Alternate Windows Shells

[drewmister]

I'm diving into learning a little more about OS... In fact I am starting to look at some Unix and Linux based OS just these past few days... I am a complete beginner and know hardly nothing about these, but just by reading about them I am getting a better sense of how an operating system works.

Anyway, in my learning I have learned a few things about the OS in particular about different shells to run different kernels....

Microsoft OS default shell is explorer (not to be confused with the file explorer)

Anyway in my reasearch I have discovered the use of alternate shells on Windows (in my case XP)

I have just discovered this and don't know anything about it, but I was wondering if anyone is using an alternate shell for their OS...

If you are tell me about your experience, give me some screenshots, and give me suggestions on what you have learned...

[Aphex_Tom_9]

i used 'GeoShell' for a while, it was pretty cool, but i was too lazy to work out the bugs i had.

[klingens]

First of all: alternative Free (usually open source and free as in beer) shells are DIY stuff.

I'm running Litestep for several years now. LS is the oldest, stll developed, free shell, about 8 years old but by no means the only one. There is Geoshell, Blackbox4Win and sevreal smaller ones. Also there is DesktopX by Stardock, Talisman and proably many others. Maybe go to deviantart.com and their shell theme section to find a few names.

[Slackfumasta]

Maybe I'm strange, but I haven't found a shell that I'm happier with than the default Windows shell.

[drewmister]

Other than klingens comment above I have been reading about it and many people agree with you. Too many bugs, and other performance loss.

Some that are supposed to run faster and use less memory have people claim that not only is it not faster, its not even the same speed but slower.

The only other shell that seems to get constantly good reviews from people who have used it is the Aston shell. Most who review this shell say it has few bugs, runs faster, and uses less memory than the default windows shell...

I wonder with the use of less memory and faster overall shell could benchmarking scores increase? Maybe an idea out there for all benchers of the world to try to use a different shell.

[drewmister]

Do you have any screenshots of your shell I could see klingens?

[klingens]

Don't have a website which I could post here, but there is a sshot: http://sryo.ctech.ca/xij_2004-08-04_prefsmodmgr.png of it. If you want to see galleries, go to www.deviantart.com, www.customize.org or www.litestep.net

As for speed/memory consumption: it all depends what you want. Alternative shells can do a LOT more than Windows Explorer, but that of course needs ressources. or you could go all minimal but lose features compared to Explorer. Uf you want to be as minimal as possible, just use cmd.exe as your shell and run 3dmark that way. Heck, you can run 3dmark as your shell.
All I can say that users with 32MB and Windows9x are often very happy about Litestep, Geoshell, et al.

[samuraisam]

I've tried blackbox4win, didn't like it. It wasn't finished enough, and that was about one month ago.

Litestep looks interesting though...

-San