Before you flame me, I did look through the forum and found my problem, but the solutions did not work. Its probably my fault as I might have not switched themes correctly, or the theme is bad.

Im running Win98:(, all I see is a gray background, I cant click anything. RIght clicking does nothing. I can move my cursor, but I cant click anything, so...Could you guys please help out a poor little litestep newbie:)and explain how to solve the problem to me?

Oh, I noticed that some guys had to use a boot disk, is that the only solution?

uhmmm...before I flame you I will ask what solutions you have tried...since that would help tell us what you have done already.

Well, act, I did not have many things to try, since I can do absolutely nothing on my desktop. I tried safe mode, entering a command prompt, etc. I can fix it through ms-dos mode, but I dont know how to start my computer in ms-dos mode, if thats even possible. Some other solutions in the other threads dont apply because those people can actaully do somethings, but I can do anything except move my cursor.

Im really trying to avoid reinstalling windows or the boot disk thing since I dont even know if I have one or know how to use one.

Getting to the DOS Prompt on startup is described in the docs along with the "NEVER REINSTALL WINDOWS" stuff. Now...fix your stupid theme config that points to stdep.rc or whatever and get on with life...as explained in all the other threads that you "read and did".

Sorry for being such a pain in the a$$, I just really never ohad to use msdos before. I just want to get back to plain old explorer, but I cant get to system.ini...

Edit: wait a second, somethings weir I finally firguered out how to check out the system.ini, and it says my shell is set to explorer.exe, but it keeps loading jsut that blank desktop.

you need to set a full path to call explorer and make sure it is spelled right and such because if it doesn't find it it doesn't tell you...it just gives you nothingness.

it tells me its read only...I saw this "make sure the theme has step.rc specified as the step, as opposed to something like sdtp.rc (in the theme settings)." in other thread, but I dont think I can do this in msdos mode can I? If its possible could you please explain to me how, slowly for an idiot like me.

attrib -R -A -S -H filename.ext

that will get rid of your read-only stuff.

As for fixing the sdtp thingie mah-hoozit...edit the .thm file in the themes directory and fix it in the straight XML.

hmmm...i changed the explorer.exe to C:\Windows\explorer.exe and it still does not change back to regular windows...the mystery continues for me...Thanks for all the help youve already given me!

Nevermind I somehow got it to work; I think litestep was ontop of explorer, or something. Thats a lot for your patience and advice. Phew!!! :)