I Miss Litestep

[Linuxis]

After the transition from Windows Xp to Vista to 7/8, many shells and desktop replacements stopped working. And unlike Xp and Vista, 7 makes it downright impossible to customize the desktop. 8 is worse.

I don't find Windows 7 and 8, more easy to use. I find an usurpation of individual will, within them instead. Where Microsoft is attempting to usurp our abilities to make our own choices, by stating that it knows better then we do, what we want or do not want. In other words, Microsoft is slowly trying to think for us.

I apologize that the former statements, may be unpopular. But I, like many in the skinning community am deeply upset with these new changes.

I've seen youtube videos of people showing you how to change Windows 7 panels and whatnot by completely replacing the explorer.exe. In fact, on Deviantart, every Windows 7 theme I've seen involves replacing the Explorer.exe.

In XP and Vista, All you needed was a .theme file. What happened? How did asserting individuality and creativity become a risk towards completely crashing your OS?

My favorite alternative Shell was Litestep. It was free eye candy. And since, the uprade to Windows 7, the sites crashed and lost everything. The loyal community has tried to piece together what they can, however it is, (sad to speak cliche') a shell of it's former self.

Worse yet is that they have no developers to continue improving the shell.

I can't help but miss Litestep. They don't really have any new downloads for it, they merely give advice to those that still use it. And I can't help but think that as Microsoft is abolishing desktop computing in general, in favor of cloud based ugliness, many other programs we take for granted, may fall into disrepair as well.

But I miss Litestep none the less. Perhaps some Linux developer will give it a home since it's being shunned by the OS it loves. And it reminds me of an abusive relationship, which Microsoft has with all it's software base.

How many more beatings can these victims sustain before they finally say, it's dangerous to stay with this abusive fiend anymore.