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Aston (also known as Astonshell and Aston Shell) is a commercial shell replacement application for Microsoft Windows 9x/NT/ME/2K/XP. Developed by Gladiators Software in the beginning of 1999, Aston has become quite popular and at present time it's one of the most actively developed shell replacement applications for Windows. Image File history File links Information_icon. ... Shortcut: WP:WIN Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia and, as a means to that end, also an online community. ... Shortcut: WP:NPOV Wikipedia policy is that all articles should be written from a neutral point of view. ... Shortcut: WP:RULES Wikipedia is a collaborative project and its founders and contributors have a common goal: Wikipedia has some policies and guidelines that help us to work toward that common goal. ... Software development is the translation of a user need or marketing goal into a software product. ... A software release refers to the creation and availability of a new version of a computer software product. ... June 29 is the 180th day of the year (181st in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 185 days remaining. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... An operating system (OS) is a computer program that manages the hardware and software resources of a computer. ... Microsoft Windows is the name of several families of proprietary software operating systems by Microsoft. ... It has been suggested that Desktop metaphor,Paper paradigm be merged into this article or section. ... The Windows shell (%windir%explorer. ... A software license is a legal agreement which may take the form of a proprietary or gratuitous license as well as a memorandum of contract between a producer and a user of computer software. ... Look up shareware in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A website (or Web site) is a collection of web pages, typically common to a particular domain name or subdomain on the World Wide Web on the Internet. ... The Windows shell (%windir%explorer. ... Microsoft Windows is the name of several families of proprietary software operating systems by Microsoft. ... Gladiators Software is a small software company, located in Ulyanovsk, Russian Federation. ... The Windows shell (%windir%explorer. ...

Unlike some other shell replacement applications (mostly built on the top of Litestep) Aston has been created from the scratch on pure Win32 API in order to utilize one's computer's power more efficiently. The program has been originally created as a fast and stable alternative to Windows' native Explorer shell and later got some additional features like support for skins, plug-ins and so on. screenshot of a LiteStep Enabled windows computer, running the NonStep II theme LiteStep is a Windows shell replacement under the GPL, for Windows 9x and up. ... A plugin (or plug-in) is a computer program that can, or must, interact with another program to provide a certain, usually very specific, function. ...

Aston Shell has been named after Aston Martin cars which are assembled to fit certain individual's needs. The name greatly reflects the initial purpose of the program: create individual, easily customizeable Desktop interfaces. You can actually change any parameter of Aston Desktop from font color to the look and behaviour of certain elements. Any of these manipulations are done with the help of graphical user interface (classic shells like Litestep required you to edit all configuration files manually). Aston Martin Lagonda Limited is a manufacturer of luxury performance cars, whose headquarters are at Gaydon, Warwickshire, England. ... screenshot of a LiteStep Enabled windows computer, running the NonStep II theme LiteStep is a Windows shell replacement under the GPL, for Windows 9x and up. ...

At present time Aston is mostly used on out of the date computers which are too slow to run Windows' native shell well, as well as on newer computers to obtain a responsible and nice looking Desktop interface.

Even though there're numerous free alternatives available (including Litestep, SharpE, BB4Win and others) Aston remains popular and has its own community, which actively influences the development process and creates new Themes (hundreds of them are available on the official website). screenshot of a LiteStep Enabled windows computer, running the NonStep II theme LiteStep is a Windows shell replacement under the GPL, for Windows 9x and up. ... There are several notable persons (real or fictitious) called Sharpe: John Robin Sharpe, child pornography advocate Lennox Sharpe, steelband composer Richard Sharpe, central character in the novel series Sharpe by Bernard Cornwell William Sharpe, politician and delegate to the US Continental Congress William Forsyth Sharpe, Nobel-prize winnning economist This...

Aston consists of four main applications:

• Core application: the one you see most of the time when running the program.
• A-Master: configuration utility, letting you edit any program's parameter via a GUI.
• Theme Wizard: theme compilation, configuration and setup utility, also letting you edit icon and cursor schemes.
• Shell Swapper: used to switch between Explorer shell and Aston Shell

Interfaces, created with the help of Aston shell are not completely different from ones of Explorer: you still have the Desktop, Taskbar, system tray area and so on. At the same time there're many distinctions like inability to place files on the Desktop (which is considered being a feature), Toolbar side panels and so on. Aston also supports placing 32 bit PNG icons on the Desktop which is otherwise impossible in Windows 9x. GUI can refer to the following: GUI is short for graphical user interface, a term used to describe a type of interface in computing. ... In computing, the taskbar is a term for the application desktop bar which is used to launch and monitor applications in Microsoft Windows 95 and later operating systems. ... It has been suggested that libpng be merged into this article or section. ...

The Aston update cycle is quite long and new versions usually come out after nearly a year of development.

At present time Gladiators Software is developing a new project (codenamed A2), which should become a successor of Aston and in some time completely replace it. There's not much information available except that it would only work on Windows 2000 and above, support Widgets and should not have the weakness of Aston Shell (like a lack of multimonitor support, poor work on 64 bit systems and so on.) Windows 2000 (also referred to as Win2K) is a preemptible, interruptible, graphical and business-oriented operating system that is designed to work with either uniprocessor or symmetric multi-processor 32-bit Intel x86 computers. ... Widget is a general-purpose term for any unspecified device, including those that have not yet been invented. ...

External links

• Aston Homepage
• Comments about A2
• Alternate Shells article in SkinWiki