first of all let me say that i run winXP SP1 with ample RAM and chipspeed to do anything you want to throw at me ;)

i am looking for a theme which emulates the look and feel of windows. i want the options of my right click menu (as i have many programs which install their own options into it) as well as the quick launch and start menus from the windows explorer. i currently use a few multidesktop programs; http://www.muukka.net/multidesktop/ and MS VDM (XP powertoys). (i also have nView DeskMan installed but disabled) basically i want a windows lookalike that also acts like it. why not just use windows shell then? LS is faster and less bloated, of course.

failing that i will settle for a way to take my visual preferences (wallpaper, bg colour, etc) from windows and import them into LS. the default theme is fine if i can't find one like what i described above, but i can't stand the blue bg (i prefer my wallpapers framed in the black bg colour, it's unnerving having to change it back and forth).

also please point me in the direction of a VERY simple and fairly thorough walkthrough. i want to know what LS can and can't do, as well as some of the things long-time users take for granted but are missing from many how to docs i've read so far (took forever to find out exactly what a bang is :p ) also, i use some stardock products, are there any known incompatibilities? some sites suggest there are, and i can't tell the difference.

i have many programs that minimize to the tray rather than the taskbar, and that's the way i like it; LS will only let me see 3-4 of the probably 15 total programs there, is there a way to change it?

thank you in advance for any help you may offer me.

I would recommend you download a few themes and discover all these answers for yourself. In most cases everything about a theme can be changed. You'll just need to do a bit of resesarch. Try and get to know how the LS themes work before you decide you want one that works like Explorer. You will find Explorer is a clumsy interface.

basically i've got my explorer setup to emulate the feel of Mac OS circa 4 or 5.. you're right about it being clumsy, but for the most part i'd rather click a button than go 5 menus deep in the right click menu. the nice thing about customizability is that you can do such things, you're absolutely right. can you recommend any specific themes or point me in the right direction of the research?

I really only ever use my own theme. Austerity is a very stable theme and the Gathering is an extremely feature packed. These are obvious ones to try, but there is so many other themes it's impossible to single only a few. Take a look at the screen shots and pick one you think looks good.

so basically the way litestep works remains the same from theme to theme, that's what you're saying, or at least that's the message i'm getting. can a theme be created that, for example, the right click menu is the same as explorer's shell? basically i'm asking how customizable the actual shell is, not the GUI as much as how the thing actually functions. sorry if i'm going round in circles.

Pretty much everything is do-able in litestep. I'm pretty sure a theme could be made to emulate the look and feel of explorer. You'll find answers to your questions about the popup and systray in your litestep\modules\docs directory. Other good docs are found at http://o-t-s.sourceforge.net/ and http://www.residualvisuals.com.

Try editing some themes to your liking, like adding more icons to your systray, editing your poppup, and adding other stuff to existing themes. You'll understand how LS works and you could try and make your own theme.