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Hi, wondering how to make LiteStep start on the same theme every time the PC boots up regardless of the previously chosen theme before shutting down. Using Win2k and I tried setting the shell (in the registry under Winlogon) to "litestep alternative.rc" but LiteStep kept crashing with not found type errors. Also tried full paths etc, still no go. There must be another way....

not following you actually :$
read the docs ;)
and do you know OTS?

make sure you don't put quotes around the entire thing in the registry. Using the "litestep alternative.rc" approach is correct, but don't put quotes around it like that. Windows will otherwise assume that alternative.rc is part of the executable's name. The proper way to use the quotes is:

"path\to\ls\litestep.exe" alternate.rc

You might have to add the path to alternate.rc as well, not sure.

if i use such code as you, ilmcuts, described, then ls will use alternate.rc instead of step.rc, am i correct?

yup

Yes I tried :

C:\LiteStep\litestep.exe "C:\LiteStep\themes\boot\boot.rc"

and

C:\LiteStep\litestep.exe C:\LiteStep\themes\boot\boot.rc

which returns two errors:
first error:
http://ezeeye.co.nz/HTML-Kit/_error1.gif
followed by:
http://ezeeye.co.nz/HTML-Kit/_error2.gif
Maybe it's a windows thing?

Right-o after a bit of head scratch'n and rebooting my PC I've discovered the first error came from the location of the step.rc file.
I now use the following:

C:\LiteStep\litestep.exe "C:\LiteStep\boot.rc"

and it gets around the first error (renamed to boot.rc for obvious reasons).
Second error comes from the mzscript.dll module. Don't know why it's doing this - maybe the techos know?
Anyway, I've tried different versions of mzscript.dll and I either get the error (no.2) mentioned above or the module loads but does nothing. Results of testing:
version 8.6.1 gives error
version 9.0.0 (22k) does nothing
version 8.0.1 does nothing
version 9.0.0 (24.5k) does nothing
32.5k version (no version no.) gives error
I'll keep on trying an maybe come up with an answer.
Maybe someone out there has already experienced this?

mzscript 0.9 is NOT necessarily compatible to 0.8, be careful if you just replace the DLL.
What exactly are the contents of boot.rc? It could be an evar that's not defined or a missing include...

Sorry Egonz here's my reply to your first comments. When my PC starts up and I log in I want to have my 'boot' theme load. Unfortunately LS seems to load whatever the last chosen theme was (which is logical for most users). Once my 'boot' theme loads I then select a theme from some buttons placed on the screen. Most themes are pass-worded which stops my 3 year old hacker son breaking my PC (but doesn't stop him smudging the screen with chocolate!).
So I have figured out that I can always boot into my theme using

C:\LiteStep\litestep.exe "C:\LiteStep\boot.rc"

in the Winlogon/Shell part of the registry but when I do this I have problems with the mzscript.dll module.
Also, did you know that OTS is a theme standard for LiteStep, and not a distro :P

c:\litestep\boot.rc :

rcStep "boot.rc";
dirTheme "$LitestepDir$themes\boot\";
include "$dirTheme$$rcStep$";

points to c:\litestep\themes\boot\step.rc :

ThemeName "boot"
ThemeAuthor "Sir Jeff"
PersonalDir "$LiteStepDir$Personal\"
ThemeDir "$LiteStepDir$Themes\boot\"
ModulesDir "$ThemeDir$modules\"
LSImageFolder "$ThemeDir$Images\"
HideApplication
LSNoShellWarning
LoadModule "$LiteStepDir$hotkey.dll"
LoadModule "$LiteStepDir$Desktop2.dll"
LoadModule "$ModulesDir$skinbox.dll"
LoadModule "$ModulesDir$mzscript.dll"
*Desktop rbutton !error
SDALeft 0
SDARight 0
SDATop 0
SDABottom 0
*Hotkey CTRL+Win d !dwayne
*Hotkey CTRL+Win e explorer
*SkinBox SKDWAYNE 512 300 200 200 #F
SKDWAYNEBitmap dwayne.png
SKDWAYNEOnLButtonDown !dwayne
*Script bang !dwayne
*Script exec !execute C:\LiteStep\themes\boot\dwayne.pl
*Script ~bang

(this is a cut down version for testing)
The thing is this theme works fine if selected from within another theme but when trying to access it by changing the shell command I either get that horrid error or it does nothing.
And when I say does nothing, I mean I press 'CTRL+Win e' and explorer starts. Which means the hotkey.dll works.
But pressing 'CTRL+Win d' does nothing. I know skinbox.dll works because it loads my image.
I know my code works because when I switch to my 'boot' theme from another theme it works perfectly.

try to quit LS and manually enter the path\litestep path\boot.rc thingy on the command line, does it make any difference?
Oh and I dunno where you got it from, but "HideApplication" is from 0.24.5 (ie. 1999) and is no longer supported. "LSNoShellWarning" is a personal.rc thing imo and doesn't belong in a theme's step.rc. Then again that's up to you =)

thanks for enlightment :)
*) thats a pretty nice idea having another login screen.
*) i know ots very well, including that it's not a distro. i just didn't understand your problem (was a little worn off at that moment:)

I've been using LS for 9 days (and counting) and there is a lot of documentation out there, but I can never find what I'm looking for (maybe I'm special). LSNoShellWarning is in the step.rc because I don't want any users to see the shell warning. I left the HideApplication line there, because I had no idea what it did but it sounded important. I'm at work at the mo, but when I get home I'll try running that shell command from cmd. I'm sure I've tried that and got same results. My thought is that something in the mzscript.dll wants to be loaded after something on my PC has loaded - not sure what tho.

Try to define your script bang !dwaine before calling it by hotkey/skinbox. Also try to put it in a separate mzscriptfile...

Well I did away with using mzscript altogether and now my module loads perfectly no matter what theme I was previously in......hoever the command:

C:\LiteStep\lsts.exe "C:\LiteStep\themes\ezeeye\ezeeye.thm"

no longer works, not even from command line. Bur it does work when I use a normal shell command. Hmmmmmm, I blame M$.

LSTS only modifies $litestepdir$step.rc. If you however use a boot.rc instead LS won't see the change.

ahhhh....so the answers not 42