Okay! So after having three people ask me to help them set up litestep when they didn't follow my precise instructions, and then three of them doing something wrong. I have taken it upon myself to make this tutorial on how to CORRECTLY set up litestep for theme use, modification, and general litestep use. Also included in this tutorial will be how to install a theme.

Litestep setup is not a "click click click poof it works like magic" setup. You REALLY have to pay attention or else you fuck up your directories like many already have.

This setup is for windows XP, and windows Vista, it technically work on x86 Seven, but I haven't tried it.

DO NOT INSTALL LITESTEP IF YOU'RE RUNNING x64. It is UNSTABLE for x64 (64 bit) Operating systems.


Step 1:
go to [link] and download the installer

Step 2:
go to [link]
and download the zip file.

Step 3:
un-zip the downloaded .zip file from Step 2.

Step 4:
Start the installer, do not go through any clicking
ahead of the steps you see, each one is important.

Step 4 a. (screen 1)

Welcome to LOSI... Click next (obvious)

Step 4 b. (screen 2)

Accept the terms of agreement (obvious)

Step 4 c. (scrn 3)

make sure you have all the required downloads.

Step 4 d. (scrn 4)

CHOOSE CUSTOM INSTALL! VERY HIGHLY IMPORTANT.

Step 4 e. (scrn 5)

Default path is:

Crogram FilesLitestep

Step 4 f. (scrn 6)

check all of the boxes

Step 4 g. (scrn 7)

Click next, don't need to worry about that one.

Step 4 h. (scrn 8)

Select "Only for the current logged in user"

Step 4 i. (scrn 9)

Select the top option "I'm the only LS user on this computer"

Step 4 j. (scrn 10)

Its installing, if it asks you to download anything, download it, it is needed and necessary for the install of Litestep.

If it asks you to back up your old files, it is a very good option to do.

when complete, click next

Step 5 (configuration)

File Manager: this is your default file navigation program. Default of course is explorer.exe but you can use things like total commander (or windows commander if you're familiar with the old version)

Text Editor: this is for basic text editing. I use notepad, and or notepad++ cause thats all you really need.

Command Prompt: Unless you use something other than windows native cmd, I suggest you don't fuck with this one.

Audio Player: Default Litestep Addons that are integrated into litestep themes are geared towards the media player known as "Winamp" which is a very highly powerful media player, and is also very customizable. By default it will be your default media player. Reasons why are things like dynamp.dll, it gets its information from Winamp. I don't think you want to go through the trouble of modifying the dll's or script to make it work for iTunes cause its a lot of work. Though if you don't mind a few addons not working, thats fine with me :]

Media Player: what ever you use to watch movies, motion films, or something like that, personally I like to use VLC cause it plays so many formats, and or AIMP which kicks ass in general.

Graphics Viewer: what you use to flip through images, personally I use picasa 3 because of how slim and elegant it is. It has waaaaay more options than Windows Image and Fax Viewer.

Graphics Editor: this is what you use to edit your images, or do shit with graphically. Of course I have mine set to Adobe Photoshop CS4.

(if you need to know paths of some applications, just ask :3)

When you have all of that set up, click next.

Step 6

These should be pretty straight forward.
(if you need to know paths of some applications, just ask :3)

Step 7

Select all file formats. Important. Very.

Step 8

Finish! FWEEE!

Okay, don't be suprised, when you click finish, Litestep will start running with the skin called "InstDef" what ever theme, or shell theme you had before hand will disappear because you are changing windows shells. InstDef is ugly, so you can look at the following text for installing a litestep theme!

Congratulations! You are now a Litestep user!
I'll be posting a tut for the basic hot-keys and menus in my next journal.


Installing a Litestep theme

Okay

in step 2 we downloaded my theme Minty LS. You should have unzipped it if you followed instructions.

Now, you might have tried right-clicking the desktop to find the wonderous "popup menu"
there are all kinds of nifty do-dads on it :]

here we go!

Step 1:

right-click a empty space to bring up your popup menu,
then select << File Manager >>
this will open up your default file manager (explorer.exe)

then navigate to your desktop (left panel, top button is desktop, or in the path bar, type in <<Desktop>>)

Step 2:

Find and enter the folder of the Minty LS unzipped theme file that you downloaded earlier.

Step 3:

There should be two folders, Minty Rocketdock, and MintyLS, go into Minty LS.

Step 4:

Right-click the .zip file then go to properties.

Step 4 a:

Click on "Open with" and then select "SLI theme manager" in the popup window.
Click okay, then okay again to close the properties window.

Step 4 b:

Right-Click the .zip file again. Then open up properties again.

Step 4 c:

Set the "Open with" back to the default opening program that it was before we changed it, mine is Click okay, then okay again to close the properties window.

Step 5:

right-click the .zip file, then in the right-click menu, hover over open with, then select "SLI Theme manager"

Step 6:

a popup will come up, click okay.

Step 7:

Right-click your empty desktop again, then go to:

Popup menu:
-> Litestep
-> Change themes
-> Minty LS

Now the theme will refresh, and you should now have no desktop icons (I incorporated that into the theme, and I'm working on a option for making it so you can toggle through it), a tray with your tray icons in the bottom right of your screen, then your active taskbar icons running. Along with a clock on the taskbar.

Congratulations! You have now installed Minty LS.

Notes

IF you want to switch back to using your old explorer as your shell (before you installed Litestep) just open up file manager, then go to your desktop, and then open the icon that says "Set Explorer as Shell"

it will ask you to reboot / logout. Though it will only log you out. Then you log back in, and you're back to explorer.


Default important Litestep paths from our installation:

Litestep themes folder:

Crogram FilesLitestepthemes

or Popup menu -> Litestep -> themes folder


Follow up:

How was the tutorial?
Did everything work out? (if not send me a PM, DO NOT FREAK OUT and start doing stuff unless you know what you're doing. )
Questions? Remarks?