I've been using a Windows GUI shell called "xoblite" (A.K.A. bbLean 2), and I'm so-so happy with it. I've been tweaking it a lot to getting it finally the way I wanted, but I still want a better placement of the system bar, and the system tray (Which is a separte plugin).

However, I have only used bbLean and xoblite, and I was wondering if there are "better" shells out there that people favor more. So in otherwords...post your Windows GUI shell, or if you still use to original Windows XP, post that.

I would prefer the "Don't be a panzy and go with the real thing" linux comments out...but if you use linux, go ahead and post that too.

[EDIT:] Screenshot here.

I use the XPtheme dll hack and This Theme but not quite, mine says 2.0 and I can't find it again :/

I've tried several alternate shells for Windows, and I can never seem to find one that fits me.

I have a set of command line proggys that let me do everything from cmd.exe. So, I just have a hack that makes my desktop one big DOS prompt and all the windows pop up on top of it. Nice little taskbar too. Hey, if it saves 16mb of memory and some processing power, I'm all for it.

Same here. I just find a nice theme for windows default theme.

One thing I would like a a decent multiple desktops program that functions like gnome or KDE. Never found a decent one though

There is a good one in the xp powertoys.

Yeah.

wtf is the xprthwmw.dll hack?

moneyobie, the hack allows for non-Microsooft themes to work with XP. So you can use user-created themes without having to use a third-party program like StyleXP or WindowBlinds. You can now usually find a program which has the hack for a bunch of different versions of the DLL and will patch your particular one automatically and safely.

But I'm not sure what we're talking about here. XP Themes or Windows shell programs. They are two quite different topics...

I use a very good theme called Sustenance.

I experimented with a shell called AstonShell. It was pretty good, although it's trialware. And I think it was prone to crashing or freezing or something. Anyways I'm back to using Explorer. I might eventually make my own HTML desktop which has some features I miss from Aston, except HTML desktop eats up memory and slows games down if I'm not mistaken.

Litestep? Haha

I've always used litestep

it has multidesktops and all that
it's reallly kinda buggy tho and not that user friendly (you have to mess with the configs yourself) so yea ..

[QUOTE=The Mega-ZZTer]
I experimented with a shell called AstonShell. It was pretty good, although it's trialware. And I think it was prone to crashing or freezing or something. Anyways I'm back to using Explorer. I might eventually make my own HTML desktop which has some features I miss from Aston, except HTML desktop eats up memory and slows games down if I'm not mistaken.[/QUOTE]
I've tried Aston, i really liked it and the skin i found, then i changed my date settings and it broke

BBlean is the answer

Obligatory glamor shot: http://dor.nullmind.org/arc/dskxp06jul05.png

Don't even mention Litestep, heathens.. brr..

Ditto. I'm just used to the feel of explorer.exe

I've tried many and in the end they're always clunker, buggier, slower, and less efficient than vanilla windows.

Bah, I'm still using Windows 2000. I win (not really).

Ubuntu on my laptop though, gonna be Kubuntu if I ever get my router to play nice with my cable modem.

You're just upset that you couldn't get it configured without TONS of work. :p I *TRIED* to help, but I suppose I'm busy all the time and wasn't really of any use.

I use Litestep on my desktop, and I love it. It's so light on resources once you get the theme you want configured the way you want it. But beware, it is NOT easy to do, and it often takes MONTHS (or in my case, years) to get it "perfect".

I just save a copy of my directory on 3 external hard drives to make sure if anything happens, I just run the latest installer to get the registry changes made, and then overwrite the folder to my old hacked out version of indie-step.

The nicest thing about litestep is that it can take full advantage of the Windows API if you know how to code it properly. The language it uses is proprietary, but once you have it down, it's pretty easy to make just about anything show up. I've even seen games that are designed "litestep only".

The main thing that bothers me about these fancy desktops (such as Yecti's above) is that 85% of what you see is superfluous. Even worse, it's usually at the expense of functionality somehow. I don't know... I guess I'm utilitarian or something. I'm just as happy with a shell like bash as I am with a vanilla Windows desktop.

Damn you people, just use Linux already. If you're going to do all that work to make it look like you're using a desktop manager like Fluxbox, you might as well go the extra mile.

Stat, at work at least I have it set up this way as a compromise [along with msys which is basically a bash prompt for windows], because everything else there runs windows and it would be far too much bother to do things like Access the database and use their drive imaging software and so on and so forth with linux alternatives.

Soon the tech dept hopes to get at least one linux box running as a new sql/php server for our own databases [and because th Access database on the upper network is kinda unreliable].