SharpE, alternative Windows XP desktop (2000-2002)
Back in the Windows 98 and Windows XP days, it was relatively easy to replace your Windows “shell”. The shell was the Start menu and taskbar. To change it, you just changed an entry in the Windows registry to point to another executable. That other executable provided your desktop experience.
SharpE was a replacement shell that I worked on. I built the equivalent of the start menu, that was shown when you right-clicked the desktop. SharpE also featured virtual desktops, resource usage widgets and a floating taskbar and system tray.
It was written in Borland Delphi.
Sadly I don’t have any screenshots with the menu that I built open. In this screenshot you can see SharpE’s equivalent of the task bar along the top of the screen. It has resource monitors, start-menu-like drop down menus and music controls. On the bottom left is the system tray and on the bottom right is the virtual desktop manager.
