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There are a number of ways to replace the Windows Default Shell. I found the Sharpe Shell about the easiest to work with. Couple of things that you will notice is that you cannot just drag and drop icons to your new desktop, you have to create them as objects. So, Explorer Desktop it is not. The menuing system is pretty nices as well as the bars.
Overall, Sharpe Shell is pretty easy to run and does not take up a ton of resources. If you don't like what you are seeing - It is very easy to switch back to Windows Explorer.
It is literally as easys as:
Unzipping the file in to a folder
Navigating to the folder and running the SETSHELL.EXE to change from Explorer
And restarting the computer - It will prompt you to do so..
There is Litestep, Emerge, Geo Shell and others out there.
Sharpe Shell
Website: Sharpe Shell > You will want the TDR4+
Author: Avira
Date: 05/24/2008
Version: 8.0
Download File size: 12MB (you will need to open .7z files) http://trac.sharpe-shell.org/wiki/TDSetup
License: Freeware
Operating systems supported: Windows 2000 - XP, Vista (have not tried)
64 Bit Capable: No
Portable version available: no
Other languages supported: yes
Additional Software Required: no
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i extract sharpE, when i turn on my laptop, sharpE shell was run,
i remove the sharpE folder, and restart my laptop
now i don't have any shell,
what should i do?
open notepad then put this.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
"Shell"="Explorer.exe"
then save as shell.reg > run it > restart then it should be running the old desktop.
start your windows in recovery mode (with network drivers), download sharpE and put it back -> then restart and pray.
If you're lucky you have a shell again. Open sharpE folder, run setshell.exe, select "explorer" as shell. then restart again and your system should be like before.
This is not a 'Best Free XXX Review' and was incorrectly named. It is not a full review of SharpeShell. It is a brief article plus a download link. Therefore I have renamed it, and will contact the author to inform him of this.
chris.p
Whatever happened to comparing various products and their features? This is not the kind of article I come to Gizmo for. My experiences with SharpE certainly do not match yours. I found it a bloated, unstable resource hog. BB4Win, BBLean, Litestep in any of its iterations...all are better than SharpE. GeoShell is also good, but I didn't spend much time with it, as earlier versions required editing the registry to make changes to the interface.
Hi
We're sorry you didn't find the information in this section useful.
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SharpE Enviro continues to be the best. Keep tryingother solutions but none beats this one. This link will pull the file directly. ENJOY!!!!! http://www.sharpe-shell.org/uploads/Developers/BB/TD6R2.7z
Please provide a working link for Sharpe TD6.
http://wareseeker.com/Home-Shell-Desktop/sharpe-0.8-td6.zip/7caa1d717
Best shells for me:
1- Desklite
2- evildesk
3- SharpE
1- Desktop lite (the best)
Simple, non intrusive, what a shell sould be
"Desktop Lite Thingy is intended to be a cut-down version of Windows Explorer employing a simpler interface, and improved memory usage, whilst still providing access to everything you need such as the system tray, short-cut links to My Documents, Recycle Bin, Desktop Icons, Start Menu etc, and also the usual taskbar buttons.
get at: http://www.nymtec.com/desktop-lite-thingy
2- evildesk
Simple, non intrusive
Quicklaunch icon bar
System Notification area (aka "Tray"), including tray bubbles
Clock
No classic taskbar, but "flashing" windows have their icons bounced to get your attention
Light-weight icon-free start menu
Kludge-free Workspace management; use up to 32 virtual desktops
icon-free desktop
Lot more...
Get at : http://evildesk.netevil.org/
3- SharpE
This person has it exactly right. Can see my comments about d-l-t if you follow given link. Khu
SharpE if by far the best. I have tried almost all shell out there (due to the fact that I hate Windows Explorer) So far SharpE is the easiest to install and uninstall, it comes with two excellent toolbars and is highly easy to learn how to use it. ALthough it is still in beta, is very stable. I think, like many others, that this shell will become the defacto shell for windows (including Windows 7. Go to sharpe.org and download it. You will not regret it.
Sorry the link to to SharpE is sharpenviro .com Enjoy!!!
Sorry Again... this is really the link:
http://www.sharpe-shell.org
It seems that many people are taking advantage of SharpE success. :>)
The download link for the sharpe shell doesnt work for me, i tried it in opera and IE7, no difference... any ideas?
Cheers
I'm going to give SharpE a try, but so far, I've tried Litestep, Bblean, and both didn't show everything in the system tray, bblean was ugly, and the good themes for litestep made it even more buggy, though I have to admit that bbLean was very stable, i'm not even going to try Geoshell because its homepage talks about it showing an error when starting up, and that's too annoying for me, and i doubt that it will show the system tray properly, so i don't really have very high hopes for SharpE, but I'll see...
However, I DO have high hopes for another free shell replacement that's being developed: Cairo Shell (http://www.cairoshell.com/), it looks pretty, useful, and most importantly, the developers are going to check that it's very stable on vista and 7 before checking xp! (xp is old anyway)
SharpE is testing TD6 which I think will become the Windows Shell defacto. Why? is just excellent, light on resources and far nicer than Windows explorer. I am using it on top of Windows Seven Beta and works beutiful. Is the esiest software I have used since to install it you just need to run an EXE file and thats all. The toolbars installed by default have performance information and linkages to many windows tools. Taskbar and quick bar are also as good as the windows 7 ones. Check it out... you will be pleasantly surprise.
how about LiteStep?
http://www.litestep.net/
Check out what Kaelri's been trying to do with the shell :)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11398192@N02/3318830777/
First thing I need to say is SharpE is BETA. Please include this info in reviews.
Ok so, before posting There should have been some editing
Author of SharpE is not Avira
It is not in version 8.0
It is Open Source NOT Freeware
It will work on Win 2000 - Vista
It will work on 64bit OS
It is (technically) portable
SHARPE IS BETA! I can not stress that enough, it is stable as can be, but still beta
I agree with this. Sharpe Shell is still in beta. And while searching for other shell replacements, found several others. BBLean, Calmira, Emerge Desktop, GeoShell, DarkStep, LiteStep.. and others. What about reviewing all these?
Anupam Shriwatri, India
Anupam,
I dont think that you understood what i was getting at there. I wasnt saying anything bad about SharpE...
I was commenting on the actual review and the wrong information in it.
Codenomics
Well, i got what you were saying. I just agreed to the face that Sharpe is in beta, and is still reviewed here, but other products are not. It would have been nice if other softwares also were reviewed a bit. Reading here, i had gone for Sharpe, but seeing it in beta, i changed my mind. I was just in mood of trying out some shells.
Anupam Shriwatri, India
SharpE is in beta but still more usable than most of the shells out there right now... and more stable than the explorer shell. I just wanted to state that it is beta still so that people know... Please still give SharpE a try...
Codenomics
Ok thanks i will check it out :)
Anupam Shriwatri, India
BBlean makes me happy)
EmergeDesktop can't be customized and tuned like blackboxes. www.boxshots.org - bb screenshots repository.
Just so people know, I've been using Sharpe Shell on Vista for many months now and it works fine. I have the 32bit.
EmergeDesktop
http://emergedesktop.org/
Is the most stable shell replacement I've used. BBlean gives me nightmares....
a little too minimalistic for me... besides, when i tested it a while back it wasnt very usable
Codenomics
YEAH !!! THE BEST !
Note: TD5, was just released on 19-August-2008
http://trac.sharpe-shell.org/wiki/TDSetup
Kent
Further reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_shell_replacement
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