Replacing the Windows shell with a WPF app

Question

Hi,

I want to replace Windows 7 Shell (32 and 64 bit) with my WPF application which should work as a Shell. The goal is WPF application will launch my Kiosk application and provide few services.

My questions are

1. How do I replace the Windows 7 Shell by my WPF application ?

2. Do I have to do something special in my WPF application code or required registry changes to execute WPF application as a shell?

Thanks.

Answer 1

1.) Change the user's Registry entry at HKEY_Current_User\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Shell -- it is a REG_SZ type (that is, a string) which expects the full path to the executable. (A little more info can be found here--it says it's for XP-Embedded, but the how-to is good for Win7 as well.)

2.) No, you don't need to do anything special in your app--just be sure that users can get to all the commands you need to (e.g. log off) and not get to the ones you want to avoid. If I recall correctly, the computer's Ctrl-Alt-Del behavior doesn't change with a custom shell, so you can use that to get your logoff/shutdown commands as well as Task Manager.