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I haven't used any myself in quite a while, but there are alternative shells for windows that replace explorer (start menu et al) that are very unixy. I used to use LiteStep, which made it seem a lot like AfterStep. I even had a theme that made it seem kinda' WindowMaker-y (though it was a bit cheesy). I'm not current, don't know what's "the best" these days, but it's a direction you might want to look in to, if you're employers will let you do it.

Probably not without a lot of tweaking and extra work. Windows' desktop environment is fundamentally different from X, so I don't think that a full port of KDE is a reasonable expectation. There are, however, some nice Windows clones of *nix shells (e.g., http://www.bb4win.org/), and there is of course always Litestep.

Wtf? Where are all the Litestep comments?

Since apparently no one's heard of or uses it, Litestep is like fluxbox on Windows and precludes the need for explorer.exe to be running.

Here's an installer.
Here's a module site.
Here and here are some themes for it.

Seriously people. If only the lightweight Linux desktop environments were half as pretty as Litestep.

When I was running WinXP on a 1.3Ghz Celeron M laptop, even with all the gui stuff turned off, it still ran slow. I blame the Intel Extreme 2 shared video. Anyways, I installed litestep because I had read its amazingly efficient. It effectively replaces your shell. It behaves much like a light weight X-windowing system.
For more about replacement shells, check Shellfront

There are alternates to explorer.exe, you know.

You can get LiteStep here.

Or you can take the longer way and go here.

You can get LiteStep here.

Or you can take the longer way and go here.

Or you could use the LiteStep Installer, which has the current version and installs an OTS2 structure. (so you can install OTS2 compliant themes just by double-clicking on them)

Easy search fields in browsers have never been that much of a selling point for me.

Regarding the question about how MS deals with these shells: Well, the simple answer is that they don't. It keeps us off their back :). In fact, many of the well known win32 shell developers work or have worked at Microsoft. Alternative shells work just fine under Windows.

Now, there are actually a ton of shells (see the list) out there for Windows, and most are open source in some way or other. The most popular (and one of the oldest) win32 shells is Litestep, which is GPL'd.

For a somewhat decent overview of shells from a windows user's point of view, check out forum topic on deviantART. Alternative Windows Shells basically just replace the Explorer.exe file as the Windows shell... usually also resulting in the replacement of the well known taskbar, start menu, and desktop. Instead, you can use the tools provided by the shell to build your own interface. Shells are very similar to X desktop environments. They do not replace the Windows like a WM does. For general news and info regarding Windows shells, check out the following sites:

• ShellFront
• shellscape

Desktopian.org also covers Windows and shells news in-depth, along with some *nix related news.

Litestep is the oldest shell still in active development. It is by far the most popular shell (with an estimated 10,000+ users) and the most customizable shell (outside of Graphite). You can create almost whatever interface you want, thanks to the 300+ 3rd party modules for the shell. Litestep also has great support through the LS Mailing List and the IRC channels (#fpn, #ls2k, and #ls_help on irc.openprojects.net). Make sure to check out the following sites for Litestep:

• Graphic Language
• JoeBlade
• Litestep.net
• ShellFront
• LS Documentation
• LS FAQ
• The Module List - Module List with descriptions (a little out of date and incomplete, but better for most people)
• the Litestep Installer - a must to get Litestep installed and configured. Make sure to download 'OTS compatible' themes.

The second most popular replacement shell is geOShell, which is largely a minimalist's shell. It has a GUI configuration for most things. geOShell's main site is geoshellx.com. All information can be found there. They are also supported through the geoshellx.com forums and their IRC channel (#geoshell on irc.openprojects.net).

Most win32 shells out there today are either derived from Litestep or geOShell in some way or other. However, there have been two blackbox 'ports' recently to Windows:

• bluebox
• bb4win

It's impossible for me to explain everything here. However, for any *nix users who need to run Windows as well, these shells offer a great alternative to that drab and boring Explorer desktop. Win32 alternative shells even let you have your X desktop on Windows.

Now, the advantage to Object Desktop (namely DesktopX and objectbar is that it doesn't require that you replace your shell (which is a registry key change in NT and a system.ini file edit in 9x). Configuration is accomplished by a GUI. DesktopX is extremely configurable. Keep in mind that running Object Desktop will use up excessive cpu and/or memory. They can do almost anything, but will also use up resources... unlike most shells.

Hope this helps. Many *nix users are completely unaware of the Windows open-source community and of shells in general. We hope this will eventually change.