Litestep

CForrester

<div class="IPBDescription">A Windows shell replacement</div> Hey guys. I tried LiteStep a while ago and I didn't really like it very much, but I decided to give it another shot, and it's GREAT so far! It's a shell replacement for Windows. (If you don't know what that is, don't bother. You'll probably damage your computer.)

<a href='http://www.litestep.net' target='_blank'>http://www.litestep.net</a>

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esuna

I used to swear by Litestep a few years ago, but a few things began to irritate me. The first was the reliance on the right-mouse button for the main start menu, since it required you right-click on the desktop, and if you have a number of windows maximised it became a bit of a chore. The second point is that the taskbar just wasn't as "fully featured" as windows is, so removing that for an inferior replacement is a tad worthless. Also, finally, the editing. If you're anything like me and always customise as much as possible, this can be irritating to say the least. Not particulaly difficult, just irritating.

Third, and final, too much clutter. When you say goodbye to your Windows shell for this replacement, you say goodbye to nice, clear, recognisable icons and handy menu layout and say hello to obscure clutter. And the second you start getting rid of the clutter, you end up loosing something important.


I'd recommend this if you're really into desktop customisation, but if you're not too serious about that, i'd advise you to steer clear.

BlackMage

<!--QuoteBegin--::esuna::+Oct 11 2003, 08:50 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (::esuna:: @ Oct 11 2003, 08:50 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I used to swear by Litestep a few years ago, but a few things began to irritate me. The first was the reliance on the right-mouse button for the main start menu, since it required you right-click on the desktop, and if you have a number of windows maximised it became a bit of a chore. The second point is that the taskbar just wasn't as "fully featured" as windows is, so removing that for an inferior replacement is a tad worthless. Also, finally, the editing. If you're anything like me and always customise as much as possible, this can be irritating to say the least. Not particulaly difficult, just irritating.

Third, and final, too much clutter. When you say goodbye to your Windows shell for this replacement, you say goodbye to nice, clear, recognisable icons and handy menu layout and say hello to obscure clutter. And the second you start getting rid of the clutter, you end up loosing something important.


I'd recommend this if you're really into desktop customisation, but if you're not too serious about that, i'd advise you to steer clear. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
what he said

BigMadSteve

I tried it before. It looks nice but (in my case) it slows the computer down something awful. Then add to that just about everything Esuna said.

Maus

Also, both times I've given Litestep a go (different versions of Litestep and on different computers with different OSs - win95 and win98) it's made explorer crash an awful lot, among other bugs - and I'm sure one of its marketing points is that it's supposed to be more stable than Windows. Although I really wanted a nicely customised desktop, it's not worth the hassle - I just use a couple of windows hacks instead to change the taskbar to something prettier and give me transparent icon backgrounds.