WindowBlinds 6 Beta 2 arrives

Almost...there...

Wednesday, September 19, 2007 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize News

If you have Object Desktop you can now download WindowBlinds 6 beta 2.  For the uninitiated: WindowBlinds is a program that allows users to easily and safely change the look and feel of the Windows user interface (title bars, start bar, star menu, scrollbars, push buttons, etc.).  Object Desktop is a suite of programs that allow users to personalize their entire Windows experience.

Now, WindowBlinds 6 is the next-generation version of WindowBlinds.  Amongst its cool new features is the ability to do full blurred glass even on Windows XP. Full support of skinning every piece of Windows Vista. Advanced animation and advanced colorization, user sub-styles and well just tons of other features both big and small.

Beta 2 is a huge overhaul to the underlying structure of WindowBlinds.  For years, the skins you download for WindowBlinds have gone into the WindowBlinds directory. But with Windows Vista, Microsoft really frowns on programs putting data in the program files directory.  So beta 2 migrates all the skins to the shared documents folder.

Those of you who are technical can probably appreciate the immense amount of effort involved in smoothly migrating what can amount to gigs of skins from one place to another without disrupting the user experience in the process. 

Below are some screenshot highlights:


Taken on my Windows XP box. Check out the blur effect in the title bar. You can blur existing skins even.


This is the quick way of being able to Vista-ize your existing skins. There's literally an option to vista-ize skins (even in Windows XP).


The advanced coloring support is extremely cool. Now you can specific which colors you want to affect. It takes a little practice but it's worth it. Now you can hue shift parts of your skin.  So even if a skin author makes a skin a different color than you desire, no problem, you can easily change it.


The dragon on the start menu is a smooth, >30fps animation with fire effects.  It does this on Windows XP and Windows Vista.  Again, technical users out there can tell you - non-trivial to get this kind of performance.

WindowBlinds 6 not only has these cool features but it does it using trivial amounts of memory and is FASTER than Windows XP or Windows Vista are normally.  We include the Diamond skin. Feel free to dual boot to a Windows XP box, load up Diamond with full blur on and check out the performance. Then boot to Windows Vista and run the default Aero. Which is faster?  WindowBlinds 6 makes full use of the DWM on Windows Vista to maximize performance/lower memory requirements. 

If you have Object Desktop, check it out for yourself, let us know what you think.  We release on October 2nd!

 

 

77 Reply 119 Referrals
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WeatherBound
Reply #21 Wednesday, September 19, 2007 11:50 PM
I have 2.47.481 build 159. I can't get mine to update. Mine says -Downloading WB6.sdc- and below that says 100% Complete. I let it set like that for about 30 minutes just to make sure I wasn't getting ahead of it, and still sitting there doing nothing. Any ideas?


I canceled the install and then unchecked the auto archives. then reinstalled update. It worked

Lotherius
Reply #22 Wednesday, September 19, 2007 11:50 PM
Auto-Archive is borked, goes into an endless loop.

Worried that if I cancel, I'll lose my skin collection (since it is supposed to be moving them at some point during this process)...

Lotherius
Reply #23 Thursday, September 20, 2007 12:04 AM
After installing, I tried one of the new skins that shows up - Molten - and although I liked it, it crashes uTorrent anytime I try to display the window.... haven't ever had this problem with any other skin.

RadialFX
Reply #24 Thursday, September 20, 2007 12:07 AM
Ok, I uninstalled the previous Beta - Rebooted - Installed the new one and.....WALLA!!..Everyone is happy, working and LOOKING GOOOOOOOOD!!! Thanks for all the help! Rad

Philly0381
Reply #25 Thursday, September 20, 2007 12:13 AM
Been playing with the new beta, appears to work just fine. Thanks to everyone.   

LAURENCE JOHANSEN
Reply #26 Thursday, September 20, 2007 12:45 AM
I really like the direction Windowsblinds is going. One request, though: Would it be possible to allow an advanced option where the end user can specify the directory where the skin files are stored, with Shared Documents as the default? Thanks!   


Larry

Einstein
Reply #27 Thursday, September 20, 2007 1:03 AM
Um - the only one that shows up for me is WB6 5.91[b].038 - I am using SDC v 2.47.481 build 159 - I even tried uninstalling the previous beta - no dice.

Any suggestions?

BeLGaRaTh67
Reply #28 Thursday, September 20, 2007 1:03 AM
After installation of this I cannot apply any skins as there arent any listed, and the WB UI is entirely black. I uninstalled WB, rebooted, reinstalled and rebooted again same thing. After that I uninstalled again, rebooted and then deleted c:\Users\Public\Documents\Stardock\Windowblinds and also C:\Program Files\Object Desktop\Windowblinds. Installed again and rebooted, guess what exactly the same again, there are no skins listed and the UI is black. What can I do. I dont want to contact support, as I am still waiting someone to even acknowledge another problem from 3 weeks ago, and another problem from 8weeks ago. No-one ever bothers their backside to reply from support.

dwax
Reply #29 Thursday, September 20, 2007 2:00 AM
Buggy! To many continues loops! will just keep downloading and not install. Its tried 5 times to download,until I stopped it please fix the bug!

I.R. Brainiac
Reply #30 Thursday, September 20, 2007 2:14 AM
I was stuck in a loop too til I cancelled and unchecked auto archive.File move went fine...no lost skins.  

vStyler
Reply #31 Thursday, September 20, 2007 2:17 AM
JUST in case... back up ur skins..its very easy to throw em all in a folder on your desktop  

Aleatoric
Reply #32 Thursday, September 20, 2007 2:26 AM
Worked right off the bat for me, moved the skins and all

Seems like it's working quite nicely.

My only question is are we going to get our command prompt skinning back soon? It's something I use quite frequently, and it's pretty ugly right now (if nothing else, let it stay Aero when excluded, right now, even excluded, it still uses the old classic style window frame).

scorpNZ
Reply #33 Thursday, September 20, 2007 2:40 AM
I second post # 26 ,i also would like to see an option to add roll up button on all blinds through windowblinds interface since the nvidia card software i use can't do it while wb is in use & not having a roll up option is real hard after using it..lol..

EDIT: Unless someone knows of a software or a registry change that can work to give the roll up option without stuffing up wb

I.R. Brainiac
Reply #34 Thursday, September 20, 2007 2:50 AM
right clicking the titlebar can be set to rollup all windows...its in WB config in settings.(at least on xp it does)

Trans and blurring is a bit iffy.(taskbar didnt blur at all)



Color sliders work very well,tho I did see some corrupted submenus.

martin10018
Reply #35 Thursday, September 20, 2007 4:25 AM
Has the "new" Classic skin been fixed? Or is the "All programs" entry in the startmenu still broken on non-English XP systems? Otherwise I won't bother to install SDC again.

WebGizmos
Reply #36 Thursday, September 20, 2007 4:29 AM
Do we now have to keep our skins in this other Shared files directory? I would much prefer if they stayed right where they have been all along rather than spreading this stuff out.

Oh man...not a happy camper now! Finally got this thing to install and got a black UI...and not at all thrilled with having my skins migrated to some other folder now. How can I go back to the previous beta? Tried doing that but is just sits there doing nothing.

Ok....got my previous build back...sticking with this one until we have the option of where to keep our skins....this migration thing was a bad idea.

starkers
Reply #37 Thursday, September 20, 2007 5:20 AM
Instead of skins being stored in the shared documents folder, I would prefer to store them on another drive and be able to browse to the directory via WB....would this be possible, and if now now, sometime in the future??

In fact, it's on my wish list for Logonstudio Vista, ObjectDock, IconPackager and other proggies.....pretty, pretty PLEEEASE.

buzzh58
Reply #38 Thursday, September 20, 2007 6:26 AM
I've noticed that with WB6 there is no longer an option to "make toolbar buttons flat". I'm not a fan of having squares around the toolbar icons, was this an oversight or just no longer an option for some reason?

ArileenDesign
Reply #39 Thursday, September 20, 2007 6:47 AM
Awesome Job Stardock

In fact, it's on my wish list for Logonstudio Vista, ObjectDock, IconPackager and other proggies.....pretty, pretty PLEEEASE.


Hum... yeah like the heaven

Neil Banfield
Reply #40 Thursday, September 20, 2007 7:06 AM

The location where WB looks for skins is set by two registry keys.  They must be set to the same directory.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Stardock\WindowBlinds\wb5.ini\Installed\Path

and

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Stardock\WindowBlinds\wb5.ini\Installed\Path

If you want to put your skins elsewhere then you can change those keys and copy ALL of the directories off the current WB skin directory to that directory.


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