WindowBlinds 4 release date set to March 25th

Published on March 12, 2003 By Stardock Central In WinCustomize News

Stardock has set the release date for WindowBlinds version 4. Tuesday, March 25th. WindowBlinds 4 will initially only be available for Windows XP. Version 4 for Windows 98, ME, and 2000 users is expected out not too long after.

The main new features of WindowBlinds 4 include:
1) Vastly increased performance. WB 4 makes heavy use of new internal Windows XP technologies that allow much faster GUI drawing. One particular new technology is called "Smart Painting" which greatly decreases the number of excess redraws programs perform. The result is that on some skins, WindowBlinds 4 will seem about as fast as "classic" Windows.

2) Full skinning of virtually every part of the Windows XP GUI. WindowBlinds 3 skins most elements of the Windows GUI, version 4, skins essentially all of them. This includes "shell styles" (the task panel on the left of explorer folders).

3) Skinning of new elements of the Windows GUI such as the logon/logoff dialogs, the "please wait dialogs", Control panel backgrounds, and more.

4) Command prompt skinning. If you want Windows XP to really be truly "native", WindowBlinds 4 is the first and only way to skin the Windows command prompt.

5) A new, easier to use, and more functional config dialog. WindowBlinds will continue to allow users to change their settings via the Windows display properties. But power users will now be able to make use of a new, greatly enhanced config dialog.

6) A rewrite of the underlying skinning engine for vastly greater compatibility. Even non-standard programs that add their own buttons to the title bar will work fine.

7) Tons of other tweaks and enhancements.

WindowBlinds 4 beta is currently available on Object Desktop. You can learn more about Object Desktop at www.objectdesktop.com. It is a suite of desktop enhancements that allows users to turbo-charge their Windows systems.

Comments (Page 2)

Frogboy

on Mar 12, 2003

Object Desktop subscriptions last for a year.

WindowBlinds stand alone is from major version to major version.

JamMeister33

on Mar 12, 2003

I'll believe it when I see it....

RoodVargas

on Mar 13, 2003

so i see that a fee will be charge to upgare to wb4. I wouldn't pay any more than what i've paid in the past.

Chuckf1

on Mar 13, 2003

Any idea as to what the fee will be (no rhyming sentence intended)

GreenReaper

on Mar 13, 2003

Historically upgrading from one version to another has been $10.

mr.bo

on Mar 13, 2003

ok, is it just me? I installed the WindowBlinds 3.96 with component manager on my machine (which is running WinXP), and it was horrible. Buttons were all corrupt, and it crashed ObjectBar right off the bat. I also noticed that the general prefernce tab in the new interface doesn't have an apply button (for when I tried to enable explorer backgrounds.) I love OD(2 years), and WindowBlinds(3 years), but this looks like it should still be an alpha build to me.

Pak-Dawg

on Mar 14, 2003

Reiterating and refining Jark's concern regarding Windows 2000 support (and other versions of Windows, I suppose): The wording of the feature descriptions (item #1) seems to imply that "Smart Painting" is a feature exclusive to Windows XP. Is this true? If so, isn't the bulk of the raw performance increase over WindowBlinds 3 exclusive to Windows XP (understanding, of course, that every supported Windows platform will gain other additional features)?

What I'd really like stuck in the WindowBlinds web-site is a comparison chart letting us know what features are supported by which versions of Windows...

Neil Banfield

on Mar 14, 2003

Frugus: Can you post screenshots of the corrupted buttons in the stardock newsgroups so we can look into it.

The crash of ObjectBar may have been unrelated to WB.

mr.bo

on Mar 14, 2003

Maybe I'll try reinstalling it again, and I'll get some screenshots when I have some extra time. As for the ObjectBar crash, it wasn't a coincidence. I've had ObjectBar running since it was just a baby on this machine, and not had problems, once I uninstalled WindowBlinds I haven't had a problem with it again. The crash happened just after I applied a theme for the first time with the new WB build. after that, it was fine.

Chuckf1

on Mar 14, 2003

Thank you Developer Green Ripper for the info on the upgrade price!

marercar

on Mar 14, 2003

same, what about Windows 2000?

da_zman20

on Mar 14, 2003

I just wanted to ask, in the Screenshots sent out for WindowsBlinds 4 from stardock, before the beta release, they showed the Tool Bar Icons in the explorer skinned, is not going to be done in version 4.0??? it hasn't been in any of the betas... it's a feature I was looking forward to...

Frogboy

on Mar 14, 2003

It won't be in 4.0.

da_zman20

on Mar 16, 2003

that's ok I still think WB4 is Awesome

John Alberts

on Mar 16, 2003

I have WB 3.97a and I still can't skin my command window like it says it can. It won't skin command.com or cmd.exe. Anyone had any luck with it skinning the command window?

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