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congrats Kol. you made a beautiful recreation of vista and MS took notice. i think thats a pretty big deal.

look forward to anything you create in the future, im sure it will only get better.

Beautiful words from another artist who does beautiful work.

Windows Vista: $250

WindowBlinds: $19.99

Kol's Theme: $Free

______________________

Seeing Microsoft break down and tell someone "Dude...your work kicks ass. We pay people to design AMAZING themes and you do it by yourself for giggles. We don't like you": Priceless.

Kol, you're work will always stay on my harddrive. Almost the whole Neowin Community backs you up on this one 100% but we understand your decision to comply. Good luck on ALL future work.

Seeing Microsoft break down and tell someone "Dude...your work kicks ass. We pay people to design AMAZING themes and you do it by yourself for giggles. We don't like you": Priceless.

Kol, you're work will always stay on my harddrive. Almost the whole Neowin Community backs you up on this one 100% but we understand your decision to comply. Good luck on ALL future work.

AMEN

Anyone posting links to this theme, offering to share it, or requesting it will receive a warning. Like Kol, we will honor MS's request to not distribute.

I want it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PM me with the links, please!!!!!

:whistle:

Dear Microsoft:

As a long time shareholder i can't believe your doing this.Kol popular theme's add value to your operating system.How many people have upgraded from 98/2000 just so they can use the theme's Kol produces?...How many people stick with xp and don't go to linux or apple just because they like the look of there desktops using Kols theme's? Do you have any idea how big the themeing community is? Do you people relize how valuable and popular Kol is? Why would you want to **** off one of the last true supported groups you have in the computing world? Do you want to drive these people over to help design KDE or Gnome? Or perhaps you want to drive the themeing community to the ever growing ipod generation and there love of the many theme's that the mac community has.Whatever your copyright issues are,forget them! Don't you get that buzz is a big part of todays generation? Don't you see how this is going to create very negative buzz? A vista theme,and certainly one as good as Kols ,only helps to get the word out about the new upcoming os. Comeon Mr gates or Mr ballmer,please reconsider this unthought out move. It's not to late to make amends and also to make this shareholder reconsider his not selling his shares!!!

It's not to late to make amends and also to make this shareholder reconsider his not selling his shares!!!

I wouldn't sell my shares if I were you...

Maybe the trouble arose when KoL renamed it to VistaXP? I think this and the popularity made Microsoft act that way. Shortly after the renaming WinCustomize had to remove it for the first time.

I bet it would be still there it was called Arrow or something like that... :yes:

Edited by martin10018

Wow, this is a turnaround. I've been pretty impressed by MS lately, but this set my impression back. MS needs to let people unleash their creativity. I think MS is just scared because everything on Vista (well, almost everything) can be backported to XP.

And, this just goes to concede that the UI we're seeing is final. If it wasn't MS wouldn't even care that it's being released all around the Internet.

Pffft. Sad day for Microsoft.

PS: KoL, I'll admit that I never downloaded your theme, but if it was recongized by a company as large as MS, it must be pretty darn good. Remain strong and don't let the big boys get you down, ok? :D

Wow, this is a turnaround. I've been pretty impressed by MS lately, but this set my impression back. MS needs to let people unleash their creativity. I think MS is just scared because everything on Vista (well, almost everything) can be backported to XP.

And, this just goes to concede that the UI we're seeing is final. If it wasn't MS wouldn't even care that it's being released all around the Internet.

Pffft. Sad day for Microsoft.

It *is* final, or nearly so, and the recent changes to the start menu, which KoL incorporated into the current Windowsblinds release, are not public knowledge. No problems until he made those changes, so it's pretty easy to see why they did what they did.

Been running this theme for a while. Looks awesome and runs without any problems. Thanks KoL

Obviously a little too popular for MS liking :rolleyes:

MICROSOFT YOU ARE LAME. You put 3 crappy visual styles in XP, then make it stupidly hard for folks to create their own, then your software gets hacked so they can, and they do. You still ignore the obvious desire by your users to have more visual styles, so the skinning community flourishes using the DLL hack that you probably don't approve of. Now you are pounding on a very respected member of said community for bringing beauty and variety to your OS.

WAY TO GO. YOU SUCK. :x

CORPORATE IDIOTS.

This might be a sign that MS has finalized the official theme of Vista, and it's possible that it closely ressembles the beta theme that Kol based his VistaXP theme on.

And why didn't they warn him 5 months ago? Thats easy, the theme didn't have the round start button back then, at least not until the new Vista betas reviewed it. Plus, WB5 wasn't officially out until a few weeks ago, which is a big deal as only with WB5 that this theme can closely mimic the original Vista theme, especially the glowing buttons and glass look.

Kol did a great job in porting this theme over to WinXP, and with the help of WB5, it was possible. Keep up with the great themes Kol!

It *is* final, or nearly so, and the recent changes to the start menu, which KoL incorporated into the current Windowsblinds release, are not public knowledge. No problems until he made those changes, so it's pretty easy to see why they did what they did.

They are public knowledge, they demonstrated the new start button at PDC.

MS isn't thinking right. Because they did this, it will spread all the more faster and more people will use it, just illegally. They basically made it immortal now. Kol's skin, although amazing (using it right now) would eventually be replaced by something else, it happens all the time. People are tired of xp's theme and that's why they switch, they'll switch again. MS basically made it all the more popular :rofl:

MS isn't thinking right. Because they did this, it will spread all the more faster and more people will use it, just illegally. They basically made it immortal now. Kol's skin, although amazing (using it right now) would eventually be replaced by something else, it happens all the time. People are tired of xp's theme and that's why they switch, they'll switch again. MS basically made it all the more popular :rofl:

Yeah, no doubt that will happen

I also think MS has done a stupid thing on their part

PS: KoL, I'll admit that I never downloaded your theme, but if it was recongized by a company as large as MS, it must be pretty darn good. Remain strong and don't let the big boys get you down, ok? :D

Just what i wanted to say. Now, where can I find a copy of this :shifty:

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