Hi there.
I was wondering, what 'ties' does the regular ls installer make with Xp's ? (good ol win95 n 98, from what I remember, only changed shell= ...) I mean, does it screw around with the registry or is it (plz make it so) just another def in a *.ini? If it touches the registry, is there an index where the keys are all pointed out? Third, my dad uses the comp as well, so therefore is there a shell swapper available (when I had win98, I had this really good app called shellsw that ran in autoexec.bat and edited the shell= according to your selection...) so I won't have to re-educate him?
And, just as a comment, has anybody (novices, in particular), aside from me, discovered that its not possible to build your own system from scratch using the old lsdocs as a reference?? (For instance, my taskbar, with only hex colors set and havin *mstaskbar would freeze and wouldn't update, unless it got recycled...) Or that the theme that comes with the more recent builds, "simplicity", spreads itself across 6 or 7 .rc files, WHICH ARE CRAZY COMPLICATED!! (lol)
Oh well. Thanks in advance.
Cheers.

Most of the stuff you asked can be found in the faq, at lsfaq.shellfront.org

Normally I'd go find specific answers, but it's late and I'm feeling lazy, so I'll half-assed it. In win2k/xp, it is stored in the registry. There are many shell swapping programs, often mentioned is shellon, but pixol is about to release the next version of carapace, so you might want to keep your eyes open for that.

Things are more confusing, but you don't need to do as much now. I haven't really used simplicity, but I do remember it being really confusing. You do have to remember that it's a fairly intensive and customizable theme.

Good luck.

What he didn't touch on, is that when running Litestep with XP. Useing the Litestep installer from http://www.beyondconvention.net/ohussain/installer.htm
you can choose the Litestep shell to only install on a specific user. So your father can choose Litestep if he wants, and you as another user can run what you want.

As for building your own LS theme, I strongly recommend reading the documents that come with the latest verison of Litestep. http://indiestep.sourceforge.net/

Also check out the later versions of released LS modules and their documentation. http://shellfront.org/modules-list.php

Forgive the shameless plugs to Shellfront, but from what I understand, currently those are the most up to date sources of information.