This is a simple step by step tutorial for those who are wondering how to transform your desktop to a mac look while making the menu and the system tray part of rocketdock.  I finally did it and ofcourse with the help of many crystalizers including  GRUZZ.

HERE IT IS :

Step 1: installing rocket dock 1.13 ( or 1.3  not sure of the actual version, but the latest one)

Step 2: Download and install KKMENU from this site  ROCKET DOCK DOCKLETS   Make sure you download the KKMENU at the bottom first then download the first one if you wish, i did, it is just a mod.

Step3: Installing the KKMenu is not hard, make sure you specify the path to rocketdock location in windows> bricopacks > rocketdock.  Just make sure the installation location is the dock's directory.  
          - you will also be asked to select one of three choices !!! 1) no tray 2) registration 3) pre shell ( i am not soo clear on the proper names but you'll get the idea when you see it)  I selected number 2 which enables the SYSTEM TRAY which is in the later step. Step 3 is not Recommended for beginners and if it messes up your pc it will be tricky to resolve. Stick with the second for an easy life !

Step4: you will be asked to restart, do so. After restarting, you just right click the rocket dock > add item >  KK MENU. this i will not do much but just add the icon space for you. just right click the blank space and a menu should pop up.

Step 5: in the menu that, you can start by clicking set image. and just pick an icon as you wish.  Then you need to specify the menu so click the " show menu editor" and then   "Add Menu"
    -After clicking add menu ,  drop the window under MENU KIND and select  DYNAMIC FOLDER.
    - name the menu whatever you like !
    - Under folder, click the " . . . " browse  button, and go to where the start menu folder is located. Most likely it will be under C : documents and setting / all users / start menu.  MAKE SURE YOU SELECT ALL USERS even if you are the only user, it just assures that all the shortcuts in the start menu are there.
    - thats it ur done ! adding the menu.

Step 6: is an optional step , but i recommend you do it, because i think the skin that comes with it is ugly. Anyways you need to download the following skin " Vista Glass skin"  from here    it is in the first post, at the end has a direct link.
  - after downloading it open the zip and extract to your desktop. Take the VISTAGLASS.ini and the VistaGlass.png  in the KKmenu skins directory which is located in the docklets folder of your dock
ie: C:\WINDOWS\BricoPacks\Crystal Clear\RocketDock\Docklets\KkMenu\SKINS

 - a small thing you need to do is edit the  vistaglass.ini file to make it work. so open the .ini file in a notepad and erase everything and copy paste  the following:

- save and close. Now if you go to your dock and right click the menu docklet and click " General KKmenu Setup" and choose the vista glass skin from the drop down. it should work nicely.

Step7: Adding a system tray docklet is very simple actually. right click somewhere on the dock and again go to  ADD item > KK menu , just as you  did the first time. Then RIGHT click the empty spot and rather than adding an image this time DONT!  Just click Setup tray and in the window that just popd up check the first box ENABLE ! and thats it ! now i increase the first number under enable to 50 so all my tray icons can fit. but whatever you want you DONT need to change it ! and i suggest you dont !!
- That's it just close and close !! you should have a tray.

Step8: After setting up your menu you might have noticed that it is small !  and NOT LOONG enough to fit atleast a good dozen of folders, so to increase the size  just simply right click the menu icon again and go toothe KK menu setup , and change the MAX height to 80 ( that's what i have and it works fine ! ) play around with that and see what height suits you !

Step 9: well your pretty much done ! the hard stuff  Now all you have to do is remove the taskbar ! !! thanks to gruzz, just download this 20 kb .exe file that enables you to easily hide or unhide the taskbar without manually editing the registry.
  - REMOVE TASKBAR LINK      Download it !

- now that you have it just extract it somewhere you dont mind keeping it in. run it and click HIDE ! and make sure you check the box ! and then close it !   To unhide the taskbar  just re open the file and click unhide ! make sure the box is unchecked !

Step 10: - make sure you enabled the minimize to dock feature !! so you can see windows when they are minimized !  
Finally have fun and place your dock anywhere ! you want ! and add whatever docklets you think you need from this site :  link
or win customize under the category object dock!

That's it you are finally done ! PLease if you have any question / comments of concerns  feel free to post here !!

IF anyone knows how to add the POWER and LOG ON/OFF button to the rocketdock post it too !!

Thanks hope it helps people !!
 

Very nice post!  

As for shutdown/standby/hibbernate etc, you can try this docklet. It's for ObjectDock, but it'll work for RocketDock aswell!   More shutdown icons. Thank you for the tutorial again!  

THANKS man!

This post helped my to configure VistaGlass, and i'm so glad i found it.
I'm not a beginner, but this i did not solve on my own.

Thanks again!

Todde

Welcome to CrystalXP! Glad we where able to help.

HELP! You guys saved my day/night!

Thanks again!

Todde

TROUBLE INSTALLING KKMENU

Your instructions for installation and configuration look great.  

AS INSTRUCTED I downloaded and installed the KKMenu from the installer exe,selected (2) registration installation,installed it into the folder you indicate, C:\Program Files\RocketDockI rebooted,I right mouse clicked the RocketDocket, selected Add Item  

BUT KKMenu was not listed among the items I can add.  

What have I done wrong? What do I do now?

I followed the directions and I have everything working but I can't see any text. What could be the problem?

You put the Vista Glass Skin? I tried with that, and I have the same result.

yeah everything is fine with the default skin, but when I choose the vista skin theres no text. I actually like the default skin I might just stick with that.

Just to check!

Did you check it near rocketdock Clock Docklet???
Screenshot might be help you.... kkmenu.JPG

hi! i'm new here, and i'm liking this rocket dock use very much. one thing though, i can't get any text to display when using vistaglass. any help?

I had the same problem... The first install I installed into the wrong palace.  What I had to do was go to windows/stardock/objectdock/docklets/kkmenu.  I moved the kkmenu folder to windows/bricopacks/vista insp2/rocketdock/docklets and put it in that folder.  Then it worked... hope that helps a weee bit

I installed my KkMenu in the RocketDock folder and it worked for me. On installation, I chose for option 1, perhaps that's the problem? Welcome to CrystalXP.

Hi,

Thanks for your great tutorial!

Here is a little vbscript that you can use to call the shutdown dialog:

CODE'****************** Code Begins ******************
Option Explicit

' Create a shell object
With WScript.CreateObject("Shell.Application"
'   Call the Shutdown dialog
    .ShutdownWindows
End With

WScript.Quit()
'******************* Code Ends *******************

Paste the code into a text file and name the file 'Shutdown.vbs'.

Place the script file somewhere safe and create a shortcut to it, drag the shortcut to your dock and voila - no more need for the taskbar at all!

Regards,

d

Thanks for the tip cheekybuddha but I would rather prefer a shortcut with its target set to "Shutdown -s -t 0" ...... Welcome to Crystal XP BTW

cheekybuddha, thank you for the information.

still no help with vistaglass not displaying any text? i followed the directions exactly. i installed it in the right place, i copypasted everything correctly. any ideas?

Hi, look at the vistaglass.ini in kkmenu\skins folder.
at the en d o fthe file you have
[Menu Text]
Font =
it can be pointing to a font which does not exist on your system. change it to an existing one like "Arial" and hit the "reload skin" button in kkmenu set-up.

it worked. thank you very much. the same thing happens with the other skins i downloaded. turns out it's the same problem.
thank you very much

now all i need are more menu skins. i've only found a handful. i'm happy with what i have now, but if anyone finds something interesting, please share. i've found a few gems on wincustomize.com, aero and aeroroyale to name a couple. deviantart has some too

anyone know how to get list of shortcuts to work in kkmenu   ? i cant  get  list of shortcuts working  

so i tryed making  a folder full of shortcuts  and seting kkmenu to dynamic folder but not all the shortcuts  work from kkmenu but they work fine from desktop

ps anyone  got any  documents for kkmenu  

or can some one please post a ini so i ace work out how to make a me with  notepad

my KkMenus.ini

is

[New Menu]

this does not look right to me  what should it be ? thank you all

Mine looks like this at the moment:

Hope it helps you a bit.

Ok, i'm having trouble with this for almost whole day, i'd just want to ask if this KKmenu compatible with vista?

I tried following the tutorial, tried installing it with 1 option (no tray) and the 2nd. But both of them everytime i add KK menu on stardock. it pops a message, cannot access to kkmenu.dll somtimes cannot create kkmenu.ini or something.  

And it pops and error and spam me nonstop, few mins it crashes the rocketdock o_o..

hey guys, im new here, sites great.

well i just have one question. i saved the file under the second option to c>program files>rocketdock
i saw you guys talking about windows> bricopacks > rocketdock. i dont have that? am i missing something i should have downloaded prior to this? so pretty much i cant add kkmenu to rocketdocks, so im guessing its because of this? thanks

EDIT: hey, so i just kinda figured out what the bricopacks are, they are the new appearances for xp or vista, right? i just have the stock vista apperance, but i recently downloaded rocketdock. do i have to get the bricopack to be able to do this mod?

this is sooo cool...thank you!!

Hey, new to the forums. to get this to work i had to take the kkmen folder out of the object dock folder and put it in the docklet folder, it work for me now. thanks for the suggestions in this thread.