Recommended Posts

CURRENT BUILD: 2.1.1

Hi guys,

I wont bore you with the same old content since it was deleted, so I'll just paste the readme in here :)

Watercolor Lite Visual Style v2.1 for Windows XP & Theme Files

Agreement:

THIS VISUAL STYLE, AND ALL ACCOMPANYING FILES, DATA AND MATERIALS,

ARE DISTRIBUTED "AS IS" AND WITH NO WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND,

WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED.

THIS DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY CONSTITUTES AN ESSENTIAL PART OF THE AGREEMENT.

INSTALLING THESE FILES IS YOUR CHOICE AND I WILL NOT BE HELD LIABLE FOR ANY

DAMAGES THAT MAY OCCUR IN ANY EVENT. PLEASE USE CAUTION WHILE USING THESE FILES.

Contents:

Watercolor Lite theme file ? Watercolor Lite.theme (5 colour variations)

Watercolor Lite MSstyles file & Matching shellstyle.dll's ? Watercolor Lite.msstyles (5 Substyles)? (Msstyles format copyright Microsoft Corp 2001.)

Watercolor Wallpaper - Watercolor.jpg? ? 2001 Microsoft Corp.

Recycle Bin icons - RecycleBinFull.ico, RecycleBinEmpty.ico ? 2001 Microsoft Corp.

Watercolor Visual Style Promo Pic - Watercolor Lite Promo.jpg

Watercolor Lite.ico

Startbutton.psd (for use in making your own personalized start button)

ReadMe.html

Installation:

All files will be installed into the default Resource Directory or %WINDIR%\Resources\Themes and folders within.

To Use:

Right click Desktop, select Properties. You may either select the Watercolor theme on the theme tab,

or Just apply the visual style by selecting the appearence tab, and selecting the Style "Watercolor" and any sub theme.

Have Fun and Enjoy!

ChangeLog: Watercolor Lite v2.1

- This version is built upon the Original Watercolor msstyle base.

- Many optimizations to create the fastest build of watercolor ever

- Small taskbar

- Text margins are now closer together to create a more compact feeling.

- A lot of work was done to make sure the vertical taskbar looks as good as and functions as good as the horizontal taskbar.

- New start button layout, It?s now a bmp in which the end user can change to whatever they please using reshack or style builder.

- New Substyles Added: Olive and Silver from Previous Watercolor builds, and a New substyle colour called ?Violet?.

- Shellstyles scrapped until further notice, the default ?classic? shellstyle?s ;)ok better anyways ;)

?

- Checkbox bitdepth bug fixed!

- A few other misc. bugs ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ??

- Added a taskbar button 'feature' (light highlight text)

Original Watercolor theme credits goto Microsoft for making & designing the Original theme (which was previewed in Whistler builds). Watercolor.msstyles and Watercolor.theme made By Chris O. aka Binary with help from StyleBuilder & TGTSoft LLC.

Brw2k1 and thuggers made most of the shellstyle.dll, Ergonomic colour idea by Dj_Night, and NETknightX fixed the tab bmp's (all from Neowin.n:D) so Major thanks goes out to them :D

And of course thanks goes out to all the people t:)t gave bug reports and suggestions :) (also mostly from Neowin.net msg board) And thanks for Hosting Watercolor goes to Alex Kelm, of AlexKelm.com

Email: kmkkid at hotmail.com

Please leave suggestions, positive feedback or bug reports

03/28/2003

Download Link:

Watercolor Lite v2.1.1

Mirror: Watercolor Lite v2.1.1

Link provided by xWeston, and mirror provided by m0, s:)much appreciation goes out to them :)

Enjoy! And as always, feel free to contact me about any leftover bugs or comments y:) may have (kmkkid at hotmail.com). :)

Chris

Edited by Binary
Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/65112-vs-watercolor-lite-v20/
Share on other sites

hey binary, do you still have those start buttons you posted before the board went down? :)

Updated first post with links :)

lilbluedawg, I'm working on them.

Chris

2 things:

Were there any changes in 2.0 outside of the new colors? Not that I've ever found any bugs, but if there were fixes I'll update otherwise ergonomic is all I need :)

Also, weren't there plans for a watercolor webpage with all of these resources? It would be nice to have a website bookmarked instead of a forum to always make sure I've got the latest version.

2 things:

Were there any changes in 2.0 outside of the new colors? Not that I've ever found any bugs, but if there were fixes I'll update otherwise ergonomic is all I need :)

Also, weren't there plans for a watercolor webpage with all of these resources? It would be nice to have a website bookmarked instead of a forum to always make sure I've got the latest version.

When I have time, perhaps I'll make a main page to my site. :) As for the differences, I dont think there are many, if any. Just the updated colour schemes.

Chris

have a timeframe for next release (hopefully including black substyle)? i'm just wondering. :)

Within a few weeks. I'm working on the theme on weekends only, so it's kinda hard to give an accurate date. Plus with all the flamming i got last time I didnt deliver on time... I think I've learned my lesson and dont make release date promises I cant keep :)

Chris

bug:

the console wont show up all the way when i use kerio's administration.

it's very weird. it shows up at the bottom kind of but i cant get into anything...

look......

Hmmm no idea, I dont use that program...

it's only with watercolor?

Chris

The scrollbars in the shell sytle need to be watercolored.  I'm sure you knew that though. >.<

there is no shellstyle....

that would be why they arnt skinned. If your using ergonomic, blue, gray or green; just drop the old shellstyles into the new theme.

Chris

The two bugs I noticed in Watercolor 1.0 are still present in this version. Specifically, there are no check marks in the Scanner and Camera Wizard. There should be a check in the box by each of the pictures in the screenshot below:

camerawizard.png

Secondly, the toolbar in XnView tends to "grow" whenever you mouse over a button while viewing a large picture. The button will hang down a few pixels below the toolbar on mouseover, like so:

overhang.png

The overhang is across the complete width of the button, like on the "forward" button in the above screenshot. The other buttons in the picture only have partial overhangs, because the overhang disappears after being covered by a tooltip.

The two bugs I noticed in Watercolor 1.0 are still present in this version.  Specifically, there are no check marks in the Scanner and Camera Wizard.  There should be a check in the box by each of the pictures in the screenshot below:

http://mywebpage.netscape.com/ErsatzHatrac...amerawizard.png

Secondly, the toolbar in XnView tends to "grow" whenever you mouse over a button while viewing a large picture.  The button will hang down a few pixels below the toolbar on mouseover, like so:

http://mywebpage.netscape.com/ErsatzHatrac...ck/overhang.png

The overhang is across the complete width of the button, like on the "forward" button in the above screenshot.  The other buttons in the picture only have partial overhangs, because the overhang disappears after being covered by a tooltip.

I havent found out the cause of the bit depth checkbox bug yet. Currently you must be running XP in 32 bit mode for them to work correctly.

As for the xnview bug, I use xnview and have never came across this, perhaps it's your video card.

Chris

The two bugs I noticed in Watercolor 1.0 are still present in this version.? Specifically, there are no check marks in the Scanner and Camera Wizard.? There should be a check in the box by each of the pictures in the screenshot below:

http://mywebpage.netscape.com/ErsatzHatrac...amerawizard.png

Secondly, the toolbar in XnView tends to "grow" whenever you mouse over a button while viewing a large picture.? The button will hang down a few pixels below the toolbar on mouseover, like so:

http://mywebpage.netscape.com/ErsatzHatrac...ck/overhang.png

The overhang is across the complete width of the button, like on the "forward" button in the above screenshot.? The other buttons in the picture only have partial overhangs, because the overhang disappears after being covered by a tooltip.

I havent found out the cause of the bit depth checkbox bug yet. Currently you must be running XP in 32 bit mode for them to work correctly.

As for the xnview bug, I use xnview and have never came across this, perhaps it's your video card.

Chris

Way to help 'em!

bug:

the console wont show up all the way when i use kerio's administration.

it's very weird.  it shows up at the bottom kind of but i cant get into anything...

look......

Hmmm no idea, I dont use that program...

it's only with watercolor?

Chris

yeah, only with wc

I havent found out the cause of the bit depth checkbox bug yet. Currently you must be running XP in 32 bit mode for them to work correctly.
Well, that explains that one. Thanks.
As for the xnview bug, I use xnview and have never came across this, perhaps it's your video card.

It might be. See if you can replicate it with the following procedure:

  • Set XnView for "Fit images to window, large"
  • Close the program
  • Make XnView your default viewer for jpeg
  • Open an image you know to be larger than your screen size by double clicking on the file name in Explorer

This is what does it for me. If I open XnView first, and then open the file from there, everything is fine. But opening large files from Explorer produces the bug.

The two bugs I noticed in Watercolor 1.0 are still present in this version.? Specifically, there are no check marks in the Scanner and Camera Wizard.? There should be a check in the box by each of the pictures in the screenshot below:

http://mywebpage.netscape.com/ErsatzHatrac...amerawizard.png

Secondly, the toolbar in XnView tends to "grow" whenever you mouse over a button while viewing a large picture.? The button will hang down a few pixels below the toolbar on mouseover, like so:

http://mywebpage.netscape.com/ErsatzHatrac...ck/overhang.png

The overhang is across the complete width of the button, like on the "forward" button in the above screenshot.? The other buttons in the picture only have partial overhangs, because the overhang disappears after being covered by a tooltip.

I havent found out the cause of the bit depth checkbox bug yet. Currently you must be running XP in 32 bit mode for them to work correctly.

As for the xnview bug, I use xnview and have never came across this, perhaps it's your video card.

Chris

Way to help 'em!

Sass?

Well, that explains that one.? Thanks.

It might be.? See if you can replicate it with the following procedure:

  • Set XnView for "Fit images to window, large"
  • Close the program
  • Make XnView your default viewer for jpeg
  • Open an image you know to be larger than your screen size by double clicking on the file name in Explorer

This is what does it for me.? If I open XnView first, and then open the file from there, everything is fine.? But opening large files from Explorer produces the bug.

hmmm I see. Well it's not a big concern, so it isnt a big prior:)y :) If it gets fixed in the future, then it will, but I'm not going to try and solve rogue bugs for individual programs when I'm already stressed for time. So:(y :(

*edit* heh, I fixed it in about 2 seconds;). ;) the fix will be in the next minor update which will probably be once I fix the checkbox bug.

Chris

Edited by Binary
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • The very fact that a TPM (v2.0 specifically which is part of the issue I suspect) is now a baseline for any supported Windows installation will naturally mean other vendors will start to leverage it as they know it'll be there. It's called progress, and it's always been the way. A TPM isn't a windows thing, it's just a module designed to securely store keys. Secure boot isn't a Windows thing (although MS are the TCA as I recall hence the upheaval this year as the 2011 certs expire), it's just a way to verify a bootloader is signed. Windows simply leverages them.
    • It's a local account with the ability to reset a password at a very base level. I really don't get the issue that gets whipped up around it But you do you
    • Save 74% on this Complete 2026 CompTIA Certification Training Bundle by Steven Parker Today on offer via our Online Courses section of the Neowin Deals store, you can save 74% on the Complete 2026 CompTIA Certification Training Bundle. This comprehensive 2026 CompTIA training bundle is created for aspiring IT professionals who want a faster, clearer way to earn multiple industry-recognized certifications while building practical, job-ready skills. Designed around real-world expectations, the curriculum guides you from foundational IT concepts to hands-on technical mastery across A+, Network+, Security+, Cloud+, Server+, and Pentest+ domains. You'll develop the confidence to troubleshoot systems, secure networks, manage cloud and on-prem environments, and tackle complex technical challenges with a methodical approach that employers value. By focusing on practical application and exam-aligned content, this bundle helps you stand out in the job market, prove your capabilities, and prepare for roles such as IT technician, network specialist, cybersecurity analyst, and system administrator with clarity and confidence. Certificate of Completion only. You will not receive official CompTIA certificates upon completion of each course. It's only designed to help you prepare for the covered certification exams. You need to take and pass the exams to get certified. Courses included in this bundle A Plus Certification - CompTIA A+ 220-1202 Training Master hardware, software, networking, and security essentials Covers the full Core 1 & Core 2 scope with inclusive materials that reflect real-world IT work CompTIA Cloud+ (CV0-004) Comprehensive pathway to mastering essential cloud concepts & acing the certification exam Practical skills in cloud architecture, security, and DevOps CompTIA Network+ (N10-009) Training Course Design, configure, manage & secure modern networks Covers OSI & DoD models, IP addressing, subnetting, routing technologies, VLANs, wireless networking, structured cabling, and robust disaster recovery planning CompTIA Server+ (SK0-005) Master server management, administration, and security Practical skills for server hardware installation, disaster recovery & enhancing data security CompTIA Pentest+ Course (PT0-003) Gain demonstrable capabilities in penetration testing, security testing & risk assessment Hands-on pentest labs online and real-world deliverables CompTIA Security+ Certification Course (SY0-071) Essential skills in security concepts, threats & risk management Compliance considerations & authentication mechanisms, with a practical lens to implement them in real-world networks CompTIA Cybersecurity Analyst CySA+ (CS0-004) Hands-on experience in threat modeling, vulnerability assessment & incident response Effective security measures that protect networks & data Tangible outcomes you'll achieve Validated hands-on skills across operating systems, networks, cloud, and security Confidence to pass multiple certification exams on or before your target dates A versatile toolkit for diagnosing, securing, and optimizing IT environments Ability to communicate technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders Who is this course for Aspiring IT technicians and support professionals who want a clear, practical pathway to multiple industry‑recognized CompTIA certifications IT learners looking to build real‑world skills in hardware, networking, cloud, security, servers, and penetration testing Those aiming to qualify for roles like help desk technician, junior network engineer, system administrator, security analyst, or cloud administrator by earning key certificates efficiently About Vision Training Systems Since 2012 and more than 100,000 students, Vision Training Systems has been delivering expertly crafted online IT training courses to help you earn industry-recognized certifications like CompTIA A+, Network+, Security+, Cisco CCNA, Project Management, CEH V13, Microsoft Azure, AWS, and more. Plus dive into the world of AI, IT Leadership, and core soft skills needed to excel in an IT Career. Whether you’re launching your IT career or looking to grow into a senior role, our flexible, on-demand platform empowers you with the skills and certifications employers demand. Good to know Length of access: lifetime Redemption deadline: redeem your code within 30 days of purchase Access options: desktop or mobile Maximum number of device(s): 1 Available to BOTH new and existing users Certificate of Completion ONLY Experience level required: all levels Closed captioning NOT available NOT downloadable for offline viewing Here's the deal The Complete 2026 CompTIA Certification Training Bundle normally costs $199, but you can pick it up for just $40, that's a saving of $159. For terms, specs and license info, click the link below. Deal Price $40.00 with code SAVE20 (was $199) Although priced in U.S. dollars, this deal is available for digital purchase worldwide. Support queries If you have queries or need support for any of the Neowin Deals, please use the contact form here. Neowin Deals are managed and sold by StackCommerce who represent Neowin on an affiliate basis. Why we post these deals We post these because we earn commission on each sale so as not to rely solely on advertising, which many of our readers block. It all helps toward paying staff reporters, servers and hosting costs. So for those that keep moaning and complaining, be thankful we're still online for you to even do that. Other ways to support Neowin Whitelist Neowin by not blocking our ads Create a free member account to see fewer ads Make a donation to support our day to day running costs Subscribe to Neowin - for $14 a year, or $28 a year for an ad-free experience Disclosure: Neowin benefits from revenue of each sale made through our branded deals site powered by StackCommerce.
    • AMD RX 9070 GRE AI, Blender benchmarks vs 9070 XT, 7800XT, Nvidia RTX 5070, 4070 by Sayan Sen Earlier this week, we shared the first part of our review of AMD's new RX 9070 GRE. It was about the gaming performance of the GPU, and we gave it an 8 out of 10. As a follow-up, similar to how we did with the 9070 XT and non-XT, we are doing a dedicated productivity review for the RX 9070 GRE as well, where we compare it against the 9070 XT, 9070, 7800 XT, as well as Nvidia's 5070 and 4070. This will include AI, rendering, compute, and more benchmarks. AI performance, especially, is a very important metric in today's world, and AMD also promised big improvements thanks to its underlying architectural improvements. We will be pitching it against the data we already have for the RX 9070, and RX 9070 XT, but also the Nvidia 5070 FE, MSI GeForce RTX 4070 VENTUS 2X 12G, and Gigabyte Radeon RX 7800 XT GAMING OC 16G as they are in a similar price class, but also because we do not have a comparable 5060 Ti card lying around here that we can compare it against. Before we get underway, this is a collaboration between Sayan Sen and Steven Parker, who lent me his test bed. Also, there was no editorial input from AMD. First up, the specs of the RX 9070, 9070 XT, and 9070 GRE, which were given to us by AMD: Radeon RX 9070 GRE Radeon RX 9070 Radeon RX 9070 XT Boost Clock: Game Clock: up to 2.79GHz up to 2.20GHz up to 2.52GHz up to 2.07GHz up to 2.97GHz up to 2.40GHz Stream Processors 3,072 (48 CU) 3,584 (56 CU) 4,096 (64 CU) Ray Accelerator 48 56 64 AI Accelerator 96 112 128 ROPs 96 128 Texture Mapping Units 192 224 256 Memory 12 GB GDDR6, 18Gbps Clock, 192-bit Bus 432 GB/s 16 GB GDDR6, 20Gbps Clock, 256-bit Bus Effective Memory Bandwidth: 640 GB/s Infinity Cache 48 MB (3rd Gen) 64 MB (3rd Gen) Card Bus PCI-E 5.0 X16 Output 2x HDMI 2.1b 2x DisplayPort 2.1a Power consumption 220W 304W Recommended PSU 650W 750W Slot width 2x 3x Price (SEP) $549 $599 As you can see from the specs above, it is less than the standard RX 9070 in every way that counts, except for slightly higher Boost and Game clock speed. Design Moving on, the RX 9070 GRE we were given is an XFX Swift triple-fan, dual-slot design with two 8-pin connectors. At 30cm (self-measured), it will fit in most systems easily. There is no RGB either. The AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE by XFX from all angles. Test system Our test system consists of the following: Lian Li O11 Dynamic Mini V2 Flow (Amazon|Newegg) ASUS Z890 ProArt Creator WiFi (Amazon|Newegg) Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus (Amazon|Newegg) Thermal Grizzly KryoSheet - 44x37 (Amazon|Newegg) 2x 16GB G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB (7200 MT/s in XMP) (Amazon|Newegg) Sabrent Rocket4 Plus 2TB SSD (Amazon) Windows 11 25H2 (Build 26200.8246) AMD shared a press driver based on the recently released Adrenaline 26.5.2 that we were required to use. We now move on to our benchmarks. First up, we have Geekbench AI running on ONNX. For some reason, the 9070 GRE does exceptionally well here in both half-precision (FP16) and single-precision (FP32). It manages to beat the RTX 5070 and RX 9070 non-XT, and is only behind the 9070 XT. Since Geekbench runs in short bursts instead of continuously hammering the graphics card, it seems the GRE's faster boost clocks are helping here. Next up, we move to the UL Procyon AI test suite, starting with the image generation benchmark. We chose the Stable Diffusion XL FP16 test since it is the most intense workload available on Procyon. The Nvidia cards do very well here, as even the 4070 out-muscles AMD's best fairy easily. The positive thing about the GRE is that it gets quite close to the 9070 non-XT in this test; this indicates that the VRAM does not play a very big role here, as SD XL relies on float16 (FP16). So this is something to keep in mind again. If you wish to work with float32 AI workloads, graphics cards with larger than 12 GB buffers would likely emerge as victors. Regardless, the gains are still massive on AMD's 9000 series compared to the 7000 series. Following image generation, we move to the text generation benchmark. This is one test where the 9070 GRE struggled, quite a lot. It seems that the 12 GB VRAM and lower memory bandwidth of the new Radeon 9070 GRE are hurting it quite a bit; the split is massive, especially in a test like Llama2, which packs 13 billion parameters. As such, in all the tests, the 9070 GRE is the slowest of the lot. Next, we tried Blender, and here the AMD GPUs were beaten by Nvidia. Rendering is something the Green team has always had a lead over the Red side, and it has not changed so far. On the positive side, though, the 9070 GRE shows significantly better results than the 7800 XT, which means AMD is on the right path. Catching up to Nvidia, though, will require a lot more effort. And we hope HIP and ROCm can keep improving. Wrapping up AI testing, we measured OpenCL throughput in the Geekbench compute benchmark. The RX 9070 GRE alongside the 9070 did not fare well here at all, even falling behind the 7800 XT. Interestingly, even the RTX 5070 could not beat the 4070 on OpenCL, so perhaps this suggests that OpenCL optimization may not have been a priority for either AMD or Nvidia in the modern era. Conclusion We reached the end of our productivity performance review of the 9070 GRE, and we have to say it's a mixed bag. Unlike the 9070 and 9070 XT, the GRE excels in some areas while losing ground fairly easily in others. Similar to how it happened in gaming, any time the card's memory subsystem gets hammered, it tends to fall behind the others. This was the case with text generation, wherein we saw the VRAM sometimes hit its maximum available 12 GB of usage with larger model sizes. So what do we make of the RX 9070 as a productivity hardware? It can certainly be used, but you have to know it has its limitations. For those looking for a GPU that can deal with more, AMD recently unveiled the Radeon AI PRO R9700, which is essentially a 32 GB refresh of the 9070 XT with some additional workstation-based optimizations. On a similar note, the new Ryzen AI Halo platform is something you can consider if you want to set up a local AI processing station. Considering everything, we rate AMD's Radeon RX 9070 GRE a 7.5 out of 10 for its productivity performance. Price is less of a factor for those looking at productivity cases compared to those considering the GPU for gaming, and as such, we felt it did quite decently on many occasions and can be handy if you need a 12 GB GPU and, for some reason, don't want to get Nvidia. Purchase links: RX 9070 / XT / GRE (Amazon US) As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Proficient
      Eric Biran went up a rank
      Proficient
    • Dedicated
      Conjor earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • Week One Done
      Windows Guy earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Dedicated
      Mark Spruce earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • Collaborator
      conkir earned a badge
      Collaborator
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      479
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      244
    3. 3
      Steven P.
      72
    4. 4
      +Edouard
      66
    5. 5
      Skyfrog
      65
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!