#Michael Posted January 20, 2002 Share Posted January 20, 2002 I have tried both Styles XP and WindowBlinds XP. While I believe that both programs have their pros and cons, I just don't believe that either program is stable enough yet to use as an everyday program. I am not trashing either of them, for I find both programs fun to use, but they both have done some interesting things to my machine. WindowBlinds XP is very cool in that in intergrates itself into the display properties but to me it still seems to slow down Windows even with 256 megs of RAM and an Athlon 1.2 Ghz processor. Also, much of the 2.0 skins don't work with 3 and not a lot of 3.x skins have been made. An example of this can be seen on wincustomize.com where currently only 63 exist for 3.x. StylesXP is also a very neat and interesting program that uses little to no system resources to run. Their new version 5 is greatly improved over previous ones, but applying themes is still somewhat tricky. Some themes have been developed enough be used just as easly as the default luna theme and use the .theme extension which can be applied by the themes tab in the display properties. Others are just as developed but use the .msstyles extension which can only be applied in the appreance tab of display properties. I think it is time to combine them into one general extension, .theme so they can be applied as one. This is again just my humble opinion and would love to hear other people comments on this also. Please don't get me wrong, I think both programs have interesting futures and I can't wait to see what comes next. But for now, I will just stick with the basic luna theme. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MxxCon Posted January 20, 2002 Share Posted January 20, 2002 so you don't like stylexp only becuase there are .themes and .msstyle? i guess you don't know the difference between these 2 files. .msstyle is actual file that holds all gfx for themes like luna, rhodium edge, etc. .themes is text file that tell computer which .msstyle to use, but also which sounds, mouse curors, icons, some other stuff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
#Michael Posted January 20, 2002 Author Share Posted January 20, 2002 I never said that I didn't like StylesXP because there are two different extensions. I have tried it since beta 2 and do like StylesXP, it's just that it is not very stable at the moment. Since I dl'ed beta 5, when I reboot the machine, the theme gets all screwed up. I don't know if it's just my machine or a bug with StylesXP. I just think for those that are looking for new themes, it should stay simple and only be one extension. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frogboy Administrators Posted January 20, 2002 Administrators Share Posted January 20, 2002 There is no such thing as a WindowBlinds 2 skin. They all run the same skins. What skin did you have problems with? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spike232 Posted January 20, 2002 Share Posted January 20, 2002 i just use the hacked dll, nothing extra. works fine, very stable, and i dont change themes often enought to find it aproblem to applie it in 1 of 2 locations Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Binary Posted January 20, 2002 Share Posted January 20, 2002 TrainerNIU just to make something very clear about Style XP, it is NOT doing the skinning nor does it have anything to do with .theme or .msstyles extensions. This is WINDOWS XP itself doing the skinning from the uxtheme.dll engine, all of that skinning functionality is built right into XP, Style XP just patches the dll in memory to let it use 3rd party skins. Now if Style XP were in fact doing the skinning, funny that a clean install comes with luna eh? ;) Just thought I'd clear that up because alot of people are thinking that Style XP is doing something major, when in fact it's not doing much at all. Not even close to being worth $20 even with the "interface" which by the way does a VERY crappy job at putting the elements together for a preview. (my watercolor skin looks just awfull in the preview window there, funny it looks perfect in the apperance property sheet :)) They need to do alot more work to make it worth $20 imo. Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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