Windows 9x/ME Customization Guide Posted on September 26, 2001 by Toby Crundwell This first part of guide covers basic customization. More advanced users may want to skip to part two, although it is recommended that you at least have a look through part one before moving on too anything else. This guide was prepared on windows 98, with specific references to differences in Windows 95/Millenium where necessary. WallpapersBy default, all versions of Windows give you the
option of changing the wallpaper and window appearance. Open up control
panel and open display properties.
Windows 95 will only display background pictures (i.e. bitmaps) saved within the windows folder. Windows 98 will display bitmaps or JPEG files saved in the windows folder or the \windows\web\wallpaper folder. Windows Me will also look under the my pictures folder (usually located under my documents). In order for JPEGs to be used as a wallpaper active desktop has to be enabled. You can always browse to a picture if you’d rather not move it to one of windows’ specified folder, or you can specify the my pictures folder as another folder of your choice by clicking start, run, typing in regedit & browsing to HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders, double clicking on the my pictures value and changing the directory from there. You can easily browse to another directory, although windows will not store them on the file list if you change your wallpaper to something else. All versions of windows since 95 support stretching of the image to fit the size of the screen. However, if you’re still on windows 95, you’ll have to settle for the image being in the center of the screen, or the screen in the center of the background depending on the size of the bitmap (in pixels). Tiling keeps repeating the wallpaper over the screen, or just shows a portion of it if it is bigger than the current resolution. A favorite method of mine to create a visually pleasing desktop is to create a blurred background. NB This cannot be done in Windows 95. Active desktop must be disabled.
To do this, open up Microsoft paint. Resize the image until it is a small white square in the top left corner of the screen, then zoom in. Keep doing this until you are at 8x magnification. I suggest a size of four or six pixels. Now select some colours you think you might want & colour the individual pixels, like this:
Save the file as a bitmap in the directory of your choice. Now open display properties & select that bitmap as your wallpaper (you may need to browse to it, depending on where you saved it). Make sure stretch is selected for the type of display. Now click apply. If the image shows banding of colours, change your desktop colour depth to 32 bit from the settings tab. NB The preview will not display a blurred image.
If you have desktop themes installed, you can individually import the wallpaper from a desktop theme without importing any other setting. To do this, go into control panel and double click on Desktop themes. Select the theme you want from the drop down list & click to uncheck every check box under settings apart from Desktop Wallpaper. Now click apply.
ScreensaversGo into display properties and move to the Screen Saver tab. Here, surprisingly, you can change your screensaver. After selecting it, you can change the settings of it (screensaver dependant) or preview it.
Screensaver files (*.scr) are normally stored in \windows\system32
on win9x/Me machines, and unneeded ones can always be deleted safely,
although I’d recommend uninstalling it instead if possible. Windows
screensavers such as flying through space or flying windows
can be installed/uninstalled from windows setup. Go into control
panel, open up add/remove programs, move to the Windows
Setup tab, select accessories & click on more details,
select screensavers & click on more details.
User installed screensavers can be removed from the normal add/remove programs control panel.
If you have desktop themes installed, you can individually import the screensaver from a desktop theme without importing any other setting. To do this, go into control panel and double click on Desktop themes. Select the theme you want from the drop down list & click to uncheck every check box under settings apart from Screen saver. Now click apply.
NB You can also preview a theme’s individual screensaver before applying it by clicking on Screen saver in the Previews box. AppearanceIn display properties, move on to the Appearance tab. Predefined schemes can be chosen from the scheme list or custom schemes can be created.
Here is a description of what each of the settings in the Items menu do: 3D Objects: changes the default background colour & text colour of applet windows & toolbars, etc. Fonts cannot be changed. Active title bar: changes the colour for the title bar currently selected. All versions of windows from 98 onwards support two colours with fading effects between them. Windows 95 users need to use X-Setup to enable this; but even then it isn’t a total solution; it looks horrible. Text font, size & text colour can also be changed. Active window border: This useless feature adds a border of the selected colour to all active non-skinned windows. I’d recommend leaving this set to 0 at all times. Application background: Not discernable in most cases; this changes the background in applications where a colour is not specified by the application, for instance the non-active area in ms paint. Caption buttons: This refers to the size of the minimize, maximize & close buttons on the top right hand corner of the window, as well as icons in the system tray, but not ones in taskbar toolbars (like quick launch). I’d recommend reducing the size of these as far as is tolerable to free up some desktop space if you are on a lower desktop resolution. Desktop: This refers to the desktop colour if you haven’t specified a background, and the background for the icon text if you have. For details on how to remove the background for the icon text, see the icon section.
Icon: Changes icon size as well as text size, text colour & text font for the icon. Icon spacing (Horizontal): This refers to the horizontal space between icons displayed on both the desktop & in my computer. Icon spacing (Vertical): This refers to the vertical space between icons displayed on both the desktop & in my computer. Inactive title bar: Similar to Active title bar, but for all title bars displayed other than the active one. Active window border: This useless feature adds a border of the selected colour to all inactive non-skinned windows. I’d recommend leaving this set to 0 at all times. Menu: This refers to the size of the Bar in which “file, edit” etc are displayed, at the top of most non-skinned windows. You can increase the size of the bar as well as the size of the text & you can change the text font & colour also. Message box: Changes the font, colour & size of the text that appears in message boxes Palette title: A strange feature that changes the size of title bars such as ICQ’s. I’d recommend leaving this setting alone. Scrollbar: Changes the size of the scrollbar Selected items: Changes the background colour of selected icons, items on menus, etc. ToolTip: Changes text colour, size, font & background colour of tooltips. Window: Changes background & text colours in windows such as Windows’ Explorer/My computer. If you have desktop themes installed, you can individually import the Window appearance from a desktop theme without importing any other setting. To do this, go into control panel and double click on Desktop themes. Select the theme you want from the drop down list & click to uncheck every check box under settings apart from the bottom three settings. Should you wish to you don’t have to apply the colour scheme settings, or the font sizes, as the Desktop themes control panel puts font & window sizes, Font names & styles & colours in separate categories. Now click apply. |
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Cursors
To change (mouse) cursors, go into control panel and double click on mouse & go to the pointers tab. You can browse to your own cursors for each of the events or use one of the predefined schemes.
If you do not see any schemed you can install them by going into control panel, double clicking add/remove programs, moving to the windows setup tab, double clicking on accessories, checking the mouse pointers box & clicking Ok, then Ok again.
If you have desktop themes installed, you can individually import the cursors from a desktop theme without importing any other setting. To do this, go into control panel and double click on Desktop themes. Select the theme you want from the drop down list & click to uncheck every check box under settings apart from Mouse pointers. Now click apply.
NB You can also preview a theme’s cursors before applying it by clicking on Pointers, sounds, etc in the Previews box & browsing through the cursors on the pointers tab.
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Sounds
Open control panel and double click on sounds, or sounds/multimedia if you are using Windows Me. All sound events for windows, and sound events for any other installed program, if applicable to that program, will be shown. To change an individual sound, click on the event & either select one from the list of windows’ default sounds, or click on browse. You can specify and .wav file you want windows to play for that event.
Unfortunately, windows will not play any other type of sound other than wave (.wav). You can preview a sound by clicking on the small black arrow pointing right, under preview. You can select a sound scheme from the schemes drop down list. To remove all sounds, select no sounds as your scheme.
If you haven’t got any schemes installed, go into control panel and double click on add/remove programs. Click on the windows setup tab. Double click on multimedia. Check the box for multimedia sound schemes & click Ok twice.
Each sound should be self-explanatory, e.g. start windows controls the sound that plays when you start your computer.
If you have desktop themes installed, you can individually import the sounds from a desktop theme without importing any other setting. To do this, go into control panel and double click on Desktop themes. Select the theme you want from the drop down list & click to uncheck every check box under settings apart from Mouse pointers. Now click apply.
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Icons
Shortcuts’ icons (such as those on the desktop or start menu) can be changed by context clicking on the icon, selecting properties, selecting the “shortcut” tab & clicking change icon. If there are not enough there for your taste you can browse for more.
Windows’ “classic” icons are stored in these libraries:
\windows\pifmgr.dll
\windows\system\shell32.dll
For a more classic Windows 3.1 look, older style icons are stored in \windows\progman.exe.
Or alternatively you could browse to the icon file (*.ico) of your choice.
To change icons such as my computer & the recycle bin, go to the Effects tab in display properties. The same principles as before apply; you can specify an icon file of your choice or browse to one of windows’ icon libraries.
If you are using a wallpaper, you will probably have noticed that the icon text has an annoying background to it that sometimes conflicts with the wallpaper. To get rid of this, you can use a utility called seethru, which basically makes the icons transparent. It can be downloaded from Mike Strong’s website & contains the VB libraries required.
Changing icons for individual hard/floppy drives’ partitions is slightly different. NB This changes icon for individual media. Details on how to change the global setting for the icons for all hard drives or floppy drives can be found in the registry editing to change stubborn icons section. First, you need find out the path to the icon you need. If you want an icon from an .ico or .bmp file this is fairly easy – you just need to remember the path to the file. If however on of the icons in an icon library (.dll or .exe) takes your fancy, you need to remember an extra suffix to the path name – a comma and a number, with no spaces. All the icons in the libraries are numbered from zero, and count down. If, for example, you wanted the MSDOS blue screen icon you would use C:\windows\progman.exe,1. Remember the icons count down in columns from left to right, starting at zero so for the Swiss army knife icon the path name would be C:\windows\progman.exe,21.
Once you know what the path & number (if applicable), open windows notepad and enter in these details
[autorun]
icon=<path here>
So if you wanted the Swiss army knife your file would be
[autorun]
icon= C:\windows\progman.exe,21
Now save the file as autorun.inf in the root folder of you hard drive or floppy disk partition, for example a:\ or c:\. You should now have your icon displayed instead of the usual boring grey icon.
N.B. For floppy drives to display icons, you need to open up X-Setup & browse to the system\file system\CD autostart\CDR autorun plugin and enable autostart for removable diskettes.
As an alternative
to using autorun.inf, you can also use your registry, as described
below.
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Registry editing to change stubborn icons
N.B. Registry tweaks override all other icon settings. Remember to back up your registry before performing any of these changes, as some icons really just don’t look as good as you might think.
To change open & closed folder icons, as shown in the left hand pane of Windows Explorer, as well as the icon used for all hard drive partitions or floppy drive partitions, you need to open up the registry. Click on start, run and type in regedit. Now browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\shell icons. If you don’t have this branch you can create it by context clicking on the explorer branch and “create a new key”, giving it the name Shell Icons. It’s a good idea to put this tree in your favorites if you are using Windows Me. The shell icon branch by default will not have any values apart from Default – Value not set. To change the icon for the closed folder, create a new string value, named with a number. Here is a description of what each number controls:
3 Closed folder icon
4 Open folder icon
6 Global floppy disk partition icon
(overrides autorun.inf)
8 Global hard disk partition icon (overrides
autorun.inf)
Once you have renamed the new value to one of the numbers above, double click on it and type in the path to your icon (see above for details on how to get icons from icon libraries).
To apply the changes the icon cache needs to be reset. The simplest way to do this is to go into tweak ui & click “repair icons”, but if you don’t have tweak ui installed you can go into display properties, appearance tab, change the size of icons (as described above) click apply, and change it back to what it was, and click apply again.
As an alternative to changing icons globally, you can change them individually, my favorite approach. To change hard drives’ individual icons click start, run, type in regedit and browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\DriveIcons\x\DefaultIcon, where x is the name of the partition whose icon you wish to change (i.e. c, d, etc.). If the tree for your partition is not present you can always create it. Remember to create a DefaultIcon sub-tree as well. In the DefaultIcon tree, double click on the default string value and enter in the details of the icon you want, e.g. C:\windows\progman.exe,21 or C:\newicon.ico.
More icon settings
To change individual folders’ icons, open up windows notepad and enter the following
[.ShellClassInfo]
IconFile=
IconIndex=
You can enter the path to the icon file (*.ico) under IconFile. If you are using a library (as described above) you need to enter the number of the icon under IconIndex, so for instance if you wanted the Swiss army knife you would have
[.ShellClassInfo]
IconFile=c:\windows\progman.exe
IconIndex=21
Desktop themes
NB Windows 95 without the plus! Pack does not
have desktop themes.
The plus! pack for Windows 95 introduced a whole new way to customize windows. To open up the desktop themes control panel, go into control panel and open desktop themes. To apply a whole theme, select one from the list, make sure all the settings are checked, and click apply. The theme should apply itself in a couple of seconds. If you don’t have many (or any) themes installed, go into control panel and open add/remove programs. Move to the Windows Setup tab and click to check Desktop themes. If the checkbox was gray, not all themes were installed with windows.
If you still don’t have enough themes for your liking, numerous theme files (*.theme) can be downloaded from download sites such as C|Net. You should extract them to your \program files\plus!\Themes folder.
To save your current scheme (i.e. screen saver, cursors, sounds, wallpaper, appearance, icons), select current windows settings from the drop down list and click save as. Save the file as something appropriate in the aforementioned folder. N.B. If the wallpaper, sounds, icons etc are renamed or deleted, the theme will not change them when it is applied.
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UI
customization for the Explorer shell.
Windows’ default shell allows for some basic customization to the interface, e.g. moving icons around, etc. Here I will explain some of the basic things that can be done to the UI that aren’t always obvious. First of all, the taskbar can be dragged around the screen & made to snap on any side of any desktop. You can even move it across monitors. Be aware that if you put it at the top of your desktop, it can easily obstruct title bars.
The start menu too can be customized. To put a cascading control panel on the start menu, context click on the start button and click open. Create a new folder and name it Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}. A control panel cascading menu will now appear at the top of the start menu. An easy alternative, if you are using Windows Me, simply open up taskbar & start menu from start, settings & click to check the box to enable cascading control panel. The control panel under the settings part of the start menu will now become a cascading menu.
If you are a bit short of space on the first menu from the start menu, you can use smaller icons. To do this click start, settings, taskbar & start menu, & click to check Use small icons in the start menu.
If you want to hide (but not delete) specific folders on the start menu, desktop, or anywhere really, simply context click on the folder, select properties, and click to check hidden. If you’d rather do this via DOS the command is attrib foldername +h. To undo this the command is attrib foldername –h. If the folders don’t disappear, go into start, settings, Folder options, click on the view tab and under hidden files click to select do not show hidden files. Now click apply.
If you’d rather hide (but not disable) all the icons on the desktop, go into folder options as explained before, and click to select hide icons when desktop is viewed as Web page. Now click Apply. Make sure active desktop is enabled by context clicking on any clear space on the desktop, and clicking to enable View as web page from the active desktop menu. You should now have a clean, icon-less desktop.
To further tweak the Explorer shell go into folder options from start, settings. Custom, based on the settings I choose should be selected as the type of windows desktop. Click on settings. The options here should be fairly explanatory. You should select which ones you want according to your own personal preferences. For more details see our windows 9x/Me tweak guide.
Startup & shutdown logos
The “windows is starting up”, “windows is shutting down” and “its now safe to turn off your computer” screens are, in fact, all bitmaps. The latter two are stored as the files logow.sys & logos.sys in your windows folder. Logos.sys is the “It’s now safe to turn off your computer” screen, and logow.sys is the “windows is now shutting down” screen. Click to select one of the files, and whilst holding shift right click on the icon. There will be an option on the context menu labeled “open with”. Click on this. You should now be selected with a list of files. Scroll down to mspaint (or any other image manipulation program you have installed) & click ok. You can make windows always open .sys files with your selected program if you wish.
Your selected program will now open & you should be presented with your desired screen. You can safely edit to your heat’s content. Remember that the “its now safe to turn off your computer” screen is only capable of two colours, that is orange and black. The size of the bitmap must not be changed from its default 320x340 pixels.
Editing the startup logo is a bit more complex, seeing as Windows does not store this file by default. To create this file, you can either make a bitmap with 320x340 pixels and save it as c:\logo.sys, or alternatively open up logow.sys and save it as c:\logo.sys & edit the picture from there. I recommend the latter.
Blue Screens of Death
Believe it or not, the “Blue screen of death” (BSOD) can also be customized. It doesn’t even have to be blue. For the purposes of this part of the article, I will refer to it simply as a SOD. Open up the file \windows\system.ini and under the section headed [386Enh] add the following entries
MessageTextColor=x
MessageBackColor=x
The former controls the text colour for the SOD, while the latter controls the background colour. These are the following codes available:
A Green
B Cyan
C Red
D Mauve
E Yellow
F White
0 Black
1 Dark blue
2 Dark Green
3 Dark Cyan
4 Dark Red
5 Dark Mauve
6 Dark Yellow
7 Grey
8 Dark Grey
9 Blue
So, for that “classic” BSOD you would have these entries:
MessageTextColor=F
MessageBackColor=1
N.B. Setting a background colour to a value greater than 7 seems to revert to the corresponding darker colour.
A reboot is needed for changes to take effect. One easy way to test for your handiwork is to eject a CD whilst Windows is trying to read it.
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Menu backgrounds & folders
Another little known tweak is that the menu backgrounds for explorer/internet explorer windows can be changed. To do this, Internet Explorer must be installed properly. First, think of/create a suitable background, e.g. bubbles isn’t ideal for this. I suggest the clouds wallpaper (both bitmaps are located in your windows folder by default). Now click start, run and type in regedit. Browse to the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\toolbar. Look for the string value BackBitmapShell. If it isn’t there you can create it. Double click & enter the path to your bitmap, e.g. c:\windows\clouds.bmp. The changes should be immediate; open up my computer to admire your handiwork. The registry tree name is a misnomer; in fact it does not affect Internet Explorer at all. The image is tiled by default, so unfortunately you can’t use the blurred background effect, as explained earlier under the wallpapers section. If the image conflicts with your text colour, you can change that too. For details of how to do so, refer back to the appearance section.
You may notice I have a Swiss Army Knife for my folder icon & a background picture for the folder. Details of the former can be found in the icons section. As for the latter, you can make folders in windows explorer/computer have backgrounds via a wizard. This does not apply to Windows 95. Simply context click anywhere in the desired folder, and click customize this folder from the view menu. Windows will then launch a wizard. Click to select Choose a background picture and then click next. The selection available is the same as for your wallpaper selection in desktop properties. Windows will always tile this background.
System properties
Have you got a brand name PC? Or do you just want to add your own information to the “general” tab of system properties? There is an easy way to do this. Open up notepad and type in the following:
[general]
Manufacturer=Manufacturer here
Model=PC model here
[support information]
Line1=This information goes under the “support
information”
Line2=window that appears when you click on the
button on
Line3=the bottom of the general tab.
Line4=You can have as many as ten lines of this.
Obviously you’ll want to replace the text I’ve put in italics with your own choice of text. Save the file as oeminfo.ini in your windows\system folder. Replace the existing file if applicable. If you want to add your own logo under manufactured and supported by:, you can do that too! This should be a bitmap (*.bmp) no larger than 180 pixels wide by 114 pixels high. This should be saved as oemlogo.bmp in your windows\system folder.
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Windowblinds
Window Blinds is not an alternative shell as such, it merely acts to skin windows. It was designed with the explorer shell in mind, but equally it works with all the other shells I have mentioned. You can download it here. It should need to much explaining, other than you can pick your theme & press apply. As mentioned before, some litestep themes come with windowblinds skins. Otherwise, you can download pretty much any sort of skin you can think of from lavasoft. Be aware that windowblinds only skins windows, i.e. it changes title bars, buttons & such. It makes absolutely no difference to your shell. Here is a screendump with the Piper theme applied:
As you can see, the windows interface is basically unchanged. The main difference lies in the title bars & the task menu. Themes can also affect menu boxes & the edges of windows.
Windows 9x/Me Customization Part Two: Advanced Customization
Alternative shells make a great impact on Windows 9x/Me, mainly because the default shell Windows uses is so horrible. The following section of this article is for more advanced tweakers who prefer to meddle with their shells. I’ve covered the old program manager, and everyone’s favorite, Litestep. Other shells such as darkstep are not covered, mainly because I found them to be user unfriendly & not easily customizable.
A general guide to alternative shells is that they
can be changed via a file called system.ini, located in your
windows directory. If you ever need to change back to the default
windows shell (explorer), simply boot up into dos (you may want a
boot disk if you are using Windows Me), and type in edit
windows\system.ini, if you installed windows to that directory.
Simply change the shell= entry back to shell=explorer.exe.
If you ever get the warning "CANNOT FIND <shell file
name> PLEASE REINSTALL WINDOWS." do not reinstall
windows. Just follow the instructions above.
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Program manager
Program manager (program.exe) is the other shell provided by Microsoft for use on windows machines. It is considerably faster than explorer, however it is a lot simpler. Some may recognize the name from Windows 3.x, and indeed it is practically the same shell design, but it has been dragged into the 32 bit GUI of Windows 9x/Me. There is no set install program for it; so you’ll have to tell windows to load it manually. Click on start, run, and type in sysedit. Move to the system.ini window. Look for the entry shell= under the [boot] section. By default it will be shell=explorer.exe. Change it to shell=progman.exe. Save changes & reboot.
You’ll need to create your own program groups (*.grp). Functionality other than that is limited to run. It’s a very fast shell, but not one I can easily recommend. If you grew up in the world of 16 bit windows you might prefer this to any other shell. Remember, it is only a shell, you are not reverting to an old operating system. All other aspects other than your operating system other than your desktop interface will remain the same.
Litestep
Litestep is possibly the best alternative shell for windows, based loosely on the designs from NextStep. It is the most configurable shell around & has been gaining popularity ever since it was released for Windows 95. You are not only able, but positively encouraged to change any/all settings at will. At the time of writing, the old litestep site was not up and running. Therefore all downloads are linked to a new litestep site. You can find a list of downloads with preset themes here. Don’t even think about going for one of the newer “LSD4P” builds.
For the purpose of this article, I will be using an old favorite of mine, Bluesteel. Bluesteel was originally a theme created by Daniel Erat for a Window Manager called Enlightenment. It has seen a lot of action under X-Windows for Linux, and now for litestep.
The downloadable file should be either a compressed zip archive, or self extracting .exe. In the event you download a file with the .php3, they are basically renamed zip files, so you can use WinZip. If you are given an archive, you will need to run the install program. If you are already supplied with an install program, all you need do is launch it.
If the file has an install program, it should guide you through the process & should edit system.ini for you. If it does not, extract all files to c:\litestep and follow the steps above to edit system.ini, but edit the shell= line to shell=c:\litestep\litestep.exe, substituting the directory if you chose a custom one.
Once you have rebooted, you should face a desktop like this:
Quite bland-looking. Your theme should have its own background. The marble background from Bluesteel can be found in c:\litestep\images.
All changes central to litestep can be made from the step.rc file, although changes will not take effect until you recycle or restart windows, more details on this later.
For starters, if you can’t seem to find a way to get into display properties, context click on the desktop and click on run. Type in control.exe desk.cpl.
Now the default litestep menu configuration doesn’t include much, especially with Bluesteel, so that’ll be the first thing you’ll want to change. Open up the file c:\litestep\step.rc in a text editing program of your choice. Notepad is sufficient, but you can open it in Microsoft Word should you choose. If a shortcut to it is not on the menu, click on run on the menu & browse to your program.
You should be faced with quite a few lines of code. Browse to the section that has the *Popup prefixes. The basic theory to this is fairly simple. The order of items in step.rc is the same as on the menu. After *Popup, put the name of the item, followed by command . For instance, if you wanted a shortcut to Microsoft paint in the menu you’d have the command
*Popup “MS Paint” “c:\program
files\paint”
If your “programs” are not displayed on the menu, this is the first thing you’ll want to add. This can be done by adding
*Popup “Programs” !PopupFolder:”c:\windows\start menu\programs”
Substituting the directory for the directory of your start menu, of course (if it is installed elsewhere). You may notice I’ve added !PopupFolder: to the command. If you do not do this, the programs folder will open up in a new window, rather than on the menu. To create your own folder, you must use the command
*Popup “Foldername” Folder
Followed by your folder entries, and then *Popup ~Folder. For instance:
*Popup “Important stuff” Folder
*Popup “C drive” “c:\”
*Popup “Windows folder” “C:\windows”
*Popup “Program Files folder” “C:\program
files”
*Popup ~Folder
N.B. Do not forget to include *Popup ~Folder, otherwise all subsequent entries will be put under the specified folder, and not on the main menu!
You can also launch separate control panels. You can do this one of two ways. The first way is to create direct shortcuts. You’ll need to know the name of each control panel though. Here is a key to the most commonly used control panels:
Desktop Properties: desk.cpl
System Properties: sysdm.cpl
Add/remove programs: appwiz.cpl
Internet Properties: Inetcpl.cpl
Joysticks: joy.cpl
Modems: modem.cpl
Network: net.cpl
Desktop themes: themes.cpl
Xteq: XQXSetup.cpl
All commands have to be preceded by control.exe. For example, a typical control panel folder might look like this:
*Popup “Control Panel” Folder
*Popup “Desktop Properties” control.exe
desk.cpl
*Popup “System Properties” control.exe
sysdm.cpl
*Popup “Add/remove programs” control.exe
appwiz.cpl
*Popup “Internet Properties” control.exe
Inetcpl.cpl
*Popup “Joysticks” control.exe joy.cpl
*Popup “Modems” control.exe modem.cpl
*Popup “Network” control.exe net.cpl
*Popup “Desktop themes” control.exe
themes.cpl
*Popup “Xteq” control.exe XQXSetup.cpl
*Popup ~Folder
The alternative way to do it is to create a new folder, for instance c:\controlpanel, and have the control panel window open. Drag all the control panel icons you want to appear on the menu to this new folder. Windows should create shortcuts to them there. Now open up step.rc and add the following
*Popup “Control Panels” !PopupFolder:“c:\controlpanels”
The final menu commands you’ll need to know are native Litestep !Bang ones. The most important of which is “recycle”. This should be on your menu already, but if it is not you can add it by the command
*Popup “Recycle” !Recycle
This acts to Shutdown the shell & then reload it, with the changes you made to step.rc enforced. Otherwise, the changes would not be visible until you reboot. Other !bang commands include
Log off !logoff
Shut down !shutdown
And can be applied in exactly the same way.
*Popup “log off or shut down” Folder
*Popup “Log Off” !logoff
*Popup “Shut down” !shutdown
*Popup ~Folder
To change the appearance of the menu, move to the section of step.rc with Popup entries, without the asterisk (*). Bluesteel’s default config is this:
PopupEntryPix
popup-normal.bmp
PopupSelEntryPix
popup-selected.bmp
PopupBottomPix
popup-bottom.bmp
PopupEntryFontFace "Vixar ASCI"
PopupFontFace "Vixar ASCI"
PopupFontHeight
16
NoPopupBevel
PopupSubmenuHeight
17
PopupOverlapX
4
PopupOverlapY
-10
MinPopupWidth
123
MaxPopupWidth
123
PopupTextOffset
16
NoPopupCloseButton
HotListName
"Enlightenment"
PopupBlt
0
NoPopupFolderIcon
PopupTransparent
PopupEntryColor
FFFFFF
PopupSelEntryColor
866A5F
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The entries should be self explanatory, here are a few explained:
PopupTitlePix
changes the picture shown at the top of the menu
PopupEntryPix
changes the background for each menu item
PopupSelEntryPix
changes the background when an item on the menu is selected (but not
clicked)
PopupBottomPix
changes the picture shown at the bottom of the menu
PopupFontFace
changes the fonts used on the menu
PopupFontHeight
Changes the font height
NoPopupBevel
stops the popup bevel from being displayed (highly recommended)
PopupSubmenuHeight
Changes the height of text on submenus
PopupOverlapX
Changes how far submenus overlap on the X axis
PopupOverlapY
Changes how far submenus overlap on the Y axis
MinPopupWidth
Changes the minimum width for menus in pixels (NB do not specify a
number larger than your entrypix file width)
MaxPopupWidth
Changes the maximum width for menus in pixels (NB do not specify a
number smaller than your entrypix file width)
NoPopupCloseButton
Removes the “close” button for the popup menu
HotListName
Changes the name displayed at the top of the popup menu
NoPopupFolderIcon
Stops folder icons being displayed for entries on the menu that are
folders. You might want to toggle this to taste.
PopupTransparent
Transparent
menus
PopupEntryColor
Six digit code for the colour of non-selected text entries
PopupSelEntryColor
Six digit code for the colour of selected text entries
On to other aspects of litestep. Desktop shortcuts follow a similar pattern to menu entries, except you have to specify the location on the desktop, and the icons used.
*Shortcut “name” position
icon-non-selected
icon-selected
icon-clicked “path here”
For instance, with Bluesteel installed the command is:
*Shortcut "" -43 86 m_audio.bmp m_audio_cl.bmp m_audio_cl.bmp #2 "C:\Program Files\Winamp\winamp.exe"
There is no name for the shortcut as the icon specified (m_audio.bmp) has the name on it. The numbers refer to the position on the desktop.
Litestep additionally features the “wharf”. This useless feature is not included with Bluesteel, but can be added at will. The commands for the wharf are exactly the same as for the menu, but also specifying the image used. For instance
*Wharf “display properties” “c:\litestep\display.bmp”
control.exe desk.cpl
Would show up a wharf entry with the display.bmp image, and would fire up display properties when clicked. There are also numerous other tools that can be put on the wharf such as a CPU monitor & different types of clocks; I will not go into them. Finally, if your theme includes skins for winamp and/or windowblinds (as Bluesteel does), it is suggested that you use those too.
This should be all you need to know to get litestep up & running to your basic tastes. If you have a question about entries in step.rc, or any other questions about Litestep, please ask in the forums rather than emailing me.
Conclusion
Your windows interface should now be more personal & customized for your needs. Windows 2000 & XP customization guides are planned for the near future.
