Exxos, if you find anything better, come here and let us know. I've tried a few replacement shells, but I've found all of them cause more problems than they solve. Thing is, the basic idea behind Windows' own Explorer is just fine for me. With just a few tweaks, it could be perfect, since a file "explorer" doesn't need bells and whistles (a.k.a. Win8 ribbons and crap), but rather to be light-weight, simple and effective.
Personally, I haven't seen the Explorer crash in years. On WinXP, yes, it (rarely) would, but not on Win7.

Mort... I seriously doubt it'll be the end of Winstep in 4 weeks, mate...

I have been trying out the top shells just, it seems a lot of them are not supported, or not had any updates for a long time. The only one that looks half any good is "Aston2", but its got no where near the options winstep has in configuring things. A lot of the shells are really basic, its ok if thats all you want, though i personally think it would be a step backwards after using winstep stuff.

I really hope it isn't the end...

explorer crashes due to video previews, more of a codec type problem crashing explorer. Windows search is a bit sluggish with large lists, same with image or video previews, it mostly crashes. Though I could turn that off, never get around to it It seems the shells do not replace explorer totally, i thought they did, oh well.

going to clone my XP setup and start uninstalling everything one by one to see if my winstep problem goes away.. fingers crossed.

Hey I'm just telling you how it is. Look for yourself and see the expiration date. If someone doesn't pay to keep the site up... then it will be gone in 4 weeks and I would highly doubt someone would pay for something thats been pretty much dead for 2 years.

http://s22.postimg.org/588xstz1d/ws1.jpg

http://s17.postimg.org/6uf86dq5b/ws2.jpg

Exxos:
Well, I wasn't talking *exactly* about Winstep, but rather an entirely new shell replacement. Winstep, for all its glory and gusto, to me is an add-on. You still need Windows Explorer to manage your files -- and please don't tell me you can do it through the folder pop-ups -- and deep within, the taskbar and system tray and start menu are still running -- well, obviously, since explorer.exe is still running as the system shell.
What I was talking about was something that would completely replace explorer as the system shell. I once tried a Gnome for Windows port, which crashed about twice per minute, and a few other 'potentials', all of which professed their supposed readiness to replace explorer.exe and the Windows desktop.
Truth is, it simply cannot happen. Windows as an operating system is not open-source; there are probably thousands of undocumented methods, objects and handles that are used by explorer, the Windows Display Manager and a host of other processes that constitute the "Windows Desktop". There are so many of them that, simply, one cannot tell where the core OS stops and the shell begins. Windows is not Linux.
In any case, even replacing Explorer as a file manager is a tough cookie. While you *can* make a few shortcuts and use some other application for file browsing, searching, copying or moving around, Explorer will always be running in the backstage and when you do a "File-Open" (or a File-Save as) in any application, it will be Explorer that will be providing the "open file" dialogue.
Anyone claiming that they have "replaced Explorer" as a shell... well... they're just lying (or deluding themselves).

P.S. Windows XP Explorer and video codecs do NOT mix, mate. I too had had serious problems whenever there was a video thumbnail or preview. Especially the new (back then) AVI, Matryoshka and MPG preview 'plug-ins' were wreaking havoc with Explorer. All you needed was, curiously, one download error anywhere in a movie -- something that's quite common but a few erroneous bytes in an MPEG are rarely noticeable -- and bang! The Explorer process was frozen until Kingdom Come... or until you were patient enough to kill 'explorer.exe' from the task manager, something that could take up to 5 minutes of waiting. If you stick to "detail view" in Explorer, no problem (the preview plug-in only gets executed in thumbnail view).

Mort:
Mate, even in your screenshot you can see that, the last time the domain registry was renewed, it was 4 days before expiry. Personally, I do the same with my domains too, renew them a few days before expiry, not a few weeks.
I suppose Jorge will just renew the domain in the same fashion, around the 10th of March.
And yes, it's been dormant for a couple of years but "death" is not the impression I get from Jorge... not at all.

skagon your way off base. i can tell you for a fact that some shell replacements do replace explorer.exe. explorer.exe is one program/process that must show in task manager when running. in the past i've tested various so called shell replacements and after installing them and launching them i would immediately check task manager and with at least half the shell replacements explorer.ex was not running.

He just said that.

Umh... I just said that!

I guess you didn't understand my point, Chucky. What I said was, there are some which do remove "explorer.exe" from the relevant registry entry and use their own executable and some which don't even do that and simply run on top; however, I haven't seen any one that *can* actually replace "explorer.exe" in terms of functionality and not causing mayhem in the process (pun not intended).

Another point you made, however, is that "it must show in the task manager". Actually, it doesn't *necessarily* have to. In fact, in any given time, "explorer.exe" is running in at least three instances (maybe more) on a normal Windows PC. Some of the instances you see in Task Manager because they're invoked directly, but some others you do not, simply because they're invoked through indirect procedure calls or through the venerable "svchost.exe". In any given time, you will have at least half a dozen instances of svchost running on any computer; some of them actually invoke "explorer.exe" behind the scenes.

However, another thing I said, don't think that the Windows shell stops at "explorer.exe". What about "dwm.exe" (Desktop Window Manager)? Or "Shell32.dll"? Or "shlwapi.dll"? Or "ExplorerFrame.dll"? Or...
You do realise that there is no clear dividing 'line' between the kernel and the core of the operating system and the user interface. Windows is built as a whole; its shell is not *meant* to be replaced and I'm not sure that it can.
All these "replacements" are actually big hacks and invariably, at some point some procedure call or some method will try to invoke the wrong thing, the "replacement" won't have it, and boom. Or in a similar way, something will "wake up" "explorer.exe" and then you'll have two programmes fighting for control of the desktop. And believe me, "explorer" has its way of getting through.

gregory no one asked you.

skagon i'm saying with some shell replacements all of explorer.exe functions ARE taken over, NOT just some.

That is blatantly not true. Not to mention impossible.

Chucky, you just got an excerpt which concerned something different, and drew the wrong conclusion. The paragraph which you quoted was about simply replacing Explorer as a file manager (as I'm sure you can read in the very first line of your own quote), not as a shell.
And no, I don't believe there is *one* replacement which will replicate each and every function of Windows Explorer. Mainly due to all the undocumented stuff that Microsoft has included in Explorer. Essentially, anyone trying to replace Explorer would first have to replicate Explorer to a great detail, something which I find highly unlikely, since we're talking about a proprietary, closed-source programme.

However, if you think you've found such a replacement, that actually replaces the Windows Explorer to 100% without any problems and no crashes, hangs or conflicts of any kind, by all means, do let us know, which is this miraculous shell?

Exxos. I have a simple recommendation which I assume you already know, at least partially.

You need a new PC. You probably won't have the issues you're experiencing if you get a new one.

One of the main reasons you need to get a new one is because Microsoft will no longer provide updates or support of any kind for XP in a few more months if I remember correctly.

If you can afford it, look into getting Win7 with an i7 processor with as much RAM as possible. If it's too much for your pockets, get an i5. I guess there could be other comparable processors out there also. Whatever you do, DO NOT GET WINDOWS 8!

exxos i have to ask what kind of things do you use your comp for? the reason i ask is most people even heavy gamers can get away with a high end i5 system with 8 gigs of ram like windy suggested, or a good amd zambezi with 8 gigs of ram. that'll save you some money over a i7 system. to be honest it's a rare case when someone needs more than 8 gigs of ram.

My PC is a quad core based machine, its pretty stop spec, no need for a new pc. 3GB ram is all xp can cope with on 32bit, but i never use that much ram anyway. My pc gets used for a lot of things, but mostly 32bit programs, so moving to 64bit or a newer os would probably break a whole lot of stuff. I also use a lot expensive cad software.

XP is stable with all my apps so no chance I will upgrade. I tried win7 and I ran into so many problems within a hour of installing it, i gave up with it. XP with quad core means I got enough power to play games along with a good gfx card, plus the 4ghz single core is as fast as things can get in 32bit apps. Though I can run other apps on other cores anyway if needed.

I did finally find the font problem, a odd registry entry on a totally unrelated program was causing a whole bunch of odd issues. took bloody ages to find but everything is running top notch again now.

Glad to hear it, Exxos. You could always post the solution here, for reference.

About your computer, I too am strongly against buying new hardware just so you can "play new games" or even worse, run the new operating system.
That's just consumerist attitude and I'm really annoyed by it.
However, going to Windows 7, in your case, I think is a must. Windows XP, as much as you may love it, is obsolete. Even your quad-core is not being utilised properly by the XP kernel, simply because the XP kernel was designed for a single CPU with a single core, with a provision for dual-CPU setups. Anything beyond that is supported (of course) but used in a very inefficient manner.
Not to mention that, going to 64-bits, you will be able to use all 4GB of RAM which I assume you have (it'd be weird if you had 2+1GB DIMMs) and, just in case you're not aware, you don't need 64-bit versions of all programmes. The 64-bit Windows can run any 32-bit programme without any problems. And it's also got a thing where it will create a "virtual Windows XP" machine, for the few programmes that won't work on Win7 no matter what.
I don't know about your CAD applications, but if they're so expensive, they should be giving you support to migrate to a more sensible operating system, than chain you to an OS which got released 13 years ago !!!

Tell you the truth, I've had a discussion like that with Jorge, because he keeps insisting that Winstep should keep being compatible with even ridiculous operating systems. Did you know that Winstep is guaranteed to work on Windows 98 and ME? Now, I don't know who the hell would still be using those dinosaurs, but I think that anything before XP (like 95, NT, ME, 2000) should be dropped, and actually, even XP users should be warned that in a couple of years, nobody's going to bother. Realistically... would you be wasting time fixing bugs that only appear in a 15-year-old OS?

If I upgraded to win7 i would be constantly fixings bugs, why would I change from something that works perfectly just for the sake of something newer ? I already tested a lot of 32bit programs in win7, they actually run slower, even hard drive speeds are fractionally slower in win7. I don't see how this is any improvement over a 15 year old OS.

I am not going to get into all this over which OS is best. XP is best for me dated or not, win7 or later has given nothing but a unstable unreliable OS. I would be happy to update to something like win7, when they fix it to work as good as xp.