[Dsclaimer: I work for Stardock]

I've been working really hard over the last few months to make your msstyles work with WindowBlinds. As much as you may like or not the idea of your themes being used by WindowBlinds users - the fact is that we've definitely enhanced your audience to users outside Windows XP and those who fear to patch their systems.

Now I do not claim to be undbiassed - should you find more reasons, pro or against porting your skins to WindowBlinds - feel free to leave your comments either on my blog or here.

Now time for the article itself.

Expect the next release of SkinStudio after the New Year improve substantially in accuracy upon the current release - especially the Free one (which is rather old).

[edited] wrong ink!

sounds good to me. i'm gonna try it.

Looking forward to the new version myself, Skinstudio works almost 98% perfert already. Just needs soome tweaking.

ugh. sorry. I've posted a wrong link before. Fixed the link now. sorry again for the confusion!

what abt a WBA to MSSTYLES porter ??
I know WB has more functions (shell animation , Toolbar icons etc)
but to make VS`s work u just need to patch uxtheme dll file nothing else
no installation nothing !

why would they make something to take away the use of their own product...that makes no sense.

Feel free to create your own program if you feel you can do that. They created their own one and do a great job at it. Besides, they worked with Mircosoft to developed the uxtheme and the skinning engine in the 1st place, so it should only make sense that they create a program that takes it to the next level.

Thanks a lot for your hard work SkinStudio. I think the MSStyle to WB porter is great and save us a lot of time when we are going to create WB version of our msstyles.

i second what KoL says. as long as people respect other people's copyright wishes, then it's cool with me.

I never really liked window blinds, i probably never will. The only theme I actually liked was celia (sp?) by bant. It was a complete theme that wasn't too gaudy or underdone. It was perfect. KoL is another good themer and all of his theme's were useable, because he puts a lot of effort into his work, but since most of his theme's are msstyles i have no use for windowblinds. I just hate the fact that it doesn't skin EVERYTHING as do msstyles.

I tried Windows Blinds when I first started themeing ... I nearly died.

WindowBlinds does skin a lot more elements of the Windows GUI than msstyles do so there are advantages. The disadvantage (obviously) is that it's not free.

On the otheer hand, msstyles to WindowBlinds have a key importance - Longhorn. When Longhorn comes out, the .msstyles format of today will be history replaced by something completely different so the only way all those msstyles will exist on Longhorn that I can think of is by converting them to a different format.

Actually WB skins more than msstlyes such as the logon/shutdown boxes, animations, toolbars, etc... It does a lot more then msstyles could ever hope to do.

Why dont most people use SkinStudio then ????
Why are there more 'good' skins for stylexp than for windowblinds ??

The thing that i found is that with Windows Blinds it is another thing to load at StartUp, which my PC already has trouble with
Another reason why i stopped using it was the quality of the themers. I am not into theming, but looking at the quality of themes for WB (on WinCustomize) and them a MSSTYLES site, such as Studio 28 - there is a rather large difference in quality, and useability.

I thought the GUI Olympic's would be a good venture, sorting the useable themes from the ones created by people who look like they never have done it before. BUT, i went on and saw the same sorts of skins. Even some of the premium skins I wouldn't ever use - i would have thought these would be better?

If i see more skins like on Studio 28 and GFXOasis (using their Blue one now - its a beaut!) then I would most likely convert back.

I am an object desktop user. Of all the OD apps available, I only use iconpackager. I also use CursorXP and ObjectDock, which are also Stardock products, but not part of OD. I used to use Desktop X, but now I rarely touch it and if I use it at all it's in the form of widgets. Stardock makes some good apps. I won't use windowblinds. Every time there is a new version I try it out, and within minutes I uninstall it. It does skin more things than native visual styles do, but it's glitchy. Windows flicker, sometimes things don't display correctly. Most windowblinds skins suck (I've only ever used 5 of them so far for any limited amount of time, but I've tried hundreds). Ever play a game in windowed mode using windowblinds? Most likely your game window will be using a classic windows border and titlebar. And these problems have been around since Windows XP came out, they should have had them fixed a long time ago, before they started adding other "useless" features like skinning the toolbar buttons and shutdown prompts, etc., which are cool but unnecessary when the software is not already 100% perfect before adding those features. Also, regardless of what anybody at Stardock claims, Windowblinds skins seem to run slower. I have an Athlon 64 3400 and 2 GB of PC3200 RAM, plus a GeForce FX 5700. I shouldn't notice any difference, especially if I have no programs running, yet I do. Should Stardock create a Windowblinds to MSStyles conversion feature in SkinStudio? I think so. They have a better understanding of how the Windowblinds works than any of us ever will, plus they own the format. Who's to say they wouldn't sue somebody if they created such a program? Stardock, at least to me, has always seemed to be about freedom of choice. The truest test of that would be to give us that option. Additionally, even if they didn't add a converter, the ability to create MSStyles as well as Windowblinds skins in Skinstudio would be nice. Sure, TGTSoft has their own little tool for that, but I'd rather be able to use Skinstudio. Now...

You really want me to use SkinStudio? Give me the option to make Trillian skins with it! That feature had been planned for a while now, what happened to it? Was it dropped? Why? There isn't any program yet that will allow us to make Trillian skins, that option alone could very well sell SkinStudio. Additionally, who gives a rat's ass about Windows Media Player? How bout Winamp skins?

I will continue to subscribe to and support Object Desktop, and I will probably continue to ignore Windowblinds. Since SkinStudio is part of Object Desktop, Stardock won't be able to sell me SkinStudio as a separate product, since I already have it. Add some additional features in, though, particularly Trillian 3 skinning, and it could very well become an invaluable app, not just a curiosity to anybody who isn't a windowblinds skinner.

<edit>Windowblinds was invaluable for making Windows 2000 look nice, however, and I used it religiously until XP came out. It's a shame that it can't work as seamlessly on a more modern OS as it did then.</edit>

gud points there darrian !
i used windowblinds for 1 year .
the guiolympics skins were damn cool (atleast for me) specially the vectorcell and minios and such other skins ...that is why i wanted a wba to visual style porter !
i know skinstudio wudnt want that feature because then noone would use WB ...
but i was just thinking that if there was a wba to msstyles porter some of the coolest skins in WB wud be ported quite easily !

Except you forget that the default windows theme service has to load at startup also. It runs under an svchost as the uxtheme and can take any from 5-20 MB of ram to run where as WB runs approx 512 ~2 MB ram depending on the skin.



Ever heard of doing per application skinning? If a game if giving you trouble then tell WB not to skin it or only skin the titlebar. There are over over 3 thousand skins on wincustomize today, your telling me you can't find one skin you like?



And I tell this to everyone else, WB is far superior to uxtheme. Consider uxtheme to be a stripped down version of WB considering Stardock helped Microsoft develop it. And you know what, until you design a program that converts from WB to msstyles stop whinning.

I get so sick to death of people saying that WB is so eye candy and that it never has any good skins, but when you take a look at any of the recently released msstyles here or soon to be released ones, they are ALL mods on luna or longhorn. Absoultly no creativity or originality but yet when a WB skin does get released here that breaks the mold such as the unorthodox skins thread, the 1st few pages are filled with rants of they are unuseable, yet they show the potential of WB.

Been there, done that, no workey. I've fiddled with about every control imaginable to get WB to function the way I want. Telling WB NOT to skin it is exactly what I DON'T want it to do. What I want is for it TO SKIN it. And if you had a higher reading comprehension you would have caught the part where I stated that there are approximately 5 windowblinds skins that I will use regularly when running windowblinds. Actually, there are about 15, the other 10 are outdated skins that do not support things like the xp start menu, and so I won't use them.

Stardock may have helped MS develop uxtheme, but either MS ensured that non-native skinning apps won't work 100% correctly, or Stardock can't seem to figure out how to get windowblinds to work the way they intend it. Either way, it's glitchy. Stardock's biggest argument against using MSStyles is that it requires patching your uxtheme.dll, thus making your system "unsecure." Pretty much an invalid argument, since most people who patch their system are well aware and willing to accept any risk. Furthermore, when was the last time you heard of a virus coming from a MSStyles file? I can't think of any such incident, thus far, so it's pretty much marketing propoganda. And that's fine. This isn't a msstyle vs windowblinds discussion, and if you want to be a fanboy go find yourself such a thread and flame away. Personally, I don't like to use windowblinds for reasons that I feel are very solid and sound, which I've backed up with examples that you have only feebly and unsucessfully contested. My argument in THIS thread is very simple, and related to skinstudio, not WB. Any discussion on my part of WB is simply used to illustrate WHY SkinStudio, at this point in time, is virtually useless to me, not to proclaim superiority of one format over another. It's truly a matter of preference in most cases, anyway.

Skinstudio is not a very attractive product to me as its primary use is to create windowblinds skins, which I'm highly unlikely to use. If Stardock wants to expand their user base they need to add in more features and make the features they already have more useful. I've already given examples on how they could do that, as well, so I'm not going to repeat myself any further.



Skins can show as much potential as they want, but that doesn't make them useable. To me, a skin MUST be useable and functional, not just eye candy. I wouldn't even mind your argument so much if there actually were a lot of windowblinds skins out there with eye candy, but most of them look as if a young child with no experience created them. There are very few truly great skinners in the WB community (and here I'm talking about WB artists, not people who port msstyles over to WB, usually somewhat imperfectly, and then get praised at how good a job they did and how great "their" skin is) who actually make skins that I would consider professional, useable, functional, whatever. Of those skins, only a small fraction of them actually suite my tastes, and I'm extremely picky. Point of fact, I'm currently running the Luna Element msstyle. Yes, it's a Luna mod. And so what? Luna isn't as bad as everybody makes it out to be. Element takes almost everything people hate about Luna and fixes it. Now if only a black substyle would be made, as I prefer dark skins, I might actually be happy with it. As it is, I'm simply content, because when it comes down to it, I have yet to see a skin in either format that I'm 100% happy with, hence the neverending search to find a new visual style. I'm the same way with wallpapers. Something better is always going to come out, people are always going to be searching for that something, and everybody is going to have a different opion on what that something is and what makes it "better." That's what makes this community thrive. I think the majority of the Neowin community prefers msstyles, and there's a good reason for that. I'm sorry that you're disappointed with our reasons and the skins that seem to be popular around here, but preaching isn't going to get you anywhere. Perhaps try being beneficial to the thread by offering suggestions and CONSTRUCTIVE criticism rather than just assuming everybody here is a moron and throwing biased opinions around. I understand your frustrations, but you're essentially making the same accusations you're upset about, simply from the other side of the fence. I apologize if I've been inflamatory with this response, but I felt assaulted and obligated to defend myself.

There aren't. There are a lot more WindowBlinds skins than msstyles. And as for "good" that's a matter of taste. If you look here at Neowin the best of the best on msstyles gets shown and there are indeed dozens of good msstyles made each year. But the typical msstyle is just as, if not more, gaudy than the worst of the WB skins (visit themexp sometime and compare).

And there are no skins "for Style XP". It's just a program that patches uxtheme.dll so that you can use unsigned msstyles.

There are some really good discussions here.

Let me add my 2 cents. I'm biased but that doesn't change the facts of the matter from here:

I'm running WindowBlinds 4.4. I also run PC games all the time. I'm a game developer (lead designer on The Political Machine, Galactic Civilizations - both won editor's choice awards from Computer Gaming World).

I am currently playing World of Warcraft, Half-Life 2, and Pirates. I have never seen any of the problems you describe, Darian. I don't run into "flaky" behavior with WindowBlinds. My windows are skinned. When we develop our games, they are always running in a window (for debugging purposes) and they are always skinned fine with WindowBlinds.

I don't know of any apps that are "glitchy" with WindowBlinds. I do, however, find that some skins are glitchy or buggy. Is this WindowBlinds fault? No. There are plenty of msstyles that are glitchy and buggy too.

You guys do these apples and oranges comparisons. You go and compare the elite msstyles made on Studio 28 or posted here on Neowin with the rank and file WB skins on WinCustomize. That's ridiculous. And I could do the same thing saying look at Pixtudio, The Skins Factory, SkinPlant, Essorant's Page, etc.

If you want an apples and apples comparison, go look at ThemeXP.org and then compare those skins to what's on WinCustomize.

In fact let's do that now:

Here are the newest 3 skins on ThemeXP:
http://www.themexp.org/preview.php?mid=844...e=EQUALIZER.zip

http://www.themexp.org/preview.php?mid=843...Liquid+Blue.zip

http://www.themexp.org/preview.php?mid=843...me=CANDIDva.zip


Now the newest 3 on WinCustomize:
http://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?...ID=4357&LibID=1

http://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?...ID=4752&LibID=1

http://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?...ID=4750&LibID=1

Now if you guys think the 3 newest on Themexp look better than the 3 newest on WC we can just end this discussion now and I can write you off as someone with crappy taste.

I run skins on multiple configurations all the time and they work fine. Glitchy skins are glitchy but that's the same for msstyles where the author has some out of control element (like a 6000 pixel long title bar or a button that is only 2 pixels tall or whatever). That's not uxtheme's fault nor is it WindowBlinds' fault. But in both cases, that's pretty rare.

And WindowBlinds 4.4 is so much faster than msstyles at this point that it's pretty undeniable. And if you are running some strange apps where compatibility is a concern, you can click an option and set WindowBlinds to only skin theme aware programs just like uxtheme does.

But let's cut to the chase - the msstyles life expectancy is almost over. Msstyles, as you know them, die with Longhorn. And given how difficult it has been to get WindowBlinds to run msstyles fluidly in 2 years of work, SkinStudio is your best bet for whathever future format is in Longhorn (if there is a format with the name .msstyles or .lhstyles or whatever).

i just dont use windowblinds for the fact that is slows my computer down, msstyles dont do that to me.. i can have like 6 programs running at the same time and its the same as windowblinds.. its just not my type of program..

This is for Brad:

You're absolutely right, in many cases the fault is with the skin. What I'm specifically referring to is flickering of WB elements for no apparent reason, objects not being refreshed after initially drawn (say when moving a window or something, where the "skin" should be there is just a white blankness that takes a moment or so to redraw where a msstyles skin would remain constant--and this is a glitch that I have not seen consistantly for quite some time, but it does still occur occasionally under some circumstances), and as far as games go, well, specifically I see that bug consistantly on any game based on the Quake III engine. I have not attempted it with a game with a more modern engine yet, say Half-Life 2, but the majority of FPS games use Q3, and when it comes to online play chances are I'll be running a Q3 game (usually JK2 or JK3). I have not played any Stardock games. They're just not my genre. I may just load WB back up sometime today and test it with the games I'm currently playing and see how it holds up. However...

The biggest reason I don't use WB is because it doesn't have many skins I like, and the skins that I use regularly are msstyles. Additionally, even if there is a WB port, why use the port when I can easily use the original? If WB allowed you to use msstyles as well as WB (without being forced to convert the msstyles format to wba, which is pretty much the only way I've seen to do this, and I think that's crap, since it's difficult for most skins to be converted 100% perfectly, which in turn forces you to fiddle with the skin in skinstudio, possibly for hours, before it's usable--and I'm aware that improvements in this area are what started this thread and sincerely hope that it can indeed be improved) then I would keep it installed all the time and simply disable it when I was using msstyles, but it doesn't, and the installation/uninstallion process is a pain in the ass (on this note, after you uninstall WB it would be great if windows was returned to its original functionality and cease loading WB elements, which it seems to do until you manually delete the windowblinds folder, something I'd rather not do since skins are kept there--of course, you can rename the folder, too, say add a .bak to it or whatever, but it makes a frequent uninstall/reinstall tedious, which makes switching back and forth undesirable). Because of this I only use WB when I see a new skin that looks so great I just have to try it. I monitor wincustomize.com regularly for updated skins for several Stardock apps, including WB. The last time I saw a skin I couldn't live without I think it was called Metal X. A great skin, but I had to recolor it to get it to where I wanted it. Now, recoloring a skin is a great feature. It also slows down WB considerably. A better way to do that, I would think, would be to allow WB to recreate the bitmaps for the skin in a temp folder after it's been recolored, and essentially rebuild the skin with the new bitmaps. Recoloring it in real time, constantly, is too much of a bog. But I do like the feature and hope that it gets developed further. What it comes down to is my own taste. It isn't that all WB skins suck by default simply because they're WB skins. More skins that I would actually use are created either exclusively or first for msstyles. Because of this, I more or less exclusively use msstyles, which are just as easy to install with none of the headache, plus the interface to change skins is already built into xp, so I don't need to bother with additional WB interfaces. I appreciate simplicity and ease of use (not that I don't appreciate advanced options, in fact I would demand them from such an app, but they should be hidden away until I specifically desire to access them, probably the control panel would be the best place, and not the system tray or in the appearance tab in display properties, and wherever else it shows up, even if I tell it not to in the case of the system tray). Anyway, I'm sure I've been rambling and I'm short on sleep. I just wanted to make it clear that I don't hate windowblinds. I've always thought it showed promise, and I still do. I just don't think that it's as compatible with XP as it was with 2000, I think there are more bugs now than there used to be, and this may very well be simply because it skins more elements now than it used to. I really don't know why, I'm not the programmer

As an aside, I tend to stay the hell away from themexp.org and would never recommend it to anybody; I despise spyware and/or whatever crap they put in their installers these days. Gimme a good old fashioned zip or rar any day.

actually it does - unload WB and press the Ctrl key while loading Display Properties dialog. Also should you have any problems with an msstyle, please mail me: adam AT stardock DOT com and I will gladly fix the glitch for you. I always try to fix them instantaneously, but i cannot fix it if I'm not aware of it. Please, please, please report all faulty msstyles.


You can recolor the skin in skinstudio as described in this article and it will run as fast as the original. Also as far as I know the skin is recolored by WB on load NOT on paint, so the loading of the skin may be a bit slower, but not the painting.

Darrian: what type of computer are you running that you experence these glitches? I run a athlon XP at 2 ghz with 64 mb geforce 4 and it works great.

Try the newest versions of WB 4.4 and give skins like dogmax a try, they will blow your mind away at how complex yet professional and minimal they are.

You want to now why the skins you use are all msstyles because they are all the same. They are all basic mods of luna/panther/longhorn. Nobody has any creativty left in them anymore and nobody can create anything radical anymore. Take a look at any recently released msstyle on this board and you will see a mod of luna or longhorn.

KoL's newest theme is a perfect example. While it is a great theme with graphics that are handcrafted, it has the fisher price look of luna. A true lack of originality. And yet look at the thread in the WB forum of the unorthodox skins. Those show what true skinning can achieve. Something radical, something original. It may not be something you use day in and day out, but it is different and that is what counts. It is also something that cannot be done with msstyles.

You talk about how you don't like how windowblinds handles itself when it comes to unloading the themes and uninstalling, etc.... Well, I hate to say it but no program is perfect but this one is definately improving. Even Microsoft isn't perfect, that's why they stopped with only 3 variations on the themes.

I have done a lot of recoloring of skins using skinstudio and I haven't expeienced this slowdown you have talked about, can you explain it more??

Why is not original for you because it have similar Luna colors?? Sustenance is not another Luna mod, the theme is based on an idea that FOOOD posted on gfxOasis and I did everything to create a theme based on that idea. If you find one luna image in the theme let me know. I dont even work over Luna, I used my tiger port as a base for Sustenance.

That is something that I dont like, people saying that ALL msstyle are Luna mods or Longhorn themes. Search a little and you'll find a lot of original themes.

personally, if e can import 100% our VS to WB w/o any or almost any problems, I dont mind to pay IF there is more stuff to theme
within the windows gui

The last time that I tried to import a theme was on July and it work great. Just worked with some graphics and the theme was done. Im going to try with Sustenance

Don't get me wrong. I know you worked long and hard at this theme and should be proud of it. And you have every right o be proud of it, it looks great. But just indulge me and do a comparison:

Your new theme:

Original Luna:


DogmaX WB:


What my desktop looks like with Sustenance applied via WB:


You can't tell me that your new theme doesn't look a bit like luna? The color schemes, start button, shell style, even the red close button. That's all I am saying, msstyles lack creativity and originality because of their limitations. But when those limitations are lifted, DogmaX is a perfect example of what can be accomplished.

Atheletic. From what I can see from the DogmaX screenshot, everything on it can be themed thru a change of .dll and .msstyles.

The only plus point WB has is that it takes less time. However, for this time you make up with money (pay for Stardock's programs).

I'll stay with the free alternative

The screenshot is not even part of it. You have to download it to experience it. Animated menus, the dialog boxes are excellent.

only programs i like that stardock offers are, objectdock PLUS just because of those little tabs & cursor XP... the rest arent even worth buying when you can get a free alternative

but i forgive stardock

The colors yes, the start button and close button??? the shellstye???
I dont know what theme are you looking at but to me they are a lot different. As I said before, the only thing that the theme have similar to Luna are the colors because I wanted to do the theme that way. I like Luna colors.

By the way sustenance ported over great using skinstudio. Looks like not one problem.

And your reasoning for that is why?


This thread is getting entirely out of hand. It was supposed to be about the benefits of porting over msstyles to WB and then taking your skins to the next step. I'm guessing that's not what people want.

His reason is same as all the others such as myself don't use stardock's programs... you have to pay to use a program that can be emulated for free.

except you get a hell of a lot more abilities with WB.

That's like saying I shouldn't have to buy Microsoft Word because they bundle wordpad with XP. Yes wordpad does the basics and will do wordprocessing, but when I want the more advanced features I have to go out and buy the program.

So I could be content with the basic skinning engine and its limitations or I could be someone who wants the more advanced features and I did buy the program.

There is a free version.

AthleticTrainer1981: I don't see how you can compare Kol's new theme to luna. The only thing the same is the colors. If he had only released the white substyle, no one would even think of luna.

I'm looking forward to the next version of skin studio. I've tried with 4.4 to port some things, and it always needs a bit of tweaking (which I don't know how to do ).

List some of this abilities that can't be emulated with system mods by the use of resource hacker or programs as such.

Of course it can all be done with system mods and hacks, but that's the point. You don't have to hack anything with WB. It's all done beautifully with one little app. And it's easy to revert your system back to it's original state. All you do is unload WB

What 'advanced features' are you talking about?

A little time + system hacks = Free alternative.

One of the most underused features of WB:Enhanced GUI controls: WindowBlinds supports third party extensions to the title bar and borders. For example, users can add roll-up buttons, always on top buttons, MP3 controls, etc. to the title bar as part of their visual style.

http://www.stardock.com/products/windowbli...wb4/#Advantages

As you stated, it is underused. And I'm sure there are free alternatives for those.

As I've said before, WB is free. There is a free version of WB. Another feature I've seen in recent skins is a transparency button built in. That's pretty cool and you don't have to run another app to do it.

Actually there aren't. Stardock is also the only company to receieve the designed for XP logo by Microsoft for customizing windows. Stardock worked with MS to develop the original uxtheme engine.

Actually you're wrong. Rollup buttons and always on top controls have been in Nvidia's nView application for months now. Not to mention there is also FreeShade which had been around for years that gives windows rollup functions without using all kinds of extra buttons in the GUI.

(Moderator Hat On)
Just want to say how proud I am that this discussion is so constructive and so intelligent.

I am sure I can speak for many other long time Neowiners when I say that these kinds of in depth technical debates were more of a pipe dream a couple years ago.

This kind of discussion is precisely the reason why I think Neowin will eventually be one of the defacto tech web sites on the net (which it's been moving towards for a long time)
(Moderator Hat Off)

Regarding Darian's experiences:



Actually no I really don't know what you're talking about. I've never seen this bug nor heard of it before. I will take your word that you're running into this but I've never had a problem like that with either msstyles or WindowBlinds and I've had WB running on some pretty poor configurations during testing.



Odd. As a Counterstrike junkie, I can tell you that when I have run CS in a window that I have no such issue. Again, it's skinned. In fact, WindowBlinds can even skin CMD.exe which msstyles can't.



And this is a very legitimate reason. I agree with you. The fact of the matter is, you can patch uxtheme.dll for free and if msstyles are what you want to run then it's hard to argue that someone should go out and pay for WindowBlinds.

This is precisely why most WindowBlinds skins are more "complex" than msstyles however. The demographic of people who buy WindowBlinds are people who want more than msstyles can provide. If all they wanted were fairly simple skins and nothing more they wouldn't have bought WindowBlinds in the first place since they could get that for free. Right?

That said, WindowBlinds native skins bring a few key things to the table:

1) WindowBlinds 4.4 IS faster than msstyles. I've yet to see anyone, even WB detractors, who have used WB 4.4 claim otherwise.

2) WindowBlinds can change the color of skins on the fly.

3) WindowBlinds skins a LOT more elements of Windows. Load up, for instance, Adobe Acrobat reader with an msstyle then load up that msstyle via WindowBlinds (converted) and then load up Acrobat. It's night and day. Acrobat looks like a Win95 app almost with msstyles because msot of it isn't skinned but with WindowBlinds it looks truly native. That is the case with many apps.

4) WindowBlinds can assign other commands to the right mouse button. On my computer, I have the right mouse button click on the title bar minimize it. That's a big deal for me. If WindowBlinds didn't even skin I would consider this a must-have program just for that.

5) The WindowBlinds version of the skin will not just work on Windows XP but also on Windows 2000, Windows 98, Windows ME, and in all likelyhood Longhorn. MSStyles, the format we are talking about today, will only exist on XP. We've got the Longhorn alphas and today's .msstyles won't work no matter what you patch.

Re Recoloring:

No, recoloring doesn't affect performance at all. It's recolored only once in memory and stored that way.

Re One last point about "quality" of skins. Let us remember that it's not a fair comparsion to pick the top skins from Kol or b0se that get posted here on Neowin with the typical skin on WinCustomize.com. If you want to do apples and apples, compare the skins on WinCustomize to the skins on ThemeXP.org. The typical msstyle is pretty horrific. And I don't care for most WindowBlinds skins either.

In a given GOOD year of skinning, there are probably about three dozen GOOD skins created. The best skins get mentioned here on Neowin. That is, after all, one of the points of coming to Neowin.net in the first place.

Cheers!

you're almost saying that we're dumb using this free alternative, because WB does so much more !
Why would we need more ?

msstyle skins the windows. the job gets done. And then you can mod dll and stuff or buy WB (or use the free version), but in my case, once the windows are skinned, with whatever restrictions you might think are bad (like not being able to put bloat on my titlebar), and the icons are changed, this might be as much as I want to customize my interface. Anything more IMHO is superfluous, and you might fail to understand that fact. Many people might have the same taste as I do, and if you can all comprehend that, maybe you will understand why those who don't support WB exists in the first place, even if you have a great product.

msstyle = skin windows, free
windowblinds = skin windows, and then some, $$$

It is still a question of choice. I just hope that in the end your porter won't kill the msstyle "free of charge" community by getting everyone to use WB, and then grab them by the balls, er I mean wallet.

PS: I tried to be much respectful to everyone, this is not trolling or a random flame


EDIT : I noticed that msstyle ports can be used with WIN200 and 9x. THAT is a great reason to do it. Otherwise, I still stand by what I said

Did not know about nview since I don't use it but freeshade hasn't been update since 2001 so I have no idea how well it would work with any modern programs.

microsoft did not change the Windows drawing and "window handling" code that much since after XP came out. Anything compiled with win32 should behave the same, unless you develop UI in your app in a dodgy way like adobe always does