Can any of the Desktop Environments replace Windows XP's?

[Cæncel]

i'm wondering if it's possible, not that i think is easy but just curious about it

[lykwydchykyn]

Do you mean, can any desktop environment run on Windows XP and replace it's default environment, or is any DE similar enough to Windows XP to be a stand-in on a Linux installation?

[Cæncel]

any desktop environment run on Windows XP and replace it's default environment

that one, i know years ago windows xp used to have a program/environment with fancy skins and effects, i don't remember the name but it could replace Windows' native shell, is it possible to achieve with any Free Desktop Environment?

[lykwydchykyn]

I think blackbox ( a window manager like openbox ) is available for Windows. There has been some effort to get KDE running on Windows, though I don't know if it's been done.

Most of these environments are written for X11, so I don't know if they could run natively.

I've never done any of this myself, so I can't say authoritatively what actually works.

[angry_johnnie]

there's a kde 4 win:

http://windows.kde.org/

also, theres andlinux:

http://www.andlinux.org/

and linux runs inside windows. not as a virtual machine, but alongside windows, at the same time, so you can have both windows apps and linux apps working together. it doesn't replace the explorer shell, but it gives you xfce panel to launch linux apps.

[Cæncel]

well, after a really long search and many tries, i discovered no known unix-based desktop runs in windows, not without patches and hacks and plus, compiling sources is not as easy (for me) in windows as it is in linux.

Now just to give some response to this post i made there are some alternatives to the native desktop environment of windows, provably the results expand to Vista and 7 aswell but i only cared about XP, the problem is that you have to search for a Windows Explorer and a Windows Shell replacement separately, the only exception was ReactOS explorer which is composed by shell and explorer like the original "explorer.exe", the only downside is that is so buggy that is not usable and an example are the navigation buttons, these simply would not respond.

some good Windows Exlorers i found were Exlorer++, ExplorerXP and my favorite CubicExplorer

in the side of Windows Shells, i found two useful for my interests, EmergeDesktop and Litestep but the only downside is that Emerge Desktop doesn't have autohiding feature for it's panels and Litestep is a nightmare at customizing and not even kidding, just give it a try even downloading and installing themes will prove problematic, i found some other minor shells for windows but these aren't worth mention, maybe BB4W being an exception but i yet have to test it or at least make my mind to it's horrible combination of colours.

also while some shells and window explorer offer you to register themselves as the default explorer and desktop, native windows explorer always finds it way to spawn at times and that happens even if you replace "explorer.exe", i really miss my LXDE and XFCE4 desktops in linux but the software is that keeps me from using Linux again

[Bucky Ball]

Just out of curiousity ... why would you want this?

[zombifier25]

Because explorer.exe sucks?
Green Gnome and SharpE seem promising, haven't tried them though. They are both abandoned, but so is XP.

[oldos2er]

There is KDE for Windows, but it's still in development: http://windows.kde.org/

[offgridguy]

Am I understanding this correctly, You want to run XP but with a linux type desktop; ie kde ?

but the software is that keeps me from using Linux again

hmmmm.