Search
Forum Home | Login
Frogboy
Frogboy
Join Date 03/2001
+2422 sdemperor

WindowBlinds 5.01 released

News from Stardock's OTHER side..

External Link
March 21, 2006 8:32:10 PM from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums

What's Stardock's secret for being able to develop and publish its own games? The answer: Object Desktop, the world's most popular, award-winning desktop enhancement suite. And the flag-ship program of that suite is called WindowBlinds.

A new version of it went up today. Odds are, you already have a piece of WindowBlinds on your computer in some form or other. ATI uses it for skinning their Catalyst Control Center. nVidia includes a lite version with many of their cards. Blizzard used it to create the WoW Desktop. The Xbox 360 desktop uses it as well. And if you go to the hospital for an X-ray, if they're using a recent GE Medical X-ray machine, odds are it's using it as well.

WindowBlinds works by changing your Windows GUI system-wise -- title bars, borders, push buttons, Start bar, radio buttons, everything. Version 5 introduced the ability to make use of ATI and nVidia's DirectX acceleration so that in most cases, WindowBlinds is actually making Windows run faster even as it makes it look cooler.

Here are some screenshots:

  

It's home page is www.windowblinds.net. Have fun!

 

Locked Post
Search this post
Advanced Search
Subscription Options
Reason for Karma (Optional)
Successfully updated karma reason!
Frogboy
apoc527
Join Date 03/2003
+2
Reply #1 March 21, 2006 9:25:27 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Damn, that's gotta be some nice license fees...
Reason for Karma (Optional)
Successfully updated karma reason!
Frogboy
Ankiseth
Join Date 03/2006
0
Reply #2 March 21, 2006 9:33:28 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Does that vista theme come with the program? Because that is nice
Reason for Karma (Optional)
Successfully updated karma reason!
Frogboy
scrotty
Join Date 02/2006
0
Reply #3 March 21, 2006 9:35:56 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Brad,

Before I plunk down money for WindowBlinds or ObjectDesktop, what's the upgrade path looking like for Vista? Latest reports show that Vista won't be out for consumers until early 2007, but I'd like to know that WindowBlinds will still be relevant at that point in time.

Thanks!
Reason for Karma (Optional)
Successfully updated karma reason!
Frogboy
SEB9
Join Date 12/2002
+4
Reply #4 March 21, 2006 9:41:20 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Well thats good to hear re the speed increase cause thats why I stopped using it originally casue it was a resource hog that slowed my previous PC down to the point of being annoying.

Also on my mind, like others it appears, is compatibilty with Vista...and will it add anything or does Vista negate the benefits of ObjectDesktop...
Reason for Karma (Optional)
Successfully updated karma reason!
Frogboy
dctrjons
Join Date 02/2006
+2
Reply #5 March 21, 2006 9:43:48 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
The secret is out. GCII art was done on MSpaint.
Reason for Karma (Optional)
Successfully updated karma reason!
Frogboy
rory02
Join Date 03/2006
0
Reply #6 March 21, 2006 10:01:11 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
personally I'm going to avoid vista, for a while... between it being new and being loaded with aggressive drm, not the best idea
Reason for Karma (Optional)
Successfully updated karma reason!
Frogboy
JavaScout
Join Date 12/2001
0
Reply #7 March 21, 2006 10:06:26 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
I will do an extra plug. If you are interested in what is available look at wincustomize.com
I have been using windows blinds for years and the last time it caused performance problems for me was on windows 3.1

Don't worry about Vista it looks like the date has slipped again so a retail version is still a year away.




Reason for Karma (Optional)
Successfully updated karma reason!
Frogboy
CerebroJD
Join Date 01/2003
+9
Reply #8 March 21, 2006 10:15:41 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
WindowBlinds will (and currently is) supported by Vista. (or rather, Windowblinds supports that OS) There is nothing to indicate that Vista will be able to use the extensive visual styles that currently exist for WindowBlinds, so there will surely be benefits to using WindowBlinds with Vista.
Reason for Karma (Optional)
Successfully updated karma reason!
Frogboy
Frogboy
Join Date 03/2001
+2422 sdemperor
Reply #9 March 21, 2006 11:56:23 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums

If anything, Windows Vista will increase the need for Object Desktop.  Windows Vista has a new 3D based graphics engine. So WindowBlinds will be the only way available at all to change the way it looks.

Windows Vista "glass" looks cool -- at first.  Play with it a few weeks and you may find yourself wanting to try other looks that take advantage of the new effects.

As for the rest of Object Desktop, there's nothing new in Vista that affects those programs and we have some new things in development specifically for Windows Vista.

Reason for Karma (Optional)
Successfully updated karma reason!
Frogboy
Jurfop
Join Date 03/2003
0
Reply #10 March 22, 2006 12:06:44 AM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
I would wait to upgrade to vista
So far the only reason I can think of to upgrade is:
Halo 2 when it comes to PC will REQUIRE vista and will NOT run on XP
(I dont have any plans to play halo 2 on PC, its been on xbox for a long time now, but if this is important to you, its a reason to upgrade)

Reasons to wait on upgrading (at least for a little while):
No new file system in Vista
Extreme DRM, things such as requireing a new LCD monitor with HDMI/HDCP/DVI support to watch retail HD content in HD res (like blu-ray movies or HD DVD movies, and perhaps others).
Higher requirements which means more OS overhead.
IE7 wont be exclusive, so you can stick with XP and still get IE7.

No longer will your power button on your desktop computer turn off your computer. It now defaults to standby, say hi to a slight increase in power costs and other issues (the national power usage is going to spike up).

Similarly with laptops, your power button will no longer hibernate, it will standby. Dont expect anymore to "turn off" a laptop and come back to it next day in full battery. And you better hope its not a p4 laptop that will be staying on after you pack it into a laptop bag, some of those get so hot they melt if they are on when you pack it away. Sure standby should reduce its heat and power, but its still going to use some.


And there's the usual issues of a new OS, best to wait until at least SP1 with a lot of MS stuff

Just my 2 cents
Reason for Karma (Optional)
Successfully updated karma reason!
Frogboy
Taverius
Join Date 10/2003
+4
Reply #11 March 22, 2006 12:13:41 AM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Well, ive stopped using it since i run a hyper-minimalist blackbox for windows setup, but i loved it while i was into the whole purdyness thing...

And wow, didnt know you had customers that big, well done lads & lasses!
Reason for Karma (Optional)
Successfully updated karma reason!
Frogboy
ttague77
Join Date 02/2002
0
Reply #12 March 22, 2006 12:30:47 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Could you hot-seat multiplayer?
Reason for Karma (Optional)
Successfully updated karma reason!
Frogboy
Shalkto
Join Date 12/2005
+2
Reply #13 March 22, 2006 1:06:13 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Looks around.

Ttague77. Hotseat multiplayer? is that what you call a laptop that melts?
Reason for Karma (Optional)
Successfully updated karma reason!
Frogboy
Alfonse
Join Date 02/2006
+12
Reply #14 March 22, 2006 3:02:25 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
IE7 wont be exclusive, so you can stick with XP and still get IE7.


Last I checked, FireFox worked on both. As long as FireFox exists, I don't care what version of Internet Explorer works on what version of Windows.
Reason for Karma (Optional)
Successfully updated karma reason!
Frogboy
Jurfop
Join Date 03/2003
0
Reply #15 March 22, 2006 9:52:32 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Could you hot-seat multiplayer?

Yes after a fashion, it involves using a cheat code to let you play an AI char, I dont know details but its been mentioned elsewhere.
Reason for Karma (Optional)
Successfully updated karma reason!
Frogboy
copernican
Join Date 03/2006
0
Reply #16 March 22, 2006 11:39:15 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Seriously, Window Blinds?
Reason for Karma (Optional)
Successfully updated karma reason!
Frogboy
Franco fx
Join Date 04/2003
+59 moderator
Reply #17 March 22, 2006 11:52:29 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
I am a subscriber to Object Desktop. I really like window blinds and and I love to play around with Icons.

There is a lot more interesting stuff in the package but some of it takes a lot of resources and while I might enjoy playing around with it, Windowblinds is the only thing I keep resident.
Reason for Karma (Optional)
Successfully updated karma reason!
Frogboy
Campaigner
Join Date 12/2004
+15
Reply #18 March 23, 2006 3:21:03 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Here I thought that StarDock was just another independent small developer that happened to create a smash hit when in reality they make programs for ATI(!), Nvidia(!) and the XboX 360!

How's that possible?? I mean, isn't there other, better skinning programs..? StyleXP comes to mind.
Well, this was certainly an eye-opener

I just installed the WoW desktop (before I knew that StarDock had anything to do with it) and saw "StarDock" in the "about" section. I was like. "WTF are they doing in a blizzard thing??"
Reason for Karma (Optional)
Successfully updated karma reason!
Frogboy
Frogboy
Join Date 03/2001
+2422 sdemperor
Reply #19 March 23, 2006 9:31:18 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums

How's that possible?? I mean, isn't there other, better skinning programs..? StyleXP comes to mind.

Style XP isn't a skinning program. It's a utility that patches a system DLL in memory so you can apply third party msstyles.  And msstyles don't have remotely the features of WindowBlinds. They basically just change the various graphics ala res-hack.

But yea, Stardock's main business is actually the utility software.

Check out ObjectDock for instance (it's free).

Reason for Karma (Optional)
Successfully updated karma reason!
Frogboy
Quitch
Join Date 03/2006
0
Reply #20 March 25, 2006 12:54:49 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
That "smash hit" GalCiv2's interface was created using, as I recall, DesktopX... but don't hold that against DesktopX

j/k

Great program, shame the skin sites for it are all seriously lacking in the ability to actually find skins. They're missing filters you'd want, or don't display enough skins to page... haven't found one yet that doesn't annoy me. Bought the program though
Reason for Karma (Optional)
Successfully updated karma reason!
View all recent posts
Mark all posts as read Delete cookies created by the forum Return to Top
Stardock Forums v        Server Load Time:   Page Render Time:
About us | Contacts | Privacy Statement | Register
©1995-2026 Stardock Entertainment. Galactic Civilizations is a registered trademark of Stardock Entertainment. Steam and the Steam logo are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Valve Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. Bank Gothic is a trademark of MyFonts and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All rights reserved.