Would this be any good for WinUAE?

[ShadesOfGrey]

AmigaEd wrote:

Even replacing explorer with WinUAE as your shell.

Where can I find information about how to do this?

-AmigaEd

You can do this manually by changing the "shell" line in your system.ini file (shell=winuae.exe instead of shell=explorer.exe) under win9x and altering the "shell" register key @ HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon under winNT4+.  The disadvantage is that you have to edit the system.ini eveytime you want to switch shells.  Which maybe less of a hassle if you intend to use WinUAE exclusively.

But if you see yourself needing to run Windows apps on a regular basis, you may want to look into something like ShellOn.  This program basically allows you to select which shell you want to 'boot'/log into.

There are other alternatives that do pretty much the same thing, but I just haven't been able to find them (yet).  I'll keep looking and add links as I find them.

[Edit]

If you're going to be using win2k/XP this guide explains how to set a seperate shell for each user.  You can also find links to two other shell managers (Carapace & Snafkin) in the opening paragraph.

Another alternative is  Shell Enabler.

[ShadesOfGrey]

blobrana wrote:
@ShadesOfGrey

hum,

>>You can do this manually...

yeah, good suggestion, though i would personally have a duel booting machine - a tweaked win98SE and a winUAE OS...

(just, shove in the Windows cdrom and instead of overwriting the current os create a new `Windows2` folder to install the alternative boot onto...)

Uhh, correct me if I'm wrong, but is your impression that you would need two seperate installs of Windows in order to have one with Explorer and another for WinUAE as the shell?  Because that's not what I'm suggesting at all.  You can use just one install of your "tweaked win98SE" and 'switch' between using Explorer and WinUAE.  It's very much like the idea of multiple windows managers on the *nix platforms.  One install of the X Window System, but you have a choice between Motif, FVWM, Window Maker, Black Box, AmiWM, etc, etc. as your window manager.

If you use a shell manager like ShellOn, you can choose between Explorer and WinUAE as your shell from one win98 install.  In essence, ShellOn inserts itself as the default shell and then launches whatever other shell you want to use (i.e. BB4W, GeoShell, LiteStep or even WinUAE).  To use (something of) an Amiga analogy, ShellOn would be sort of like having a program that replaces "starwb" in your startup-sequnce.  When run it would prompt you to choose between Workbench, Directory Opus or Scalos as your GUI for a single AmigaOS install.

[ShadesOfGrey]

Trooper wrote:
Ok!, I`m being really picky i know, But it was "LoadWB" that "loaded Workbench", Not "starwb". :-D

Trooper

Oops!  :-o  My bad.  I was sure it was "startwb", but not having WinUAE installed ATM, I couldn't double check.  

[ShadesOfGrey]

blobrana wrote:

Hum,
No.
Your pickable shell idea sounds, er, sound...

Oh, OK.  I misunderstood then.

[color=ff00ff]< off topic >[/color]
But, on a slightly different note, given that HD space is fairly cheep, there is no reason not to have a fallback OS installed...infact, on my classic Amiga i have a 10mb partition set aside for a unmodified workbench, when i do something stupid with the main DHO:

I’m running xp pro (sp2), and even with it’s restore recovery features i still have a second OS to fall back on...i have learned, after losing too much data and time in the past, to take precautions... :-)
[color=ff00ff]< /off topic >[/color]

I thought it a bit strange to have multiple 'production' installs of Windows just so you could have more than one shell is all...  Which is what I originally thought you were suggesting until you corrected me.

Personally, I have very much the same setup on almost all my computers.  Even my retired Apple IIgs has a "fallback" OS parition...  I just wish I could use my A4000D again, but until I get a replacement motherboard (cheap mind you!), the fallback partition is moot.

[ShadesOfGrey]

Dr_Righteous wrote:
No no no... Ugh... Why would anyone use software to do what you can do with a simple text editor (ie: EDIT.COM) on the fly? Just create two shell= lines in win.ini and comment one of them out.

shell=x:\path\winuae\winuae.exe
;shell=c:\windows\explorer.exe

easy money.

Uhhhmmm, convenience perhaps?  I know that when I was playing around with alternative shells I really hated having to modify either my system.ini (in the case of 98SE) or registry (when I switched to NT4 and then 2k) eveytime I wanted to make a switch.  Once I settled on LiteStep after a solid two months of continous use, I made the changes to my registry 'permanent' and got rid of the shell manager.

I don't want to turn this into a flame war, but I really don't appreciate being criticized for being helpful.  Besides, I did mention modifying the "shell" line in the system.ini for Win9x user in my original post.  I also edited my original message to reference an online guide that takes advantage of the true multi-user environemnt of winNT4+.

In fact you might want to re-read the last sentence in the first paragraph and the second paragraph of my original post.  I imply that if someone plans on using an alternative shell, on an almost exclusive basis, that making the changes to the system.ini (or the registry, which I probably should have explicitly mentioned) 'permanent' may be more convenient.

[ShadesOfGrey]

AmigaEd wrote:
@ShadesOfGrey

Thanks for all of the great info and links. As soon as I started reading your post, how to shell out to WinUAE made sense to me. I'll have to play around with this some and see if shelling out to WinUAE will work for me. I can see a few drawbacks to doing this, but I can also see some advantages, not the least of which is that it may make the whole setup seem more like a real Amiga.

AmigaEd

Your most certainly welcome.  If you should need assistance, you can PM me and I'll do what I can to help.  In fact, this thread has inspired me to revisit alternative Windows shells.  First up, WinUAE ala AmigaForever.

[ShadesOfGrey]

smartrod wrote:

ShadesOfGrey wrote:

If you're going to be using win2k/XP this guide explains how to set a seperate shell for each user.  You can also find links to two other shell managers (Carapace & Snafkin) in the opening paragraph.

The link is dead, does anyone know what it said or where it is? Would be really good for me as I can have one "user" with XP and another with WinUAE :-)

The link in question was moved here.

I suppose it's a better bet to just go to GeoShell's Home and poke around the Documents page.  You might find other useful info in the process.

[ShadesOfGrey]

whabang wrote:
This page has a guide:
LINK

I'll have to add that link to my bookmarks...  I stopped visiting shell-shocked when issue #10 never materialized and hence forgot about their tutorial section.