In lines with this email thread and if anyone is interested in playing with an alternate shell... I went poking around and found what looks to be an interesting GNU replacement shell. Note that they specifically point out this isn't for novice users.
You can find info at http://lsdocs.shellfront.org/ , http://www.lsdev.org/news.php , and http://www.litestep.net It has build instructions available for VS6/7.1 and Dev-c++/MinGW. joe -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of joe Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2004 12:20 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [Full-Disclosure] IE Web Browser: "Sitting Duck" Actually MS does support the use of alternative shells. However you couldn't and shouldn't expect that if you have a say Thunderbird shell that MS would support that shell, just the pinnings under it. Just like they don't support say, Lotus, but they do support the underlying OS API calls. As for breaking things, it goes back to the same DLL point. If an app is built on the concept that that shell would be there and has dependencies on it, yes it will break. The only thing I can say to that is yeah, of course. Most of the GUI admin tools from MS depend on those shell dependencies, again, to that I say... Of course. However if you want to write your own, you can. The Windows API core pieces are still there and fully exposed and you don't have to use the Shell API calls and avoid the Shell DLLs. It will take you a bit longer to write anything though I would expect unless you have already built up your own lib. There are many embedded and POS and other machines running Windows and not using the Explorer shell. They are still called Windows machines. joe -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Barry Fitzgerald Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2004 9:56 AM To: joe Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Full-Disclosure] IE Web Browser: "Sitting Duck" joe wrote: >It is a core component of the current Windows UI, this is not the same >as being a core component of Windows. Explorer is simply a UI shell >that sits on the operating system known as Windows. The entire shell is >replaceable and has been for a long time, since at least Win3.1. > > > I appreciate the technical explanation even though I knew, well, all and more of it. You probably could have saved some time if you had read my relatively short message fully and seen that I did acknowledge that IE is not part of the kernel (which is really what you're trying to say) and that it's a part of MS Windows as a software distribution. I'm fully aware that you can replace the shell in windows. However, IE and the windows UI is a part of MS Windows as a software distribution and it's an essential part. I dare say that if you remove the UI and DLLs of MS Windows, all you have left is a relatively crappy kernel with a lot of software that won't work. The MS Windows UI and Internet Explorer are a core part of the MS Windows operating system. When you remove them, you break compatibility with many of the available programs and I'd venture to say that Microsoft would not support a highly modified system like the ones that you're describing. One can remove the Glibc from any GNU/Linux distribution. I wish them luck trying to run programs that are dynamically linked. Is the Glibc a core part of Linux the kernel? Of course not. Is the Glibc a core part of the GNU/Linux OS distribution? Yes, it is. I think that for all of the technical explanations that you've given, you're losing the argument on one simple phrase: software distribution. -Barry p.s. Come on people. We went through the "what does an OS really constitute?" argument back in like 1996. This isn't bloody kindergarten. _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html