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Vista alternative shells?
The Man with No Name
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So I'm trying out Vista for the first time. Definitely blows XP completely away in performance. Everything is incredibly fast. My problem with it is just that I don't like the way things are organized. I remember seeing a blackbox thread on this forum I think in a past version, which allowed you to create a very custom shell for windows and unix systems, but I think that project is dead now. Are there any such shells around that will work with vista? 64 bit
also, how exactly can I see all the programs installed? Not just the ones I installed. I want to get rid of crap like windows calendars and special email client stuff that I'll never use but comes with Vista. I want to basically have a very minimal vista installation and then add my own stuff to it.
also, how exactly can I see all the programs installed? Not just the ones I installed. I want to get rid of crap like windows calendars and special email client stuff that I'll never use but comes with Vista. I want to basically have a very minimal vista installation and then add my own stuff to it.
:whistle:
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Other than disabling services (not recommended) at the moment there isn't much we're able to do with Vista. It's still too new and many things have changed. What apps are you looking to get rid of besides Calendar & mail?
It's a little trickier to get rid of things like Calendar and Mail, but you don't need to. They're very small so just don't run them. You can go ahead and add your own mail and calendar programs, even delete all the shortcuts to the included Microsoft ones if you want. Vista has a fairly robust control panel for globally setting your default programs.
I just want an operating system with spiny cubes, multiple desktops, AND TF2 and bioshock.
(Wine does not count)
edit: WTF why can't you link to youtube without embeding?
Does a bit of what that video displays, though not nearly as much.
Because flip3d is wholly useless, alt-tab is more useful.
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I've got a spare copy of Portal, if anyone wants it message me.
GET YER EXPOSE CLONE RIGHT HERE
Yes, I know, you can actually download and install programs that add functionality to your Windows PC! Who'da thunk it!
That attitude wasn't necessary. I read these forums daily, and yet didn't know aobut that expose clone either.
On topic, while I do wish I could tweak the look of vista a bit more, I'm happy enough with it that it doesn't matter all that much to me anyway.
Is Switcher still being worked on? It doesn't seem like it's been updated since last year.
I'm getting a bit more used to Vista now, but theres still a lot of little things that I wish could be slightly different. Is there anyway to modify the start menu so it doesn't have all those "Games" and "Music" and "Documents" links in there?
Also, I don't understand why its necessary to have a "Run as Administrator" command, why can't I just make my account a default admin? It's not like the machine is going to ever have more than 1 account. Its my own personal desktop.
You can actually customize the main start menu panel a lot. Right click on the start button, chose properties, then on the start menu tab, click the customize button. A whole list of options for the start menu will be there, including the ability to disable/enable the games/documents/etc. items.
As for "run as administrator" it serves a valuable purpose as a security feature. By only having things that absolutely need full administrator access get it, you are much more protected from malware/spware and other nasty things running without your consent.
The concept behind UAC is not new. *nix users typically run in a non-admin mode, only elevating when absolutely needed. At the very least, it tells you when something is trying to elevate. If it's a program that has no business accessing the registry or protected areas, I say decline and delete it.
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Steam: JC_Rooks
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There's really no secure way to do that. If you give some ways of accessing a program elevated access automatically, then malicious code can and will spoof those access paths for free lunch.
I decided to give that program a try today, it's very clunky. The transitions are very jerky and just don't seem to fit in.
Have you used this program wunderbar?
Who knows, maybe the issues I encountered are because i'm running Vista x64 rather than x86.
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I've got a spare copy of Portal, if anyone wants it message me.
No, it's just the way the program is. It's usually fine until you have X number of programs open, then you start noticing it slowing down and for that reason I don't really enjoy using it.
My preferred way to switch tasks is to use a registry tweak to increase the size of the thumbnails when using ALT+TAB. See this link for details on how to do this.
Here's a screenshot of the settings I'm using:
Vista is certainly more secure than XP. But I think the jury is still out as to how beneficial UAC will be in the long run. My fear is that it's essentially "training" users to ignore applications that want to be elevated to run as admin. Really, the onus needs to be on the software makers behind the application to rethink whether or not they really need to elevate. Unfortunately, I don't know how much of that is taking place. Bad or inefficient programmers may just figure users will click "Allow", so they don't bother re-architecting their software accordingly. Ugh.
Anyway, that's just my 2 cents.
- Don't add me, I'm at/near the friend limit
Steam: JC_Rooks
Twitter: http://twitter.com/JiunweiC
I work on this: http://www.xbox.com
What I'm more worried about though is if the Switcher installation could muck up something in Vista (Registry, WPF, etc).
At the very least it's already been shown the UAC is able to catch/stop all root kits from installing PCs, as long as the user doesn't allow.
Except OpenBSD.
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I've got a spare copy of Portal, if anyone wants it message me.
I kid, I kid, OpenBSD is not something I'd like to have to go up against.
Some sort of Unix-variant?
It wouldn't surprise me if the usual office stuff runs on Windows though.