I'm using Explorer as my filemanager and would be perfectly happy with it, were there not a major issue using it when Explorer itself isn't operating as shell.

You know, normally when you go and rename a file in your filemanager, the results are seen immediately. Unfortunately, as I updated to Explorer 6.whatever, things have changed. Whatever I do in explorer, I have to wait... say 5 seconds before I see what I actually did and even this is a complete window refresh, which nullifies any new operations I was going to do.
If you don't get what I mean, imagine creating a new folder in explorer without being able to type a name for it because the response time is always several seconds. Imagine deleting something and failing to see it's gone until you hit F5. I always have to hit F5 nowadays, nothing displays correctly before it. Extremely annoying.

I KNOW that this isn't because of something I do. I just used the standard LS installer and there it went. Multiple machines with different configuration, multiple reinstalls. The same can be seen if you open an explorer window while explorer is the shell, then kill the shell and spare the explorer window. The filemanager just becomes blind to the OS, no response.

Some of you have to face this too and I bet you can't stand it either. Solutions would be direly needed and appreciated.

I'm using the finnish version (don't own the english one) Windows 2000, updated to newest possible everything. Newest build of LS too.

I forgot to mention that not having the explorer as shell seems to impact gaming performance(?)
CS with Litestep: 20-40fps
CS with Explorer: 90fps

I think this is both insane and impossible, but it's true and tested million times over. Anybody else having likewise problems?

Windows Explorer does depend on part of the Explorer shell to do refreshing. If you refresh by hand it is done though. As for your problems with CS...unload some of those useless modules you have running.

The strange part is that in the past Explorer managed to refresh correctly despite of Litestep being the shell.

Also, the CS was mentioned as a quriosity. I don't care about it so much, since I rarely play these days, but it's annoying nevertheless.
Besides, I don't think I have (m)any useless modules, and CPU usage is at steady 0%, so it shouldn't be the problem...

Ah, I miss those MS-DOS times for their simplicity. Computers don't behave rationally these days.

you may be low on CPU usage but modules tend to take up more ram with memory leaks or just GUI images. LS normally takes up 3M of RAM on my machine vs the 5 - 8 for explorer.

My litestep takes 4-8 but explorer used to take up to 16 on my comp, i may switch to a better theme although mine is very minimalistic, what theme are you using devilboi?

I have hacked at a version of Thin since it came out.

The CS issue could be caused by some module... Try running LS with no modules at all.

It ain't memory, I've got 768 MB of it. :)

And yes, I got it. GRDTransparent and the invisible shortcuts I used to turn VWM miniviews, volume sliders and calendars on and off (screen sides and corners worked as shortcuts, extremely handy) would remain on top of the screen even in games and draw the invisible (or exactly 1/255 transparent) shortcuts on top of the OpenGL window. Slowed _all_ games down, I just didn't notice it with others, because performance was not an issue with them.

Nastily I couldn't think of any real solutions, just worked up a script that can temporarily shut those down when I'm about to play something. It worked.