Greetings
I am trying to find a free program to skin my Win2K setup with, when I stumbled upon this. I am kinda hesatent to install it though. I know what I'm doing when it comes to using the computer, but I've never used anything that makes such dramatic changes. Now what I'm wondering is, is this safe? Am I gonna install it and completly screw my system up and end up having to reinstall Win2K? Thanks

On another note, I was looking around and I noticed people talking about OTS. Whats OTS mean? Whats the difference between OTS1 and OTS2?

Have you read the Important Topics in all of the forum categories?

Well, it's always safe until something **** up :)
If you read stuff and understand what's happening behind what installers make appear effortless, you should be more than fine, having the confidence and know-how to reverse bad changes, if you're on your own.

I'd say the litestep installer is reliable. As for "safe", we get the occasional outcry from someone who claims he/she was forced to reinstall Windows as a last resort to some problem that could not be fixed.

Also do a search in the General forum for 'reformat' :)

under win2k, you really shouldn't have any problem.

the worst case, you have no shell. Just ctrl+alt+del, new task, run the setshell util included with omar's installation, set your shell to explorer/litestep/other shell of choice.

or, ls is set as shell, is runnning, but without any theme. Just open your themeselect.rc file and set your theme to one which works.

about OTS: it's the Open Theme Standard. for more info: o-t-s.sf.net

other things you should check out:
important topics in this forum
lsinstaller.loose-screws.com (omar's installer home page)
lsfaq.shellfront.org

So I guess it is pretty safe. I might D/L it once I get around to it. The D/L page has a bunch of Downloads. I'm guessing the LiteStep Installer (omar) is the one I want? Seeing in how I have a ton of expierence with C++ and I can do basic things with PS, I might be able to make a theme?

I was on http://www.customize.org/, browsing some of the Litestep themes, when I noticed that alot of the themes didn't have any icons on the desktop. I did see menus though. How would you add a program to the menu? I did a search, but I couldn't find anything on it.

1 last question. Some themes have an extention of .lsz. How do I use them? I havent installed it so I havent readthe documentation yet. Sorry for my n00bishness.

Themes are incredibly easy if you have any experience coding.

The programs in the right-click-on-desktop popup are the same as would show up in you "Programs" folder in the start menu... and will update in real time.

lsz files are just zip files renamed. If your install of Litestep didn't associate these with litestep, you can just use the Theme Installer incuded with Omar's installer to install these themes.

And in addition, Litestep is veeery safe. The SetShell shorcuts placed on the Desktop during the install (Omar's Installer) have always fixed any MAJOR problem I had. Also, if you haven't already heard, while Litestep is running CTRL+ALT+F1 will bring up a menu allowing you to do some essentials should Litestep stop responding. If that doesn't work, just open ther Task Manager (CTRL+SHIFT+ESC), and end the Litestep.exe process, and restart it.