Is there a replacement file manager for explorer.exe with transparent backgrounds & unique fonts?

January 12, 2005 10:33 AM from

Having been working on an over-all glassy and transparent desktop theme for our pc during the last month I've hit a wall in customization with the windows shell and windowblinds: I want a transparent background in my file manager (aka explorer.exe) but not in other program windows. I've had zero luck finding a guide to this tweak (is it even possible?) or finding a replacement file manager that has the tweak (surfed for many hours of searching, tried alot of apps, from the popular [total commander] to the obscure [too many to list]). I'm also highly annoyed with the way win2k forces a single font selection and size between both the windows desktop icons and explorer, thus limiting me from using a stylized font on my desktop and something more practical in my file manager (I'm a "details" view kind of guy, and most chunky fonts look like hell in explorer, where-as can be quite pleasant on the desktop). Considering how easy it was to get transparent icon text backgrounds (there's a few apps that aid in this, I'm using Iconoid because it's freeware and has a small enough footprint), I'm surprised at the difficulty in achieving this tweak.. maybe I've just been overlooking something obvious?

I spend a good part of my day in Explorer (managing downloads and installations, cleaning up filespace, que'ing up files in my media player) and have this tweak on the top of my "must have" list, so any and all advice would be welcome! (even if it's an alternative shell, but hooboy, there's a whole new couple hundred megs worth of downloads to sort through)

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