Windows Shell

Changing the default shell - how my Windows desktop looks and behaves.

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The default Windows shell is called Explorer (confusingly, the same as the MS file browser) - this is the program that determines the look of your desktop, i.e. it creates the task bar, system tray, start menu etc. Generally it works OK, but I wanted to be able to set up my desktop exactly how I wanted it, and Explorer doesn't allow this. So, I hunted round and found myself lost is a world of alternative shells :-) Here are a few I've tried:

BB4Win

At the moment, I'm using Blackbox for Windows (BB4Win), which is based on the Blackbox window manager for Unix/Linux. It's a very minimal-looking shell, and doesn't have some of the fancy graphic effects of other shells, but this isn't a bad thing IMO :-) One really useful feature is the cross-platform support for themes - styles created for *nix Blackbox work perfectly on BB4Win, so hundreds are available.

A few plugins are available for BB4Win, some of which match (in functionality) those available for Blackbox, and some are specifically for BB4Win. These give you a variety of nice extras, such as BBkeys for fully-customisable hotkey support (i.e. keyboard shortcuts for controlling programs, BB4Win, winamp etc,), multiamp for winamp controls, and BBSystemBar for controlling and customising the taskbar/system tray. Incidentally, the presence of a (toggleable) taskbar and system tray is one reason why I use BB4Win rather than another Blackbox port called Bluebox - I like minimilism in my shell, but both of these are pretty handy to have as extras ;-)

In common with most shell-replacements, BB4Win junks the normal Windows "Start" button, and uses a fully-customisable right-click menu instead. Similarly to most *nix window managers, BB4Win also gives you multiple workspaces (so you can have multiple desktops without having more than one monitor ;-)).


An example of my desktop using BB4Win	An example of my BB4Win right-click menu

Some good sites for BB4Win/Bluebox/Blackbox themes:

Litestep

Before I started using BB4Win, I used Litestep as my shell. This is probably the most popular Windows shell-replacement, and has a lot of add-on modules available, as well as themes.

Like BB4Win, it is very customisable, and can be made to look very pretty (well, not by me, but other people's themes look nice ;-)). I only swapped to BB4Win because I wanted that extra minimilism, and although there are Blackbox-lookalike themes for Litestep, I thought it was a bit pointless to use one of these when I could just use the real thing :-)