Talk:Windows Shell

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Don't you think this article should be merged with Windows Explorer?

No, due to the fact that shell is not a word used in the basic understanding ie: its too complicated for the norm 75.83.101.80 06:05, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

This article really needs to be improved or merged with Windows Explorer - there are much more to write about the XP/2003 interface. Poor! 194.22.4.101 09:31, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This article confuses things

Luna and Aero are not windows shells. Also no information about Windows Explorer, winfile, etc. BTW Win95 allowed to choose the shell during the installation.--Dojarca 17:37, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Inconcistency

This article doesn't seem to be very concistent about what Windows Shell means. Does Microsoft use this term? Josh 21:17, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Windows Shells

While Windows 2.x was also sold retail, it was also sold as a run-time environment for assorted programs, where one might set something like 'shell=aldus.exe', to run aldus pagemaker. Windows 3.0 was the first to offer effective large memory models, but the machines of this era typically had 2-4 MB, with high-end machines at 8MB ram.

Windows 3.x did indeed come with Progman.exe and Winfile. While these programs were an improvement over the MS-DOS executive, they were a long way short of even the DOS menus that early 90's computers came with. Many DOS menus allowed nesting of menus inside menus etc, while progman, largely to display the wonders of MDI, displayed 'documents' in an icon-field window, and each document contained separate links, which could only be loaded when that document (group) was open.

One of the very popular categories for Windows software was replacing the shell, with something more functional. There were many such shells on the market-place, both shareware and commercial. It was a fairly large market, where one might use any of the following shells as application. (I have used all of these on the list, except for calmira MS-Bob, and PC-Tollos). It is useful to recall that this list is a sampling. Others included Topdesk and HP's NewWave, and Novell's win31 client.

  • Microsoft shells: MS executive, Program Manager, File Manager.
  • Microsoft Bob
  • Bubba (a quite usable parody on Microsoft Bob)
  • Norton Desktop for Windows
  • PC-Tools Windows Desktop
  • Quarterdeck's Sidebar
  • Becker Tools Shell
  • Praxim from Sundial (lots of tool-bars + command prompt)
  • Take Command for Windows (the tcmd manual also talks of making it a shell)
  • Sloop Manager
  • Workplace for Windows (IBM EWS)
  • Wilsonware's cmdpost. [msdos on steroids]
  • Dashboard (a kind of launchpad)
  • Backmenu (a kind of right-click on the desktop)
  • Calmira (still in active development!)
  • Any specific application (avoid using memory).

Progman.exe is still required, because some shells pass Shell DDE to progman.exe, and some programs use progman to read icon properties.

Because progman does not use the desktop as such, other programs assumed this, and when they were using the desktop, assumed that clicks were meant for them. For example, running NDW in an OS/2 window displays the Windows desktop over the OS/2 one, but mouse clicks were read by OS/2, not Windows.

There were also programs to enhance progman, such as to add groups inside groups, and icons to group folders.

Much of what appeared in the Windows 95 shell, is largely a result of these shells.

One could create themes in Windows with a program called 'makeover', which edited resources in the video driver, to change different window buttons.

Before Microsoft got into this shell-as-art thing, OEMs used to bundle both DOS and Windows shells. I recall seeing the Packard Bell's OEM shell for windows on some computer. The sneaky feeling is that Progman.exe was better than it.

--Wendy.krieger (talk) 11:04, 26 November 2007 (UTC)