Effective Desktop release note

Version 1.0 Final
© Ministars Software & David Yuheng Zhao, 2000-2001. All rights reserved.

Note: You may find more current information and resources on our Web site at http://www.ministars.com/ed/

Problems with this release?

This program will load at windows startup. If you get problems, you can hold the CTRL or SHIFT key pressed while windows starts and temporarily disable the Effective Desktop Loader.

Tools included in this release

Tool What will it do? Note
ExplorerX
  • Hides any tray icons in the system notification area
  • Changes the logo and text in the Start button
  • Changes the logo of the start menu
  • Makes the desktop icon background transparent
 If you have any programs with these functions, don't activate the corresponding modules in ExplorerX.
TaskbarX Adds more functionality to the Windows taskbar. Following modules are provided with this release
  • TaskbarX Calendar
  • ClockX
  • WindowsX Client
  
WindowsX Provides multiple virtual desktops. You should activate the "WindowsX Client" module in TaskbarX for the user interface.

System requirements

Effective Desktop will run on any computers with Windows 98, 98SE, ME or 2000. Effective Desktop should also work under Windows 95/NT4 with Internet Explorer 4.0 or later installed. Windows XP is not yet supported.

Upgrade notes

Windows 98/98SE Users

If you are upgrading from an earlier release of Effective Desktop and you have TaskbarX activated, you MUSH follow the instructions below. Otherwise the installation may fail.

  1. Cancel the installation now.
  2. Uninstall the current version from "Start Menu" or "Control Panel".
  3. You will receive a message that says not all files could be removed. Ignore that message.
  4. Restart Windows. (Very important)
  5. Install the new version.

The reason for this is that Windows 98/98SE will not unload the taskbarx.dll file even if TaskbarX has been closed.

Windows 2000/ME users

The problem described above does not effect Windows 2000/ME users. You can just install the new version over the old one. The installation software will prompt you to close TaskbarX if it is activated.

Compatibility issues

ExplorerX

ExplorerX subclasses the taskbar of the Windows explorer and may cause problems with other programs that want to do the same (the subclass chain problem). The symptom is that when you close the programs in wrong order, you will crash Windows explorer (probably when you shutdown your computer). There are currently no solution for this problem so if you find that you can't use ExplorerX together with your favorite software, you need to either disable ExplorerX or the other program.

Release history

See the separate version.txt file.