Was about to suggest litestep. Got too late, but I can second that idea.
Litestep was a long time favorite of mine. As explorer shell replacement you could also have virtual screens on it. It was also possible to run it in Windows XP. I have not used it since 2007. Could be worth a try. It is completely configurable and lightweight. Feeling nostalgic now.
I stopped using it because... at around 2007 I had to get accustomed to using computers that weren't my own. I was not allowed to install litestep on those computers, and I didn't want to have too radically different workflows. Pity. Litestep was/is amazing.
@bluev2 @Blunderbuss
Thanks, this looks neat! I'll definitely check it out but since I got my laptop (desktop has the Dell Desktop Manager installed) to boot from USB I think I'll just install Ubuntu w/ Gnome but I'll keep it in mind in case I'll ever go single-OS again.
I remember LiteStep :)
I ran it on NT4 for years, it was kinda great. That was like 15 years ago or so :D Virtual desktops and some nice plugins, I remember having only keyboard shortcuts for all my apps. Start menu, please die in a fire.
I think I tried it on Win7 like five years ago, don't remember how well that worked. Seems the forums are still alive, wow. Would be fun to try to make it work on Win 8.1 or even Win10. Feels like a late night project, something to do when I can't sleep.
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Please do tell if you go through with it!
I'll download it and check it out tomorrow. Right now I'm more concerned about reducing the wear level of my laptop's battery. But I'll keep you updated!
So, I just installed LiteStep on my desktop PC to try it out but it doesn't work. After the installation and ending it with "start LiteStep" I get a bunch of error messages (some hotkeys failed to register) and the last error message tells me that the program failed and will be closed.
Those are just two of the error messages I got and the last one I got (no screenshot of that) was in German, despite setting the language of LiteStep to English, so it must've been a Windows error message (my OS is set to German).
Btw, I'm running Windows 8.1 64bit.
Do you think it is a fault with the jKey module, or the Litestep Core? Come to think of it, the modules may have not been updated for years. Damn strange hotkeys should fail to register though.
I have no idea. To be honest I'm still more of a simple user, and errors like these go beyond my competence/knowledge.
Feel free to abort the project anytime you like (I don't want to seem pushy). Just thought to suggest the following as a possible solution: http://litestep.net/forums/index.php?thread=6250 . The solution looks right to me.
I actually found it much easier to just install Ubuntu/Gnome. Just need to rearrange some files so I can access stuff like video/image/audio files from both OSs (not at the same time of course).
Gonna try and get lite step running on windows 10 tonight. I've got a few beers as well so this should be a laugh.