Aston 1.9.6

Aston is a new Desktop and Shell replacement for Windows 9X/ME/NT/2K/XP. It replaces the standard Windows Desktop and provides you with a host of new features, such as Sidebars, clock, weather monitor, animated buttons, transparency effects and much more. Aston also supports Themes, which allow you to change its appearance and functionality according to your mood and needs. No matter what visual style you like: XP, Aqua or something else; you can always download hundreds of Themes, created by professional designers or amateurs from Aston's homepage or one of numerous other skin sites. Aston features a powerful and user friendly interface, which lets you change your new desktop's appearance and behavior in few seconds. No need to learn complicated configuration files, everything can be configured in a simple graphical interface. A great balance between performance and appearance allows you to launch Aston even on out of the date PCs or its enjoy many advanced features on more modern computers. Aston is very stable and has a small memory footprint and low CPU usage, so you can free your processor time for other tasks.

Too much is never enough
Aston looks similar to the desktop you're already familiar with, but its components offer more functionality:
Toolbars ((side panels on the left and right sides of the screen) give you easy access to the most needed documents, applications and web links.
Multistate Taskbar buttons let you know exactly if a certain window is active or minimized, they also adapt to the width of the Taskbar and are thus easier to manage: no precious screen space is wasted.
Aston Quick launch can be as small as a single button: easy access to your shortcuts without turning the Taskbar into a garbage dump.
You can hide and restore System Tray icons with a single click or keystroke. This feature even works under Windows 98/Me/2K.
Keep your Desktop clean: use the Panel plug-in to organize your files without turning the desktop into a dumping ground.
Desktop icons can have any size, any form (thanks to alpha-blending) and can be animated as well. Get rid of regular limitations.
Aston Disks and Trash Can let you visually monitor their fill states
A built-in Hotkey Manager makes your work with Aston even more pleasant and effective.
Much more… just install Aston and find it yourself.

Fast, solid and powerful
We've spent a lot of time polishing Aston in order to make sure it runs as fast as possible. No matter if you have a five year old PC or a powerful high-end system, Aston is always the right choice. Aston, running with its most feature packed eye candy Themes usually consumes about half the RAM that the Windows XP desktop needs and gives you much more in return. Aston is known to be one of the most stable Windows shells ever. It's even far more solid than the Windows 98/Me shell.
Do you need an additional clock on your desktop? Or maybe a weather forecast? No problems! Just activate additional Aston plugins and enjoy. Plugin files are small to download and only require seconds to install. You can tweak any parameter of your Aston desktop using a simple GUI interface: no need to read complicated manuals every time.
Ordinary Windows Themes make only few changes to the look of your system. Windows XP Visual Styles just decorate it a little. With Aston you'll get a fast, beautiful, reliable and easily controlled desktop and would never wish to switch back.