WindowBlinds XP RC1 available

[Mr White]

tmf2 - Neowin isn't affiliated with TGTSoft (who makes the uxtheme.dll patch) so why would it be off limits to talk about WindowBlinds? Especially since on XP, they ARE visual styles, just a different format. If this site were TGTSoft's message board, you'd have a point.

Because Visual Styles is associasted with Style Builder and Styles XP I never once heard you use this term in connection with WindowBlinds until Style Builder came out. Again you are playing games. People see the Visual Styles for XP thread and come to learn about this new exciting alternative to WindowBlinds,

how to make themes download themes etc. Not to be spammed by its competitors this is not the place and frankly my friend in bad taste. The fact of you recent posting frequency is a testement

to how concerned you and Stardock are. My suggestion to you would be spent more time in development of your product and less time trying to dissuade others from using TGTSofts product. It would be a better use of your time in my opinion.:ermm:

[Kader]

I'm not here to bash WB. All I know is that I've been doing graphics for people and pages for years and years now and have tried WB many times now only to uninstall it in about an hour or so once the performance started to matter again. When I installed StylesXP and then rebooted to see how wonderfully detailed and responsive it was?well I threw resource hacker right open and started working on my own style.

[Frogboy Administrators]

Sigh.

A year from now people will laugh at all of us for debating skin formats.

One thing I do want on record - I do not bash TGTSoft. I have never used their StyleBuilder.

It is not bashing to point out what it is - a system DLL patch. It is not a skinning program.

The bottom line is that people should just use whatever skins they want to use. Bashing me or Stardock or WindowBlinds simply because it provides more options to XP users seems, rather odd when the alternative is to use just Microsoft, .msstyles. To me anyway, it's like having a bunch of people bashing because I like to use JPG files and a bunch of people insist that only .BMPs are the wave of the future.

And comparing WindowBlinds running on say Win98 to XP is apples and oranges. On Win98/ME/etc WindowBlinds had to provide the skinning engine. On XP, Microsoft provides it with uxtheme.dll.

[PM5K]

Looks like tmf2 agree with me also.... I believe the term that was usually used in "Skin".....

[PM5K]

I have to agree with Kader again here... We give your product a chance, every time, at least a dozen times, but after an hour or so, the pretty little title bar isn't worth the bugs and slowdowns...

Good argument Frogboy.........

[PM5K]

"Bashing me or Stardock or WindowBlinds simply because it provides more options to XP users seems,"

You got it all wrong.. That's not why we bash WB at all... It's because of the performance...........

Not because of what it does, but how it does it......

[Kader]

Frogboy,

I tried RC1 and will try RC2 and WB3 final and so on...but until the speed meets or beats windows xp's built in engine I have to uninstall WB and wait for the next one. I?m a big time multi-tasker who can?t afford to have unnecessary performance hits.

[Wickedkitten Veteran]

Originally posted by Frogboy

What are you talking about Kitten? I'm on there right now.

http://www.windowblinds.net/default.asp?page=download

You just click on the WindowBlinds icon right next to "WindowBlinds for Windows XP". It directly links to the installer. It's free.

There is an enhanced version that has other goodies but that doesn't make the standard version not free. Like Quicktime, there's a Quicktime Pro. But the regular version is free to use indefinitely (and always has been). Note though, the beta version does expire but by then there will be the released version which has no expiration at all.

im talking about if its a beta then give people a beta, not a crippled version of a beta. look at real. they have a public preview of real one where its a preview but you can access gold pass content that you would normally have to pay for. How does stardock justify having a crippled beta version of an actual beta?

[mortensen]

Regardless of what format people use, most skins will be ugly.

Then why do you keep releasing bad skins? I know you don't make all the bad skins out there but you could at least ship some good skins with WindowBlinds. We don't care how many sh1t skins are out there, but it would be nice if Stardock were to release GOOD skins with WindowBlinds [people recognise that WinXP original skins are good, even if they don't like them].

A year from now people will laugh at all of us for debating skin formats.

No, people will be laughing at WindowBlinds skins like they are now. :p

and have tried WB many times now only to uninstall it in about an hour or so

Ditto. I install if every 6 months or so [when a new 'major' version comes out] only to find out that the skins are just as bad as ever. Also, WindowBlinds is pirated a lot - there is at least one site that always has the latest version... do you not know about these sites or do you not care?

PS - This is a bit out of control. There are SO many people that hate WindowBlinds here you'll never win.

[Frogboy Administrators]

Mort - the skin you showed in your screenshot wasn't made by us. RC1 includes XP Plantinum and XP Ocean. Those are the only two "Stardock skins". But there are zillions of XP type skins out there that look like Luna but are just tweaked slightly just like Toothpaste and such.

Kader - you said you tried RC1 and you still found it slow? If this is the case, maybe I can help. If you can tell me specifically what makes it feel slow to you or at least slower, that would help. Did you try using Hyperpaint?

See, what's hard to work from is that we can only address the things that are reported specifially or that we run into ourselves. On our systems, skins like XP Platinum feel faster than the Luna. Especially if we turn on hyperpaint.

The other thing we use is a program called Skinbench made by a third party. It's an open source skin benchmarking program.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/skinbench

So we use that to try to see what areas we have to work on.

But the areas that it feel slower to you could be something we haven't looked at. Since we're using uxtheme.dll for almost all of the drawing, it should be identical in speed on anyone's system. But there could be something we're overlooking. If we can find out what it is, then we can try to address it.

Heck, I'd be willing to put links just for you guys to private beta builds to try different things. Anyone participating in this thread is, afterall, someone interested in customizing their systems.

The tricky part is simply finding out where something feels slower.

Of course, if Mort is right and everyone "hates" WB it is a waste of time. That woudl be unfortunate though since Stardock is essentially just a collection fo techies who got together to create cool software. It wouldn't be much different than people on this message board who knew how to code getting together to make software only to come back a year later and have their very friends slamming them.

WindowBlinds has come a long way over the years. It was a tough job, that's why no one else has really ever done anything like it on Win98/ME/2000 (to nearly its level anyway). Because it's a huge pain in the rear. XP makes things a lot easier because of uxtheme.dll. The problem though is that many users who tried WB on say Windows ME and had problems for whatever reasons see WB on XP and are already thinking it's "crap".

But ultimately, if you guys say WindowBlinds is crap then it IS crap. Perception is reality in skinning. It is Stardock's job to win you guys over, and if it can't then we better find a different line of work.

Here's some screenshots though from skins we're making:

Neo 1

Neo2

Let me know what you think of these.

[Wickedkitten Veteran]

i think its more the term of you slamming styles xp and saying windowblinds is better by looking at benchmarks (which means doodly squat when people can SEE their comp is going slower) and going on about hacked dll's thats ****ing people off more than anything.

[freeza]

hm .....neo2 is a lot better than neo 1 :)

[Wickedkitten Veteran]

btw frogboy, are you using the enhanced version of windowblinds xp rc1 that comes with the object desktop network cos i notice your scrollbars arent skinned.

[mortensen]

I can't say I'm impressed with either of the skins. Both have horrible taskbars. The texturing on the windows in Neo 1 is quite nice but overall it's too dark. The buttons [minimise, etc] are out of place on Neo 1. The more icons arrow [near the clock] is quite nice on Neo 1 but isn't effective enough because the skin is too dark. I also really hate the start buttons on each. [LOL - Don't take my opinion at all seriously, WindowBlinds has obviously sold well enough, but if you want better PR then you might want to listen to people on forums like these - all I know is that these skins don't shout out at me that I need to get them... they're just average].

I have tried WindowBlinds on many OS's. I used to like using WindowBlinds on 98 a lot but overall stability and a few skin glitches on some skins just made me stop using it. [This was particuarlly evident when I installed WindowBlinds 2.2 on Windows ME the other day; I was greated with many crashes and had to restart and then more crashes]. But then I went back to standard Windows look and realised that if there weren't any really interesting skins then I could live without them... and was particuarlly disappointed with WindowBlinds XP for the lack on radical new skins... it had the standard skins from older versions which I dislike.

Looking at the comments on Betanews shows that a lot of people are still complaining about performance [1.8G with oodles of RAM not running it well enough]. No matter how fast you claim it is, if peoples perceptions of speed are different then you need to work to make everyone happy.

At the moment I would go for the minimal style approach for skins... I like using the Classic theme on XP because it [iMHO] look much tidier.

Sorry for the post being long but I want to ask a few more questions... All the themes you show seem to be modified Luna themes; is this because you can only use Luna style in XP or because you think that's what people want? I'd much prefer [FUNCTIONAL] small skins than these XP chunky skins.

Mort - the skin you showed in your screenshot wasn't made by us.

Sorry about that, but it was on your site [with your name on the start menu] as an example of WindowBlinds XP.

Thank you people for putting up with another long post of mine, I just have a lot of thoughts regarding WindowBlinds.

[Frogboy Administrators]

Wicked - Not sure which build I'm using right now.

I also see your point though I'm not trying to "slam" Styles XP. What bugs me, personally (and professionally) is that it gives the impression on their website that it is a skinning program.

http://www.tgtsoft.com/stylesfaq3.html

It's not that it actually states that it's a skinning program in itself, but clearly the impression many people here have gotten is that it is a skinning program. If you look at some of the websites, they have talked about adding "Styles XP" sections for instance. The question isn't Styles XP vs. WindowBlinds. It's .UIS vs. .MSStyles (or at the very least, XP skins vs WindowBlinds skins). The last 4 years of my life have been spent in the creationg of skinning software. So if I'm not as diplomatic as I probably should be when it comes to responding to the assertion that Styles XP is a skinning program.

The other issue is largely personal and that's that I'm a net user like anyone else here and it sucks coming onto sites and getting bashed (in one thread, I *personally* was called an idiot without having even been involved in the thread before I had ever posted here) or having the stuff I work on 60 hours a week bashed. And then no one even pointing out some of the rather significant issues of the way Styles XP works just makes it worse (such as MS very likely to update uxtheme.dll so that styles xp won't work on it and then ALL those .msstyles skins will suddenly no longer function until when/if someone finds a new way to crack uxtheme.dll). We were at the launch of XP yesterday and the MS guys we talked to were pretty ticked at someone patching their DLL. But I get flamed for making a post telling people that a FREE program is available for download that also lets them make skins.

Anyway, like I said, you guys are the ones who make the final decision on these things, not me. I'm just one guy. If ultimately the majority of users say "WindowBlinds and its skins suck" then that's that and we'll have to concentrate on other things. (I also work on the game Galactic Civilizations for instance (www.galciv.com - it'll be out next year).

Anyway, hope that helps put things into perspective. Sorry it's so long, been typing bits and pieces of this during the afternoon.

[Frogboy Administrators]

Mort -

Great post, thanks for that info.

BTW, to some this might sound bizarre but I think some of you will know where I'm coming from - it's very important to us at Stardock that people like you guys like our stuff. From a business point of view, sure, we "techies" are a small percent, but that's not what it's all about. You guys are our peers.

Take ObjectBar for instance, do you know how old the lead on that is? 16. The average age of the WindowBlinds team member is 22.

I'm "old", I just turned 30. These sites, like Betanews, and here and elsewhere are our hangouts. We recruit people from EFNet for instance.

Our WebBlinds lead developer came from the #Litestep channel on EFnet. Our support people are editors at skin websites like Teknidermy.

That's why it matters to the guys here (myself included) that you guys specifically like our stuff. And if you don't, we want to know what we can do to fix that. Even if it doesn't make business sense we still want to do what it takes.

It's not about sales, obviously since the time I'm spending here doesn't make any economic sense right? It's about making cool stuff that people like.

[Wickedkitten Veteran]

Is Styles XP safe? How does it work? How does it differ from other products?

Styles XP has no service or executable code, so there is no worry about your machine slowing. We have completely decoded the luna.msstyles file and have created an XML-to-msstyles engine. Our StyleBuilder product takes the XML with their corresponding images and compiles it to an msstyles file.

I highly doubt that MS sent everyone that works at the company to the launch and with a corporation as large as MS its not like just any one division knows exactly what another division is working on. The President of TGTSoft has already said on YOUR newsgroup that MS knows about styles xp and if MS theirselves don't have a prob with it (as evidenced by the fact that the tgtsoft website is still up and running and you can still download the thing) then who are you to sit around and try to play morality police by stating what MS might or might not do. You keep on going around on here, iexbeta, wincustomise, and your own newsgroups stating stuff about styles xp and you might be setting YOURSELF up for a lawsuit.

[Frogboy Administrators]

Wicked, please re-read my post. What I've said about Styles XP is simply that it patches uxtheme.dll. I do not know what Microsoft's official position is on it and I have not implied they have an official position on it. Nobody knows.

[Pow35]

It is hilarious... A bunch of kids throwing inflamatory comments at one another... :)

I have to side with "FrogBoy" about this one... Stop bashing for a minute or two, Stop trying to decide who post in the wrong place or spam or simply if Microsoft likes that DLL to be hacked or not and see if you can do what it is repeatedly asked of you... "Give an opinion about what seems to be the cause of the SlowDown of the WindowBlind XP."

I used WinBlind since their 0.80 version... I have used it on and off cause of their SlowDown or some other times I would prefer a specific "STYLE" (Oppssss.... Did I say Style?) :) ... then I would end up using it a bit longer. I bought the Object Desktop and decided that to Pay AGAIN for another year of Service wasn't fair to do... I should own that part of it... not Lease the service... But still, I bought that 1 year license... I used WinBlinds with the ObjectDeskTop... Used it by Itself, Used a "Key Generator to Register it, Downloaded an Enhanced version from a Warez... All in all, I used it all the way, Any way I was able too. ;)

I found the Program to have done great Improvements since their debut and they will surely improve the product as time goes by... For myself, the main concern for it always have been the Memory leakeage from it... and WindowBlind has done great works in getting the Memory usage t a low standard. I am not a Computer Programmer, nor a System Engineer, simply a user who liked what he saw but to whom, at this time, Finds nothing too attractive about the Skin/styles provided by Window or Window Blinds and to really attract me to these Skins enhancement, It would have to be much more Original in creativeness then what I seen MS or any Skinning/Stylist programmer do. :ermm:

Simply put, Perhaps the entire problem is in the Graphics and a fresh look at the entire creativity aspect and for some graphic artist to go out and look around... try to get fresh idea's... sorry, but all I see here so far, is sooooo.... Cloned.

p.s.: I am not bashing anyone btw... simply trying to make a positive observation. :D

[Rudy]

i hate Windowblind for 2 reasons:

1.Slower....

2.The scroll bar in IE are not skinned

[PM5K]

Frogboy... You did imply that Microsoft had an opinion and what you thought it might be:

"such as MS very likely to update uxtheme.dll so that styles xp won't work on it and then ALL those .msstyles skins will suddenly no longer function until when/if someone finds a new way to crack uxtheme.dll"

"I do not know what Microsoft's official position is on it and I have not implied they have an official position on it."

I think that quote shows what you think their position is on it and what they may do....

[Mr White]

[

It is hilarious... A bunch of kids throwing inflamatory comments at one another...

[

QUOTE]p.s.: I am not bashing anyone btw... simply trying to make a positive observation.

Hmmm.........................

[Pow35]

:) :) :p :) :)

Need I say more?

Already looking for something to strike at... aren't we? :(

[Frogboy Administrators]

PM5:

Let me put it this way, I don't know Microsoft's "official" position about this. I do not what individual Microsoft people feel on it though which isn't the same thing as MS's official position.

What we do know is that they don't feel strongly enough about it to go and try to shut them down which is what would happen if they were really ticked off right? ;)

The rest just involved educated speculation:

Assertion: Microsoft doesn't want third parties to use .msstyles

Query: How do we know this?

Reason: Because they cared enough to go through the trouble to ensure that XP out of the box only uses Microsoft digital signature .msstyle files.

Therefore:

It stands to reason that there is a pretty reasonable chance that Microsoft may update XP to break the non MS signed .msstyles files.

However:

We don't know why they digitally signed them in the first place. We know that support is a big reason but there may be other reasons as well that we don't know about.

Ultimately though, WindowBlinds won't be the only solution. Some people tend to say "Oh you're just upset that you don't have a monopoly on skinning now." But that's not the case. Because XP ships with uxtheme.dll, there will likely be LOTS of skinning formats. The only obstacle to skinning XP is that you can't use .msstyles (unless you patch the DLL that is).

I'm surprised that there aren't already at least 1 other program in beta with their own uxtheme based skinning program. Maybe there is and we don't know about it yet. There could be several in development. In the "skinning circles" XP coming with a skinning engine is the big thing. The skinning engine is open to everyone to use. It's just that Microsoft doesn't want third parties to use it's skinning FORMAT (engine use - okay, format - stay away).

Does that make sense?

[Wickedkitten Veteran]

Originally posted by Pow35

I used WinBlinds with the ObjectDeskTop... Used it by Itself, Used a "Key Generator to Register it, Downloaded an Enhanced version from a Warez... All in all, I used it all the way, Any way I was able too. ;)

yeah your a really bright guy posting that you've basically stolen their software right in front of the CEO of stardock aka Frogboy :evil: