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Removing Windows Explorer


footballking3420

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(note to footballking: I'm not trying to hijack your thread. I was going to open thread with exactly the same title and subject, but with one other question ... so they would be a replication. I'm an ancient 3.1_98se user/member who after all these years is finally going to try and build a w2k system and right now I'm choosing nLite (over SP5, HFslip and GreenMachine). I suspect I'm like you and don't plan to use and don't want to use either MS disk Explorer, MS internet Explorer or MS-Outlook. That said ...)

Dirtwarrior: I don't understand your question/answer ... Does anyone know of any specific and invaluable MS or other programs which absolutely will not work unless IE and Outlook are installed (and thus also properly $$maintained$$)?

If IE & Out are not absolutely necessary for anything specific (other than, "But, gee, everything else MS does is so kuel"), then, why not remove it? In which case, bootballking's question resurfaces -- how do we use nLite to accomplish the task?

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Give me a minute to type in the reasons i decided not to remove IE from my windows. I started in DOS and evolved through all the OSes. I know the anti IE sentiment well, however going with the evolving OSes I have learned what you currently lack in knowledge. Gimme a bit to edit this message and explain, please. :)

OK. With windows 95 and to some extent 98 IE was unstable unnecessary and just all around easily exposed as something MS wanted you to think you needed.

It IS possible to totally remove IE, as I have posted in another thread not long ago... however lots of very handy features (very handy once you get used to the huge plusses of having them, that is) and if you thin out other things that actually ARE bloat and don't benefeit you directly, XP is just as fast as 98 (no I am not exxagerating!)

I am going to talk about XP here, not 2000, because it shows to a greater extent what is possible - though some of these things are indeed present in 2000. I will also leave things to a short summation of the features, letting you google for more information as you want.

*Automatic updating is a boon, you no longer have to worry about manually checking to see if an update is available, it does it for you and either installs for you or lets you choose.

*Quickview/preview of documents and especially images and videos are available. you can choose 'thumbnails' and it will show you a small preview of them in windows explorer window.

*SFC (which is one thing I turn off, actually) will check windows files for corruption or contamination and repair/replace them without you needing to do a thing or even know... thing is this particular one causes most of the 'slowdown' in winxp.

*Restore points. you can create a 'snapshot' of the OS before you install a driver, program, try to edit the registry, whatever and if you decide to roll it back, it is super easy to do.

*VSS/shadow copies. snapshotting pales in comparison to VSS. you can set it to take live images of your system at a given time or manually do it, then do whatever you wish... say delete all your movies and games. Then go back to that shadow copy and watch the movies - they are still there until you delete that shadow copy - and then restore your games... or not. This gives serious power to those who learn to use it fully.

There are lots more, but I'll leave it at that. Oh, one more thing. it is truly fast and stable now. I have systems that regularly stay up for months on end, and only reboot when a severe security patch needs applied (most dont even need reboots now!)

Edited by jaqie
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If you can remove Windows Explorer, you can use a Shell instead that will use less resources than Windows Explorer.

Ex: LiteShell uses 4mb of ram compared to 12-16mb of ram that Windows Explorer uses. Plus, LiteShell is much more responsive and quicker than Windows Explorer

Only thing lacking with LiteShell is you don't get the system tray at the bottom of the screen. This can be taken care of by using TrayModule. A little tricky to install and get used to, but so are most things that you try for the first time.

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it's not the 'only thing lacking' anymore. XP as I just said has many features which require IE core to function.

I am just finishing up a fully updated windows XP SP2 + hotfixes nLite install for myself that has IE and IE core, that boots using 40MB or less. In these days, that is nothing - and it is very, very responsive even on my old P3 500 laptop.

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If you can remove Windows Explorer, you can use a Shell instead that will use less resources than Windows Explorer.

Ex: LiteShell uses 4mb of ram compared to 12-16mb of ram that Windows Explorer uses. Plus, LiteShell is much more responsive and quicker than Windows Explorer

Only thing lacking with LiteShell is you don't get the system tray at the bottom of the screen. This can be taken care of by using TrayModule. A little tricky to install and get used to, but so are most things that you try for the first time.

I did a search for lite shell and came up with many shells but not lite shell and tray module. Can you provide link for them. Maybe even screenies.

Let me know how it goes taking out explorer. What are you going to use as a file manager?

Edited by dirtwarrior
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How do you remove Window's Explorer using nLite? Do I have to remove all the files myself before making the ISO?

You don't need to remove windows explorer,It provides the overall Window Management functions.Instead of doing this you can set your own custom shell to any other EXE.

Btw,windowsXP can be the fastest operating system on Earth after Maximum tweaking with Nlite...

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shells ...

bbLean:

http://bb4win.sourceforge.net/bblean/

LiteShell:

http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~mosses/rob/docs/faq.html

http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~mosses/rob/liteshell.html

LiteStep:

http://www.beyondconvention.net/ohussain/index.htm

http://img139.echo.cx/img139/3002/litesteprunastc3uy.png

file managers (only one) ...

Ghisler's Total Commander (awesome by itself, let alone the independent spirit of its plugins support group):

http://ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?t=10...eplace+explorer

so, how can nLite remove MS shell and file explorer and drill in one of these?

(many users don't want so-called Microsoft, or whoever behind it that operates The Mr. Bill N. Melinda Show as a U.S. government-protected predator-operated "monopoly" to automatically do anything they authorize to "our" hahaha computers. Now the "Mr. Bill" charade have imposed new WGA category, like Racists in America used to have for "their Blacks" ... legitimate, illegitimate and molato, a maybe-illegitimate this-week category which was based only on how often a Microsoft "owner" "escaped local control" by using non-approved software like Open Office.)

Edited by Molecule
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Change your Windows XP Shell.

Backup your Registry before changing in Registry.

To change the Shell: Open regedit under the user you plan on changing the shell for. Be very carefull in the registry!. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\IniFileMapping\system.ini\boot and if there is a value Shell, change the first 3 letters which read SYS to USR. Then go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon and create a value for Shell and put the path to your new shell.

Example (C:\shell\myshell.exe

You can press Ctrl + Alt + Del to launch Explorer if required.

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That still though doesn't allow you to remove Windows Explorer. My settings were already like that after I tried LiteShell. It automatically creates the path in the registry and changes the original Widnows Explorer shell to USR. It's so easy though to bring back the original Explorer and it still loads in your processes. I'll just keep the original Windows Explorer unless there's a way to completely remove it and load a different one using nLite or something similar.

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