OMG IM HAVING THE WORSE TIME!!

from WinCustomize Forums

Ok, Im very new to this whole wincustom thing. So, I can expect problems. But, god. I have this big problem. I started with desktop X and tried to have a nice looking X desktop and suddenly I figured I wanted another. So I didnt like the desktop X formats.
I went and looked at the litestep ones and they were nice. So I installed LS and it loaded the default format. I downloaded another one I liked. Read the installation to LS readme file. I made sure all the addresses were correct and I ran the exe file and got this prompt. So, then I went back and went throgh the LS menu and tried to change the theme and it said I was missing Hook.dll I think. Then I saw a recycle option. I remember seeing that when I was reading the readme file. So, I clicked it and all of a sudden everything dissapeared. All my windows and navi bard. Only things left were my AOL instant messanger. I coult run anything. So I managed to restart my PC, im running XP by the way. and it will freeze whenever it gets to the desktop. Only way I got through was by using the alt ctrl del command. Now Im back on my desktop with no way to do anything because everything is gone. I told a friend to send me link to a website so I can open a window. I got an open window came here and quickly uninstalled both programs. Now. Im still backgroundless. Please help me. Its all messed up!

P.S. if you have AOL instane messenger please help me install this, when Ive figured out how to make my normal desktop come back.
Thanks in advance
1,666 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Sorry I don't know a lot about that stuff. I would LIKE to be bold enough to try light step. But one trick I have found is when nothing else works you can usually get directly into your files by depressing the windows key (that one with a pic of windows) and clicking the letter E. Once you are in there you can start unloading things, or even get to system restore if you have that running. Remember, if you only unload something and don't uninstall or disable, the problem will return on reboot.
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
You should be able to do a 'repair' if you boot with the the XP cd in the drive, right? Don't you have safe-mode networking in XP, like I have in 2000? you could always boot to safe mode, get on the internet and download the hook.dll you need, or get it from the install you used. I've never installed it on XP, but if you can get yourhands on a windows 98 boot disk you can use that to move and edit files around via DOS.

Once you fix this, you'll know how to fix it from now on, and you'll be comfortable with it. People usually just reinstalll Windows, lose a lot of their stuff, and cry about how LS sucks. I'd not advise you not to do that.

If nothing else, the docs for LS should have detailed instructions on how to set the shell back to explorer. If you can get here, you can get there.
Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
If you have booted with no shell...
Press Ctrl/Shift/Esc
In the task manager run regedit
Search for 'litestep.exe' in /Winlogon/shell/
change data to c:\windows\explorer.exe

Reboot.

You 'should' be right...
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Unless of course your Win folder is WinNT...in that case make sure the path is correct...

Seems sometimes you need to boot twice for Exploder to come up as the shell and not just the File Manager.

As soon as you can, get hold of ShellON to manage your shell choice and loading....much easier and painless, too...
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Relevant extract from the 'Installing LS info'..

Uninstalling LiteStep from Windows NT/2K
----------------------------------------
The most common problem that happens during a LiteStep uninstall on a Windows NT
machine is that most of the time users don't have administrative privileges on their.
However, if you do have administrative rights on your machine you will need to modify
a few registry entries to get LiteStep uninstalled. So lets fire up regedit and get started
on making your LiteStep headache go away.

First find the key:
- HKey_Local_Machine\Software\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\IniFileMapping\
system.ini\boot>SYS:Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
change this to USR:Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
- HKey_Current_User\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon>Shell
change the value of Shell to c:\winnt\explorer.exe
- HKey_Current_User\Software\Microsoft\Windows>BrowseNewProcess
make sure that this DWORD is set to "no" so that explorer loads properly. This key
effected LiteStep if you were using Internet Explorer 4 and up, if you have an earlier
version of Internet Explorer, use a STRING named DesktopProcess, with a value
of "0" instead of the DWORD. Basically you need this set to no if you want to have
explorer setting itself as shell everytime you access it.