Windows Blinds

I would like to get some comments about the Windows Blinds program that i have just downloaded and tried. Positve and Negative will be welcome.

I did try it once but it "sort of" messed up the appearance so I had to use sys restore to get back. But it seems like a good program.

Hope a number of members here have tried it. Thanks.

 

Hi bounty69sx,
I tried and bought Windows Blinds some time ago. I liked the skins you could use to make your desktop change appearance. With some of my programs it didn't quite work well.
For example: Paint Shop Pro would freeze, if I used the function to skin it.
You can however set skinning per application, so for PSP it wasn't activated.
I know several people reported problems with WB. The most important info I've read was the application was unstable and creating conflicts with other apps.
At present I don't use any skinning app, just to avoid making my system unstable again.
IMO Don't use it, don't buy it.

 

bounty69sx

There is an application called TrueLaunch Bar which has a few features similar to Windows Blinds. You may like to try it out. It definitely does not corrupt any computer or its settings and is quite functional. Visit their website here and let us know what you think. You may also wish to visit the Maxthon website as their browser is the most configureable and has the most bells and whistles of any and even though it uses IE's engine it is a little more security conscious.

Be seeing you.

 

I've used WindowBlinds for a few years now and highly value it. There are some "problem" applications (especially those that have their own skinning facility) but I've not had any crashes for the last couple of years that I could link to WindowBlinds. There are many skins for it that also add extra window control features (like forcing a window to stay on top, or rolling up a window so its titlebar only is visible - a handy alternative to minimising it).

The only downside I've noticed is the amount of time you spend looking for new themes from sites like www.wincustomize.com. If you are running a Win9x/ME system and have limited resources (GDI/User/System) then adding WindowBlinds may cause problems but otherwise I can see little reason to avoid it.

 

I used the windowblinds partonly very briefly. (4-5 months) without a doubt I created a very beautiful XP interface. When people saw my computer there was no denying that it made theirs look like windows 3.0 in comparison...only problem was that customizing it how i wanted it took way way too much time. It was not as hard on resources as i would have predicted, but it was much too involved for me to go that route again. the module i like best was the one that let you substitue really cool icons for the default xp icons that normally one cannot change. can't remember which module that was but it let you swap matched sets of icons for the default ones, and in many cases you could make your own set by substituting icons for ones in the set (of up to 75 system icons) but using the original names. It was fun. pointless, but fun!

-HandsOff

 

That would be IconPackager - there are some wonderful icon sets available for it...but for something even more pointless/fun (and more demanding on system resources) check out WindowFX. And one utility I have difficult doing without nowadays, CursorXP (now this thread is starting to become a Stardock commercial... ).

 

The latest version of WindowBlinds has hardware accelleration, so it's a lot better on resources (faster than native xp themes.) I bought it not too long ago and have been pretty happy with it, I actually switched from StyleXP. The only downside I've found is that I have to set a small handful of exclusions, otherwise things get buggy. I mainy set it to not skin anything that skins itself, big programs like Photoshop and Dreamweaver (I don't necessarily want those skinned anyway), and any application that uses a driver (I had problems with it trying to skin NOD32, when I excluded that and all the other low level stuff the problems ended) Now when I reformat I go through and exclude a bunch of programs and change a couple of settings and I don't usually have to think about it much until the next reinstall. There was supposed to be a new version out at the end of August that promises to be a lot faster, and I'm sure slightly less buggy.

So if you don't mind going through your settings and figuring out how to play nicely on your system, it might be worth it. If not, you might check out StyleXP (http://www.tgtsoft.com) , which uses XP's native style support.. just be careful with anything you download from their main theme site.

 

i just downloaded something called aquadock, its a toolbar which when you run your mouse over the icons they get bigger, and you choose the icon you want to run. also i did use ms.styles to chance my themes, however it was on the list of things which had trouble working with sp2 so so far i havent used it with SP2. its free and you need to download UXTheme Multi-Patcher v2.0 for it to work.
you can see one of the themes at the link(post no.23) https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=42777

 

this is what happens when you run your mouse over the icons, my mouse is there but didnt show-up in the screenshot. you can add icons to the list, but because it's new to me i havent done/worked it out yet

 

Thnx for the replies. I have the winblinds up and running. And I checked out the comments on stylexp on cnet and they mention of spywares and trojans bundled with it. Any truth to this

And another thing. This site referred to me from cnet help site: themexp.org notes that their themes are wrapped with ads to save on cost. I am thinking on the line of spywares. Is that possible

I think I will stick with blinds for now. I only had one incident when i tried the batman theme. Now i have the spidy theme and it seems ok for now.

 

StyleXP itself is clean (been using it for several years). However, most themes from ThemeXP are wrapped with adware: Information About File Wrapping.

Nick

 

You can get themes from other places than ThemeXP.org, but it has the biggest collection. The adware that's wrapped w/ the themes (savenow, etc) are optional, so you can stop them from installing. A little care can save you from that. If you've already got WindowBlinds, however, it may not be worth it.

 

My past experience with such "file wrappers" has been that they can include elements that are not optional. One Windows screen theme I downloaded used Lycos' FileSubmit wrapper - it gave a choice for SaveNow but then tried to install BonziBuddy, iGetNet and Lycos SideSearch without requesting permission! (I was able to catch and prevent this with SSM).

Use caution (and a system restore point and registry/file monitor) with such downloads. However, as Notok as said, there's little point in StyleXP if you have WindowBlinds.

 

It's been a while since I downloaded from there (like I say, I'm a convert), it's too bad it's come to that. All I can say is to go elsewhere for themes to anyone that decides to use/keep it, http://www.belchfire.net and http://www.deviantart.com are good places (last I knew, anyway, geez)

The affiliation is just about enough for me to never look back.. but then after having the hardware accelleration I can't say I would anyway.

 

just downloaded another of these toolbar dock things. i cant remember where i got it from, if you like it, i'll find it for you (it's one of about 10 sites, just dont know which one )you can add what you like to the bar by dragging it there.

 

here it is with the mouse over it (my screencapturer doesnt see the mouse, but its there)

 

you can use this program to change your icons, once you have some to change too. its free, i'm not so into icon changing, so there maybe something better, but it worked fine when i tried it
http://www.cursorarts.com/ca_aifw.html

 

this is where i got the toolbar from, its called- Y'z Dock and its the last thing on the page. theres afew other good things on the page. its all free
http://decentdownloads.x-istence.com/Appearance/Appearance.html

 

http://www.3dna.net/downloads/index.htm blaze beats you all

 

Wow Mr. Blaze,

That is really cool!

 

hell yeah thers tons of worlds mine is the villie its awsome the cool thing is when you look at the painting and doble click on it it opens your picture folder

 

I just use the windows XP default theme. Looks satisfying enough to my eyes.

 

Stardock offer a similar freebie ObjectDock. There's also a bells-and-whistles version (ObjectDock Plus) but that has to be paid for.

 

thanks, paranoid maybe i'll check it out. however, i didnt ever go looking for them, i just happened to come across them, but i do like them

 

Iceni60-

Just a comment, If you use Snag-It for screen capture you have the option of having your cursor included in the capture or not. Its good to know because you can use the cursor as a pointer if you want to call attention to something in screenshot.

- HandsOff