I just installed litestep with Litestep Installer 2.1 onto this Win2K machine, and everything seemed fine, until I game to trying to browse a drive, or run the file manager, at which point the start menu got loaded, and all of explorer the shell started to load, and re-loaded most of the startup stuff etc.
Is there any way to let explorer run withou tit trying to grab hold of the shell again? Unfortunately some of the startup scripts used here check for it running before going ahead ith their stuff, I can probbaly get around that by writing a little do nothing program called explorer.exe, but the file browsing stuff would still be a problem.

Read this page and all will be revealed - you just need to do a little editing in the registry:

http://www.brembs.net/litestep/win2k.html

Thanks for the pointer, but I've still got it happening.
I've also triedit on my home computer, and I've got the same problem.
I've got the DesktopProcess set to 1.. but still explorer-shell loads up and breaks everything.

Did you set the shell in the HKLM or HKCU branch? If explorer.exe is still set as the shell in the HKLM branch, then this will continue to happen. If you need a shell per user, then use a shell manager. But your best bet is to always set your shell (or shell manager) in the HKLM branch, and do not set any shells in the HKCU. Should be good to go then.

Excellent, thankyou insin and jugg.
Sticking the shell in HKLM has managed to sort it all out.

I think it's funny how settings could be the same on two boxes and explorer loads as the shell when you want the filemanager on one but not the other.

If you only logged out after installing LS you might want to try to reboot, iirc one of the registry keys from brembs.net won't take effect if you just log out.

i'm truly perplexed, i don't know whether this is bugginess on the part of windows, or my installer. I have checked the installer over and over again, it all seems to be fine, i checked my registry setting procedure against bremb's settings, they match up. And of course I've installed/uninstalled myself several times (as have others) with no problems.

And yet it fails to work in certain instances... this vexes me. :|

I've run into this problem on 2k, home and pro, and I've found that the easiest way around this problem is to open evars.rc in your personal directory and change your file manager to be iexplorer.exe... ie is the same program as explorer.exe, if you want it to act like explorer, then just change it to how explorer looks and use tools->folder options and set it to apply to all folders in the view tab... this works for every machine I've installed litestep on (like 12 or 13 machines...) so I would think that means that this is pretty reliable.

I always suspected that it might make a difference whether the Installer is used with admin rights or not... or can the new version only be used by admins anyway?

I've never used the installer, I just place my litestep dir in C: and use an OTS dir structure. Then I edit the registry like this: (Using a an acount with admin rights)

Navigate to the following location under the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key:
Software_Microsoft_Windows NT_CurrentVersion_IniFileMapping_system.ini_boot

You see a string entry called 'Shell' which should have the following value:

SYS:Microsoft_Windows NT_CurrentVersion_Winlogon

Select this entry. When you have the 'Shell' entry selected, edit the string value and replace the characters 'SYS:' with 'USR:Software_'. The entry should now look like this:

USR:Software_Microsoft_Windows NT_CurrentVersion_Winlogon

Navigate to the following location under the HKEY_CURRENT_USER key:
Software_Microsoft_Windows NT_CurrentVersion_Winlogon

Look for a string entry called 'Shell'. If it is not there, create a string entry and name it 'Shell'. Set the value of this entry to the name and location of your shell. For LiteStep, the shell entry may look like this:

"C:LiteStepLiteStep.exe"

or wherever your LiteStep executable is located.

Then I open explorer go to Tools/FolderOptions/View and check the launch folder windows in a seperate process box.

Restart windows and bingo there I go. If I need a user with Explorer as the shell I create a new user and I'm good to go. But who uses Explorer anyways. ;) Never saw a reason for a shell switcher, if I need to switch shells quickly I could use fast user switching and log on to another account with whatever shell I feel like. Each user would have whatever shell I wanted in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER key:
Software_Microsoft_Windows NT_CurrentVersion_Winlogon_Shell="whatever"

Been doing it this way with win2k and now winxp for nearly 3 years now and I've never had a problem. Well it works for me, granted it's alot easier for the first time user to use an installer, but some of us had to do it the hard way back in the good 'ole' days. Old habits die had I guess. :)

*note "Underscores in reg entrys should be back slashes"

This is to all, and especially any dev people that might have influence in the developement of the installer. I found an <A HREF="http://www.litestep.net/index.php?section=4&action=view&catId=1&id=216">old thread</A> I had started where I had also posted a reg key that has to do with this:
HKLM_Software_Microsoft_Windows_CurrentVersion_Explorer_Advanced_Folder_DesktopProcess
In there is the DWord 'DefaultValue'. It is (or, was on my machine) set to 0. When I set LS up for a 'per user basis', it didn't work (ran explorer.exe whenever trying to browse directories) until I changed said DWord value to 1.

TO THE DEV PERSON WHO BUILDS THE INSTALLER:
If this were included in the installer, is there any reason to think that this might have adverse effects on >= machines as not having it does?

Afaik it IS included in the installer. However, since this key is not under HKCU but HKLM there could be problems with permissions to modify the key...

okay...can someone explain HKCU and HKLM to me? I've been having the same problem, sorta, on windows 98. only one user, don't have a network, but explorer keeps coming in after I loaded litestep...
also, when I restarted computer, explorer loaded, not litestep

arcaine

sounds like you didn't set your shell in your system.ini and are just running it.

I also had this prob a lot, with explorer trying to load itself atop litestep as shell.

I use 2xExplorer now so it's no issue.

But back then I think there's a checkbox in some windows setting somewhere that says launch explorer browser and explorer shell in separate memory spaces. I think that did it for me.

Also, someone recommended I add this line to my step.rc:
LSSetAsShell true

I think I lost explorer altogether then... not too sure. Can give it a try. Not a biggie to me tho since I don't use that hog of an MS app.

eXpiation: you're thinking of the registry key/folder options setting discussed here. It has nothing to do with using explorer as a filemanager under alternative shells though. ;)

And as far as I know, the 'LSSetAsShell' setting is quite old, perhaps it doesn't even do anythign anymore. I don't know for certain, but in all my years of using LS I've never used it. :P

Oh it still does do lots of stuff... but some of that is not quite desirable... it stops explorer's auto-refresh for example. It's still "experimental".

durnit.. this doesn't fix my specific issue. (I swear I am my own niche market)

My setup: Multiple users (not just for me; me and my wife use the comp), and my user account has a specific setup (permissions, tweaks, etc). Now, I am using MultiDesktopManager (http://www.muukka.net/multidesktop/) to have multiple concurrent shells within the one user account.

I am also having the explorer issue. :(
Every time I go to browse, I get the whole shell.
Is there any way to work around this without setting a system-wide shell, changing my shell from explorer, or employing a whole new filemanager?

yup...read through the links above and make sure that all the registry entries are set correctly...I will tell you right now they are not.

If I run the LS shell, then goto the RUN/Execute command and type "explorer.exe" I get a single window appearing, as if i'd right clicked the start button and pressed explore

That's what's supposed to happen. :\