Running Litestep from a Pendrive Thread last updated on 2008-02-13 23:41:01

Posted by member 376748 on 2007-12-05 09:57:55

Would it be possible to run LiteStep directly from a USB flash drive, so that one could use it on public computers without having to make any changes that wouldn't just be undone on reboot?

Posted by member 1 on 2007-12-05 19:46:19 link

Yes

Posted by member 378340 on 2007-12-05 20:39:02 link

how?

doesn't litestep change system settings when you install it?
wait...
is there a way to install it on a pen drive, and NOT change any system settings on the computer you are installing it on? (e.g. not have it point to the shell on a usb drive)

on a computer running a normal install of win XP, you could end explorer, and run litestep from the task manager. that works fine, but you need to be able to access the task manager, and a lot of places won't let you. is there another way? probably incredibly obvious, that i am missing?

i am assuming that there is a way to get past what i have mentioned, but at my school, the place i would want to run this, the system admins are very savvy, and keep logs of everything. it there any settings at all that might be changed on the computer?

i am fairly new to litestep, so if i as any stupid questions, please kindly point them out. any further suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

sincerely,
crazy2be

Posted by member 376748 on 2007-12-06 02:34:32 link

Well, I have full admin rights on all University systems (games design course FTW), but what I was thinking of was actually installing it to the pen drive, and having that as the LiteStep directory. That way, I thought it should be possible to run LiteStep from there, and have nothing more to do than simply change the shell back to explorer when I'm done.

Also: DeViLbOi, could you possibly give me a guide as to how to go about that?
I'd rather not do it by trial and error on the Uni computers.

Posted by member 1 on 2007-12-06 07:48:37 link

It really depends on what you want LS to do. You can run LS on top of explorer if you want; however, it is best if you can kill the explorer.exe task.

Now...the installer process does change some system settings. Install it at home onto your hard drive and boot up. Configure LS to your needs and then set explorer back as the shell. Reboot and then move the LS folder to your pen drive. It isn't rocket science...hence why we have no walk through. Once at uni...kill explorer and start LS...reboot to reverse.

Posted by member 376748 on 2007-12-06 10:32:39 link

THAT easy?
Nice. So ideally I should just be able to copy the folder of the LS install I already have onto a pendrive, and... Oh SWEET. That I have to try.

Edit:
Now that I give it more thought, I don't know why I expected it to be more complex. I guess the only semi-permanent change made is setting LS to boot instead of explorer.exe, but since I can just run it manually through the task manager, I don't need to do that...

Edit Again:
Having copied my LS directory over to the pendrive, reset my default shell to explorer, and rebooted, I could run it off the pendrive no problem on my home computer, and it went straight back to explorer when I rebooted.
Now I just need to hope there's no odd sh*t going on with the Uni's network regarding explorer. Should work though.

Posted by member 31 on 2007-12-07 12:11:31 link

The only thing you'll have a problem with is if you try to use the associated utilitlies (theme manager, evar util etc) They look in the registry to find the install location of LiteStep.

Posted by member 376748 on 2007-12-08 14:35:38 link

Indeedy. Having tested it, it works ferpectly.
The only thing was that I had to find an alternate file manager, since running explorer would bring up the task bar, since it hadn't been disassociated from the shell.

Posted by member 378340 on 2007-12-08 19:20:19 link

any way to do this without access to the task manager?

also, will LS change any system settings, or make any registry entries, or put anything at all on the HD? if you just run it off a flash disk, will it only edit files on the flash disk? it looks easy... what about the fact that i use a different file manager? where do i have to put that on the flash drive? will it work?

Posted by member 376748 on 2007-12-10 05:28:37 link

From personal experience:
Without access to the task manager you can't kill explorer, so you'll have to find a way to deal with that, I think there's a guide here somewhere.
Because of that, you may just as well use explorer as the file manager anyway. But if you DO find a way to kill explorer, you simply put the .exe for whatever file manager you'd prefer on your pen drive (I stuck it in the LiteStep folder), then edit evars.rc so that the "File Manager" line points to that executable.
LiteStep won't make any registry changes if you don't use the SetShell utility, so when you reboot, it'll go back to normal explorer.

Posted by member 378340 on 2007-12-10 21:12:17 link

sweet!

now that i think about it, it isn't that hard to kill the explorer processes, all you need is a different task manager. (i could use process explorer). my main worry was that is would edit the registry, or put some data in the "application data" folder, or screw up the system somehow. here i have compiled a list for those who want to do this. if i missed something, let me know.

1. install LS on a computer with admin privileges, one that you don't care about a few settings getting changed on
2. update it and configure it to your liking
3. copy the LS folder to your pen drive
4. preferably, get an alternative file manager (on your pen drive)
5. make evars.rc point to the file manager
6. find a way to end explorer and start LS, i use processes explorer
7. reboot for the changes to go away


is there any way to eject your memory stick while LS is still running? also, if you end LS and restart explorer, will you be able to eject your memory stick, or will LS continue trying to access it?

Posted by member 378340 on 2007-12-11 23:16:59 link

i think it would be awesome if someone made a distribution of litestep for the primary purpose of running it from a flash drive. i mean, there are Linux distributions that you can run from inside windows, on your pen drive, but they are slow, and it is unnecessary to have the entire Linux system. all you need to "bring your desktop with you" is a shell. you could use this to keep all the same settings on whatever computer you went to, quickly and easily.

HMMM...
now all i need is some people to help me with this...
the LS folder is about 20MB when first installed, although this obviously increases when you install themes and modules. it would be very nice if the entire "portable" package was under 30 MB, or even under 40MB. i am not very experienced with litestep, so i don't know how much work it would take to make an entierly "portable" version, but given that is works already, i would guess it wouldn't take that much work. ideally, the my docs folder is on the memory stick, as well as some important system areas, such as the "application data" folder in win XP.

what do you think? could it work?

Posted by member 1 on 2007-12-12 06:56:08 link

LS doesn't use Application Data for anything. You can configure it to use your XP Profile folder though, but you wouldn't want that. Im really not understanding the point of your portable version though. Everything is personal preference. What theme you load, what file manager you want, what task manager you want, etc. There isn't even a reason why you need to use the installer, just get the build and configure your theme to work. You could get the install under 10M easily I bet.

Posted by member 378340 on 2007-12-12 19:09:45 link

----UPDATE----
i tried this on our school computers, and it worked! litestep had errors initializing the hot keys though, and it looked crappy on our 480 x 600 resolution. think is, i couldn't change the resolution,
since we can't open the display properties box. i didn't get a chance to try it that much, since they updated our computers at lunch, and my only chance was during the begging of lunch. the update had nothing to do with this, apparently they were concerned about a virus that wrecks your HD.

Non-litestep-specific question:
-how can you change the display resolution of an XP computer, without access to the control panel, or the display properties(right clicking is disabled on the desktop)? is there as vb script file, or something, you could use to change the resolution?

DeViLbOi
-is there any way to change the task manager on win 98SE? or are we stuck with the useless "Close Program" dialog box until we upgrade?
-how do litestep "builds" work? i used the omar installer, and i don't know how the builds work. do i just need to download the most recent build, or is it just an update?

Posted by member 256241 on 2007-12-12 19:28:13 link

-how can you change the display resolution of an XP computer, without access to the control panel

I remember doing it at college, I think I did it through regedit (although I can't see why anyone would allow access to regedit)

Posted by member 1 on 2007-12-13 06:47:16 link

crazy2be :: I don't remember any tool for replacing task manager in 98...but that doesn't mean much. Use google.

Omar's installer is just a method of bringing a standard to LS for the masses. You can just take the LS Build and throw some config settings in your step.rc and have a working version of LS. You will need to have an understanding of themeing LS however.

Posted by member 378340 on 2007-12-13 18:48:30 link

xanmoldjerg - we cannot access regedit, but we can "run" .reg files, allowing us to make changes to the registry. we cannot, however, browse the registry, so i would have to know the exact key where it is located in order to make the change. that shouldn't be too hard, as long as the settings are stored in the same place in home edition and professional edition.

DeViLbOi - how do i make this into a working version of LS? it says i have to download modules and themas, but won't it get the required modules for me when i run the theme? why do i need to DL them separately, and where do i DL them?

------EDIT-----
i can't figure out how to change the windows "close program" box, since it appears to be embedded in the kernel (kernel32.dll), and i can move elements around with reshacker, but i don't know how to add elements to the box or replace the box completely with something like processes explorer.

Posted by member 1 on 2007-12-13 19:13:40 link

See...this is why the installer is bad. People see it as LiteStep, which it isn't. It is an implementation of a theme standard for LiteStep that happens to come with everything you need to make it go. LiteStep doesn't download modules for themes be default, it is actually a module called NetLoadModule that is included in the OTS2 specification. Out of everything that comes with the installer, only 9 files are truly LiteStep. The installer and the OTS2 specification have made major improvements to the usability of LiteStep, don't get me wrong, but it has also taken away from what LiteStep really is. People here complain about not knowing what to do and how hard LS is...they should have been around in the good old days. Back when there were no includes...no evars...hundreds of copies of the same module...and nothing worked out of the box. You all have it easy now.

Anyway...back on topic. All of the themes here on this site, and pretty much anywhere on the net now are OTS2 compliant. So basically...if you plug them into a raw build they will not work. Now...if you know what you are doing in making a theme you can start building one from the step.rc. This will get you a totally stripped down LS config and make it as small as possible. It won't be easy and you will need to spend a lot of time on it. If you want to go that route send me an email with a SN for some IM client and I will do my best to help you out on my weekends.

Posted by member 378340 on 2007-12-20 19:29:13 link

is there anywhere that i can learn to code the step.rc file? i have no real idea what i am doing... the most i have done to customize litestep is to change some theme settings...

this is my step.rc
;------------------------------------------------------------------------------
; define critical folder locations
;------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PersonalDir "$LiteStepDir$personal\"
ThemesDir "$LiteStepDir$themes\"



;------------------------------------------------------------------------------
; load personal settings and theme
;------------------------------------------------------------------------------

include "$ThemesDir$themeselect.rc"
include "$ThemeDir$config\_compatibility_patch.rc"

IF ThemeIsOTS1Compliant
ShortcutsDir "$Desktop$"
ModulesDir "$ThemeDir$modules\"
include "$PersonalDir$personal.rc"
include "$ThemeDir$step.rc"

ELSE
ThemeIsOTS1Compliant false
ModulesDir "$LiteStepDir$modules\"
LoadModule "$LiteStepDir$NLM\NetLoadModule2.dll"
*NetLoadModuleSite "http://www.loose-screws.com/download.php?netloadmodule="
*NetLoadModuleSite "http://modules.shellfront.org/"
NetLoadModulePath "$ModulesDir$"
NetLoadModuleDocPath "$ModulesDir$docs\"
NetLoadModuleZipPath "$ModulesDir$archive\"
NetLoadModuleAliasFile "$LiteStepDir$NLM\NetLoadModule.ini"
include "$PersonalDir$personal.rc"
include "$ThemeDir$theme.rc"
ENDIF


if i put this file in the raw ls build, it says

Variable "ThemeDir" not defined.
Expression: $ThemeDir$config\_compatibility_patch.rc

Variable "ThemeDir" not defined.
Expression: $ThemeDir$theme.rc
[quote]

since i already have ls open, i didn't load it further, though i am sure i would get more errors relating to modules. any help would be appreciated, including people who actually want to make some of the files, like a vbs, bat, or exe file that terminates explorer and starts ls.

Posted by member 1 on 2007-12-20 20:11:48 link

I will help you understand what you are doing if you want. Send me an IM on ICQ or send me an email with another IM protocol you use.

Posted by member 378340 on 2007-12-20 20:27:32 link

IM? i can give you my g-mail-

mcgirr.ju
@
gmail.com

do you know of any good guides that explain the coding of ls?
i would appreciate your help, but i would also like a guide, since i will otherwise pester you with obvious questions that i could learn from a guide.

anyone else?
is there anyone that would like to help with this project? if yes, either reply to this thread, or send me an e-mail to the above address. your help will be greatly appreciated, since i know very little about coding in ls.

Posted by member 1 on 2007-12-20 21:04:03 link

it isn't something that is easily explained which is why I wanted to do it over IM. Basically your problem is that you are including a file that doesn't exist that normally defines ThemeDir in an OTS2 theme.

Posted by member 362901 on 2007-12-21 09:55:39 link

I dunno... looks to me like maybe "ThemeDir" should be "ThemesDir" ? With an 's' ? ThemesDir is defined - ThemeDir isn't.

If you look further down, there are other instances of "ThemeDir". You should replace all instances with the properly defined variable.

Posted by member 1 on 2007-12-21 15:10:09 link

ThemeDir is set as part of the include done with...
include "$ThemesDir$themeselect.rc"

It should NOT be $ThemesDir$ throught.

Posted by member 31 on 2007-12-21 17:03:45 link

Litestep from scratch:

* Download a litestep 0.24.7 final build.
* extract it to an obvious location.
* (hint) c:\litestep
* Create an empty text file named step.rc and put it in the same folder as litestep.exe
* Download jkey.dll and put jkey.dll in same folder as litestep.exe
* Read release_notes.txt, read jkey's readme.txt
* Open step.rc in notepad.
* (hint) Add a line: LoadModule jkey.dll
* (hint) save step.rc
* Configure your first hotkey according to the documentation you previously read. (I suggest to launch notepad, so you can open your step.rc while running litestep)
* (hint) *jKey WIN N notepad.exe c:\litestep\step.rc
* Quit Explorer shell, Launch Litestep.
* Remember you can recycle Litestep using CTRL+ALT+F1
* (hint) setup a hotkey to recycle using the !Recycle bangcommand

You now have a minimal Litestep installation. Continue downloading modules that you are interested in and load/configure them after readingn their documentation. Once you are comfortable with tweaking litestep, go to http://o-t-s.sourceforge.net/ and read all about OTS2, and how almost all current themes are designed so that they work for everyone out of the box, and in by doing so, creates an uninformed user base. :)

Posted by member 1 on 2007-12-21 19:14:22 link

*kix jugg*

You make it too easy! Just for that you owe us a new release of LS!

Posted by member 2184 on 2007-12-22 15:10:55 link

I wanted to start using LS again after 3 years or so and swung by here to check out the forums for any big changes to LS, and thought i might be of help about running LS from a removable media I did this a long time ago. You already have the basics good, but as far as killing explorer and starting LS there is a much simpler and faster way to go about it, even without taskmnger.

open notepad and type:

@echo off
taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
start e:\litestep\litestep.exe

Save as a .bat file and put on your pendrive or cd or whatever.
running the .bat file will kill explorer and start litestep or whatever you want. (cough...blackbox...cough)

also, one could make an autorun.inf
to run the .bat file right when media is connected.

All of this is asuming your using XP or higher.

Posted by member 31 on 2007-12-22 16:47:15 link

um, the simplest way to kill explorer is to go to the shutdown dialog, hold CTRL+ALT+SHIFT keys, then click cancel.. tadda, bye bye explorer. Assuming you have access to the shutdown dialog...

Posted by member 1 on 2007-12-22 17:11:38 link

Most managed environments deny access to things like Run, Task Manager and the DOS Prompt. On top of attempting to kill a task...I just don't see any of this working very well...at least I know it won't work here where I work.

jugg...is it possible for LS to kill Explorer either via a command line switch or by default via an API call?

Posted by member 31 on 2007-12-22 23:20:45 link

If you're asking whether that functionality is built into LS, then, no.

Neither am I aware of any way to request Explorer to shut down cleanly besides the method I described above.

Posted by member 378340 on 2007-12-22 23:49:27 link

it's now Christmas break, so i won't be able to tell if i can access the shutdown dialog, but i have a question.
jugg,
assuming i can access the shutdown dialog, how would i start LS after terminating explorer?

Posted by member 378340 on 2007-12-23 00:05:28 link

oh,
and our computers don't allow us to initialize hotkeys. in the normal ls build (my ls build from the omar installer), it comes up with errors about hotkeys failing to initialize. not sure if jkey would work...

Posted by member 1 on 2007-12-23 08:16:28 link

jugg: no...I knew it wasn't there...was looking for an add. Ah well

crazy2be: if you start LS before explorer is gone you will have conflicting hotkeys with omar's installer. However, if you go jugg's route you should be ok.

Posted by member 378340 on 2007-12-23 23:24:56 link

how do i access ls after terminating explorer?

DeViLbOi-
will terminating explorer allow me to initialize hotkeys when i couldn't otherwise? i tried a program once that would let certain things be done when i pressed certain keys. i think it was called autohotkey or something... anyway, i made a simple program that would a display Dilbert strips when i presses ctrl + (the corresponding number). to make a long story short, it didn't work. i tried it at home on my 98, then took it into school. didn't work. the school machines were win 2000, but since the "program" wasn't compiled, i don't think it mattered.

oh, and when i tried ls, i had already terminated explorer using process explorer, then starting ls from the run command that is contained in process explorer.

Posted by member 1 on 2007-12-23 23:28:55 link

You can not assign the same hotkey twice...it will spit an error. So if you run LS over explorer you get an error. If you had terminated it already it means something is wrong.

...And you can start LS after terminating explorer via Windows Task Manager normally...but since you don't have access Process Explorer should work like you used it.

Posted by member 378340 on 2007-12-24 16:59:33 link

i think that "something" is the group policy. we cannot access the c: drive, change display resolution default:600x480), change any icons on the start menu, or right click. oh well, i'll have to try it after the break.

Posted by member 378340 on 2008-02-12 20:16:10 link

sorry i haven't been posting for a while. i can't seem to aces this site anymore... works through a proxy though.

anyway, i'm compiling a list of features that should be included for a potential "portable" distribution. this would also be useful for people who want to try out litestep, but don't want to mess around with system settings. see here.
if you have the skills to help with any of this, or if something i am describing already exists, post in this thread, preferably with a link. also, if you have anything you want on this list, post and i will try to update the list.

*****THE LIST*****
1. a windows-like shell that comes as default. easy to change later, but allows you to use it without being to conspicuous...

2. an edited popup.rc that looks like the win xp start menu. perhaps multiple versions, including the original.

3. (not sure if this is possible, lower priority, but it would be neat none the less) a module that makes applications running from within the shell use a "registry" stored on the usb, and a virtual C:\ drive is mounted as a folder on the usb stick.

4.more to come as i think of them...