Is it true that litestep uses its own alt-tab system? is there a reason for this? and can it be disabled?

That would be a false statement.

youre right, i just killed litestep, and the task switcher stays the same. bland and boring (rather than the awesomely pretty vista graphics with window previews).

in that case, litestep must invoke the task switcher as if there were no shell. itd be nice to see it call the switcher like aston does.

One minute you want to use the Windows Task Switcher...the next you want something proprietary...make up your mind.

thats not at all what i said.

what i actually said was litestep doesnt seem to call the right task switcher. if you would care to take a look at aston, it calls it correctly and displays the fully featured switcher. litestep does not, and i said itd be nice to see that implemented.

This is kind of confusing. Litestep has never had anything to do with my alt+tab task switcher.

ok, let me ask this in a different way.

why does aston have the fully featured vista task switcher, even when explorer is not loaded, but litestep doesnt? what is aston doing right that litestep isnt doing?

Maybe they made their own?!

Perhaps if the ls devs started charging $30 a pop they could quit their day jobs and make one.

You want pretty task switcher? Try either of these two:
Nuonsoft's Shell Enhancer (recommended)
http://www.nuonsoft.net/shellenhancer/

or Microsoft's PowerToy known as "Alt-Tab Replacement"
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

both are free and will give you what you want.

Im personally a fan of TaskSwitchXP...but anywho...you asked if the LS task switcher could be disabled. If you wanted LS to have a task switcher why would you want to disable it?

i dont think the aston devs made their own. its _exactly_ the same as the full vista explorer one, as if it was built deep into windows, and they used some magical method of invoking it that litestep does not.

and devilboi, i figured that if my machine was displaying something other than the standard vista switcher, litestep must be intercepting the call and displaying its own. disabing this might call the explorer switcher instead. evidently this is not the case, as killing litestep makes no difference. having explorer or aston loaded does. weird.

ill try the alt-tab replacements, but it seems odd that id have to install one of those just to get what i would already have if using explorer.

to make it even more clear, pics
aston: http://verti.orcon.net.nz/astonswitcher.jpg
explorer: http://verti.orcon.net.nz/explorerswitcher.jpg

looks remarkably similar, no? almost as if its the exact same thing. funnily enough, i couldnt manage to screenshot the litestep switcher, but im sure you all know what it looks like. a gray box with icons.

anyway, perhaps this is more to do with the fact that litestep hasnt been written to handle vista, yet. which is why i said itd be nice to see that implemented in the next version.

I believe that the "Latest Version" of LS came out before the Vista beta was available. Heck it doesn't even support XP64 at all. But if you really really want it...you can code it yourself. Im sure the devs would love the help.