Okay, I"ve been using litestep for awhile now, and definitely want to stick with it. However, in screenshots and such I see that opened windows and other things follow the litestep theme that is in place. However, in mine, it still looks like explorer. Did i not make a complete switch? Or am I just a fool?
Assuming you mean window styles, it is not handled by the shell. A third party app such as windowblinds, StyleXP, or even a hacked uxtheme.dll wii do the trick. Then you'll have to find a style that fits your theme.
also, be aware that the uxtheme hack and stylexp are meant only for windows xp and windows 2003. windowblinds is needed to make windows 2000 look that way.
oh and windowblinds uses a bit more resources. if you're really set to have the windows look different and dont want to slow down the pc much, make sure you're on windows xp.
thanks. i'll try out shellwvm and see how much resources it takes up. i like different, but don't want to sacrifice speed. which brings the questions, does litestep REPLACE the windows shell or just 'skin' it? am i suffering resource drain because of this?
Completely replaces it. Resource consumption is theme dependent, but for me, on average, it takes about half of what explorer did.
Excellent. I tried out shellwm, but am a little disappointed. ALl it seems to change is the top bar of the window, nothing else. So it will make the top bar black, etc. but then then rest of the window parts are the same. Any thoughts?
I do believe it can do more than that, but it depends on the theme you are using. From what I remember at one point it was only the title bar, but through updates it could do more. Don't quote me though. Also, I found ShellWM had a tendancy to cause problems with some apps. When I would install new applications some would behave badly, crash my system, etc., and it became extremely annoying trying to determine if it was really the application I had just installed, or if it was ShellWM. I eventually gave up. But don't let that discourage you... I install and uninstall applications much more than a lot of people.
If you do stick with it for a while, make sure you exclude any application that does its own skinning. Also, beware of color pickers, ShellWM screwed those for me too.
i also want to change the look of the windows but i dont want to use another software like stylexp or windowblinds.
isnt there a module or something avaible?
or will litestep support it in the future?
loginscreen customization would be nice too.
neverknown - are you on winxp?
neverknown - no module will ever support that...it is out of the realm of what LiteSteps function is.
disgraceful - yes im using win xp pro
devil - thats sad :( but i think i can live with it
neverknown - like I said, window skinning is not handled by the shell. However, if you don't want alternate software, you could try the hacked uxtheme file I mentioned above. All it does is let you use and install 3rd party themes like if they were the MS ones that come w/ windows. Therefore, there's nothing more running in the background, and it doesn't use much more resources.
neverknown - it is possible, and fairly easy to replace your window style, startup screen, and login screen on windows xp.
for the answer to just about all your quesitons, go over to
http://www.themexp.org and they'll have everything you need.