Really having trouble making this go silent
any help at all would be good

You'll need an install-maker who is fluent in litestep for this. Litestep requires some special setup steps including getting the program updated to the latest core. There is a new installer being worked on that might help but I don't think it is ready yet.

I am glad its not me being dumb (quite possible)
I have tried quite a few ways but always it fails.
So does this mean give up or is there any light at the end of the tunnel?

Are you wanting it to just be installed? Or to be installed and *active* meaning that you want it to actually replace the default shell? The former is more likely to happen.

FYI, I've known some folks who tried to slipstream in alternative shells but had no luck. Windows just can't live without explorer.exe.

Right
My plan was to intergrate it into an unattended disc and to be the default shell on first boot so I guess active..what I wasn't planning to do was remove explore.exe as frankly its a bit risky and I would expect problems. A reg tweak will sort out the active state but I just can't get the installer to go silent and unattened

Here is some work that has already been done: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=70006

intresting thread
The thing is that I know about the file manager/shell issue with explorer.exe and as I said I was not looking to remove it as I have experienced issues doing that wth existing set ups but I have found litestep to be stable and quicker than explorer.... so wanted to intergrate litestep into an unattended disc useing nlite which is how I came to post the request in the first place.
My attempts at making an addon for it fail to opperate silently and also have caused a crash during the registering components stage of the install.
No one on the thread you posted suggested making an addon for litestep would be an issue they were all banging on about removeing explorer which though a lovely idea has as I said issue's...all I wanted to do was intergrate litestep into the install...it can be set as the default shell after the last reboot... thats not a problem.(I can now see more issues with setting it as active during setup)
So I guess I need a litestep addon that installs the shell, but does not change the shell... leaving explorer set so that it can be reset to litestep after last reboot.

That was why I pointed you over there. To see that there are issues with making it the default shell without human intervention.

Yeah.

Litestep is essentially portable once installed. I haven't "installed" it in years; I just move the directory over to my new OS as appropriate and keep going. So you could just set it up the way you want, have that directory copied over during install and then perhaps also install a shell switcher or just put the shell switching link on the desktop.

lol... hasn't changed for a year at least



I will give that a go cheers

i want todo the same..

anyone help me :S