Question

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.