"Replacement Shells" are programs that are run in place of the normal Microsoft Explorer shell to give your desktop a completely different look & feel. In simplest terms, they replace the default Windows interface (Start Button, Task Bar, icons on desktop) with an interface either borrowed from other operating systems (like Unix, MacOS, or the Amiga) or something completely new and different.

Note, in almost every case, these applications are doing things that Microsoft never intended to happen on their operating systems. In addition, many are in early beta (or even alpha) release. That means that some bugs and minor incompatibilities are to be expected. But the good news is that many are in active development, which means that bugs and incompatibilities are rapidly being addressed.

A few Replacement Shells...
(This list simply reflects shells that I [tin_omen] have had the opportunity to play with extensively, and is far from exhaustive. Please see our main page's "Shell Homes" link list, for a more comprehensive listing of available shells).

NOTE! The descriptions and articles included in these pages reflect my perceptions of a shell at a given instant in time. Do not assume that the current form, focus, or feature set of any given shell is in any way is limited to my historical descriptions!! In other words, go to the sites and see what they are currently up to! You will no doubt be pleasantly surprised! <g>

   LiteStep b23x -> 0.24.6

Overview

LiteStep isn't the oldest replacement shell out, but it is definitely the most popular. In practical terms, it clears off your desktop, gives you substantially more control over your interface layout, is exceedingly cool to look at, and is also an excellent way to somewhat minimize the Win9x/NT look & feel of your desktop if you are a Linux refugee forced to use Windows 95 at work. It excels at giving you a graphically rich desktop environment.

LiteStep.net's screenshot archive has examples of what you can do with the current version of LiteStep.

More information is on the 'What is LiteStep?' page.

   DarkStep

Overview

DarkStep is a LiteStep compatible shell for Windows 9x/NT/2k, being developed by former LiteStep developer Fahim Farook. By 'LiteStep compatible' I mean just that, the shell has been written from the ground up to run the majority of existing LiteStep modules and add-ons. It even uses a reasonably similar step.rc configuration file, and is a pretty simple switch for any user familiar with LiteStep. Fahim's stated goals for the shell are that it be,

"...A very minimalist shell which you can use out of the box but with no extra modules that expand the functionality. If somebody wants expanded functionality, they can always use any of the third-party modules out there but I don't intend to compete with all the programming talent out there <vbg> So I will continue to improve upon the core and might even write a few modules (or convert the ones I'd done for LiteStep into native DarkStep format to take advantage of the theming and stuff ...) but the shell will always remain a core that provides functionality for other modules that can be plugged in if you need them.."

More information is on the 'What is DarkStep' page.

PureLS

Overview

PureLS, is an attempt by former LiteStep developers 'jugg' and 'Ender' to preserve the philosophy and ideals of the LiteStep 0.24.5 codebase, and to continue to extend work they did on the LiteStep shell during 1999. It's a very close relative of LiteStep (especially 0.24.5, although LS 0.24.6 is moving into new incompatible areas at the current time), and the majority of LiteStep's modules and configuration settings work with it unmodified

More information is on the 'What is PureLS?' page.

   Graphite

Overview

Graphite is a completely different approach to a desktop shell. It uses 'theme scripting', the developer, Damian "mian" Hodgkiss' term for a fully-scripted interface, using a full-featured scripting language (either jscript or Perl). mian is known for his extensive work on LiteStep b23e, LiteStep 24.0, the eFX interface skinning application, skinz.org, and a variety of other projects. At this point, Graphite is potentially one of the most powerful shells available, as the interface represents not just a rendering of a static config file, but an actual dynamically responsive script. Graphite is currently not the simplest shell to configure for the casual user (it requires the use of one of the above scripting languages), but one of it's primary goals is to remove the configuration workload from the end-user, and shift it to the thememaker, aiming for almost a configuration-free end-user experience. And it almost certainly provides the thememaker with the ultimate in interface control.

More information is on the 'What is Graphite' page.

   IceSphere

Overview

From the IceSphere website:

"...The plugin system is the core of the IceSphere shell, it is what makes IceSphere so flexible and so powerful. The whole idea behind plugins is that they are the mechanism through which new features are added to the shell. It makes it possible to add almost ANY new feature no matter how involved to our shell without modifying a single line of code in any of the core components...."

More information is on the 'What is IceSphere' page.

   geOShell

Overview

From the geOShell website:

"...geOShell is a replacement for the start menu, task manager, quicklaunch bar, and system tray that comes with windows. It is often called an "Explorer" replacement, though it does not replace Explorer for managing files. It provides a start menu, system tray, task menu, and quicklaunch bar. What makes geOShell different is it's support for add-ons called "plugins"..."

"...geOShell was designed to be small and fast. It requires less than half the resources of the default Windows shell and is noticably easier and more responsive to use...."

More information is on the 'What is geOShell' page.

   Evwm v1.0

Overview

Evwm is one of the older replacement shells (it's origin's going back over two years), although it still is under substantial active development by the original author Eliot Gillum. It's strong points are it's speed, low resource use and completely uncluttered desktop. It's stated goal is to mimick the X-windows fvwm window manager.

More information is on the 'What is Evwm?' page.

   Reveal v1.04

Overview

Reveal is an extremely free-form shell. It enforces no standard interface, instead giving you access to the basic building blocks of the interface, and letting you construct the complete look and feel yourself. Syndrome at reveal.unpaved.com (the Reveal home page) even goes so far to describe Reveal as an 'Interface Engine' instead of a standard shell. At this point it can be a bit difficult to configure, but has a ton of flexibility. You can do anything from a whole desktop, to a simple small control/button panel with it. It works from a 'pages, containing hotspots triggering sequences of activities' approach.

More information is on the 'What is Reveal?' page.

Dimension

Overview

Dimension has the distinction of being the first OpenGL-based shell that I became aware of. It's current approach is around a completely three dimensional desktop. Complete with rendered animated desktop shortcuts and dynamically scaled application windows. It's initial public release was a reasonably simple demonstration of the desktop shortcuts (as fully rendered textured rotating cubes), but up to five main features (including desktop shortcuts) are planned and in development.

More information is on the 'What is Dimension?' page.

Outsider99

Overview

Outsider99 is a new shell with a distinctive graphical bent right out of the chute. It's one of the first shells I've seen that ships with a good theme support in it's initial release. It makes use of two basic desktop components: the Outsider Bar which emulates the majority of the features of the Win32 taskbar and the Naviator Bar, provides access to the Start Menu, Desktop, and My Computer directory objects/structures..

More information is on the 'What is Outsider99 page.

Liteshell

So LiteStep is too big & feature-crammed for some of you guys? You think even geOShell & evwm are too bloated to even consider? <g> Well, here's something to stick in your pipe & smoke: LiteShell, a replacement shell for Windows by Robert Moss, has to be in the running for the thinnest shell yet (short of setting your shell to command.com or cmd.exe :P). It weighs in at a whole 82kB, wringing-wet, between the liteshell.exe & the lite.dll (that's all there is, there aint no more <g>). The readme spells out the the shell's approach:

LiteShell is a minimalist's shell - no screen space is occupied by the shell until the user hits the windows key (or CTRL+ESC) and a menu is displayed, providing access to your programs, documents, tasks and all of the other stuff you want. This includes "Hot Reboot" - reboot windows without actually rebooting the PC (the way your computer does if you hold down SHIFT when you choose to restart).

Liteshell stores it's settings in the registry, and editing the settings will require a dip into regedit. And the shell can make extensive use of the hotkeys, using the Win key plus any alphabetic character (heh, if you've got a Win key, which I seem to lack on the work box <g>). And it even supports system !bang commands, including: !EditPrograms, !EmptyDocuments, !TopLeft, !TopRight, !BottomLeft, !BottomRight, !Cursor, !Run, !Exit, !HotReboot, !Logoff (log off), !Reboot, !Suspend and !Shutdown.

In the news posting for the above release, Rob mentioned,

"... 0.11 features everything that was missing from 0.1. Liteshell is a minimalist shell with minimal screen usage it is about 80k uncompressed and only a 45k download. There is only one downside at the moment: 1. no system tray (this might be permanent). Anyway, download it, install it and try it out let me know if you like it (or if you don't). You can also give me any suggestions you have or any bug reports :( But don't expect me to implement them straight away :) "

Anyway, if you've a hankering for a walk on the extremely light side, boogie over to digitaltension.com/liteshell and download the monstrous 45kB zip file <g>. Heh, I'm running a module that's four times that size all by it's lonesome :P

The X-Windows System, with a variety of window managers is the graphical interface most commonly used on Unix/Linux machines. It has had a long history of providing the foundation for a lengthy list of highly configurable very cool looking interfaces for the desktop. These range from basic window managers like tvwm & fvwm to the progenitors of LiteStep like WindowMaker and Afterstep, all the way to "anything-goes" interfaces like Enlightenment. (For more info on shell's and windowmanagers, I've put together a comparison page here).

Until now, the Unix folks have had all the fun, while Windows users have been limited to Bill's interface dujure, first in the form of Program Manager (in Windows 3.1 / NT 3.x), and finally Explorer (in Windows 95 / NT 4.0 and later).