!! ...

[This message has been edited by Cool Matty (edited March 02, 2004).]

That image is seriously taking too long the load. I let IE sit in the background for 15 minutes, and it still only loaded about half the picture.

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And everything under the sun is in tune, but the sun is eclipsed by the moon...

DSettahr's Homepage

Well yeah, using something that's not designed to be the shell wouldn't be smart; however, doesn't safe mode restore the shell back to explorer anyway?

I can't believe I never found that before though. Guess its because its hidden in a somewhat obscure key.


And its not hard to change back from the program manager shell, anyone who ever used 3.1 should remember where the run command is in program manager... But it would be fun to use on the illiterate.

And even with no shell, task manager is still accessable.

Yeah, something's screwy with the image for some odd reason... Not sure why its doing that though, as my server's running fine... Or maybe my server is on the fritz, though right before I uploaded that it was running fine. Seems to have gone down now, oh well, I'll look into it...

[This message has been edited by Darth (edited March 02, 2004).]

Someone watched The Screen Savers last night.

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To artificial life, all reality is virtual.
HTP

I happened to catch a slight glimpse of it.

I'm ashamed in myself for not knowing about it before actually. Usually I know about all of the quirky, pointless things in Windows...

Of course they did a decent job of hiding it in an obscure key, but I'd have expected to have read something about it by now.

What frightens me the most is all of the corny Win 3.1 icons are still there too. *shudder* And holy crap, moricons.dll is still there. Bad memories. Eek.

[This message has been edited by Darth (edited March 02, 2004).]

Want more nostalgia? Do you remember the old shortcut for closing programs? It's double clicking on the LEFT HAND icon. It still works.

Other fun things using OLD shortcuts:

Mimimize window quickly:
alt+spacebar+n

Maximize window quickly (when not fullsize)
alt+spacebar+x

Move window (Great for when the window is offscreen)
alt+spacebar+m
Use the arrow keys to move it, or use hte mouse. Arrow keys need to be used to move it onscreen. (You can also move stuff offscreen if you like.)

Resize Window (Use arrow keys, its easier)
alt+spacebar+s

Ever forget these, just hit alt+spacebar. A menu will come up with the letters underlined. Still here from 3.1 days!

---

And more proggies:
start>run (type the program to run it)

mplay32
OLD VERSION of Media Player. Back when movies were nowhere to be found, and midi's were the way to play music.

(Win98 or lower only)
pbrush
OLD VERSION of Paint. Fun times!

(Win98 or lower only)
I can't remember the name of this one, but the old file cabinent, or "windows explorer" as we know it today, can be found. It's somewhere in the windows or system32 directory, with a file cabinent icon.



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"The future is not determined by a throw of the dice, but is determined by the conscious decisions of you and me."
I am addicted to ellipses!!! AHHH!!! ...

Heh, yes I knew about all of that. Especially left corner still closing windows, I mean that's pretty much common knowledge.

And what you're trying to think of is file manager.