WindowBlinds 4 Released!

Published on April 8, 2003 By Stardock Central In WinCustomize News

WindowBlinds 4 has some great new features including:

* Command prompt skinning

* Skinning of virtually every element of the Windows XP GUI

* Skinning of the logoff, shellstyles, and please wait dialogs

* Smart painting - makes most WindowBlinds enhanced visual styles run nearly as fast as "classic"

* Enhanced integration into Windows XP greatly increasing compatibility with nearly all programs

* A new configuration program that makes the features of WindowBlinds more accessible than ever

* Settings for control of the Windows XP start bar. Now you can have a skinny start bar with any visual style

* Native integration into Remote Desktop and graphics acceleration by most video cards

These new features add to the already impressive WindowBlinds feature set that includes:

* Change the color of your visual style on the fly

* Gamma correction on visual styles

* Skinning of non-theme aware applications

* Hyperpaint - uses the extra memory in your video card to buffer to increase performance

* Additional controls in the title bar such as MP3 players, roll-up buttons, always on top buttons, minimize to tray, and much more

* Associate sound effects with title bar buttons

* Have animated title bars, buttons and more

* Powerful enhanced visual style format that allows placement of buttons any place on a window edge as well as independently sized window borders

* Much more!

Users who purchased WindowBlinds 3 since the beginning of the year can upgrade for free. Just visit https://www.stardock.com/support.asp and type in your email address.

Other users of WindowBlinds 3 can upgrade to version 4 for only $10 for a limited time.

Visit http://www.windowblinds.net/wb4upgrade.asp to upgrade.

All other users can purchase WindowBlinds 4 at: https://www.stardock.com/order.asp?product=Windowblinds for $19.95.

WindowBlinds is part of Stardock''s Object Desktop which is $49.95 and includes WindowBlinds 4 plus DesktopX, ObjectBar, IconPackager, WinStyles, and much more plus a year''s worth of updates to them.

A shareware version of WindowBlinds 4 will be released next week.

Comments (Page 3)

raidersforlife

on Apr 09, 2003

Sadly, I'm one of the users out there with Win2K.

What to do?
I'm off to buy Win XP!

Cheers!

Frogboy

on Apr 09, 2003

Actually we originally said Fall for 4.0 for Win98/ME/2000. We moved it up to Summer.

Ridge Runner

on Apr 09, 2003

What happened to the user pic? Otherwise, as advertised. Much faster & fewer "issues".

TheGuest

on Apr 09, 2003

Ridge, there's an option to turn the user pic off.. yours may be set for that.

As for the Win2k/9x support for WB4: Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't some of the features not even be supported by older versions of Windows? If so, then there probably wouldn't be as much of a difference between WB3.x and 4.x for them anyways.

Whispa

on Apr 09, 2003

I've actually been impatiently waiting for this... what have I become? (Glad I have XP, it's WORTH it!)

chadlachlanross

on Apr 09, 2003

Martin, but my current configuration works just fine with Wb 3.5. So it seems more of a WB4 issue than a desktopX issue. Either way, both Stardock programs... hopefully they can get them to play nice together in the future.

joetheblow

on Apr 09, 2003

soooo the question is then, if someone designs a skin for Windowblinds 4 and the user does not have Windowblinds 4, they have 3.5 and on a win2000 computer or 98, what happens? Does the skin work?

I know most the people who come here have windowsXP, but most people in general have win98 or 2000. will there be skinners who will take the time to make skins for 9x windows users if windowblinds 4 skins will not work on older versions?

TheGuest

on Apr 09, 2003

Yeah, the skin still works even if you dont have WB4. The WB4 skins just have a few extra things to skin the shutdown and log-off prompt windows.. and such. I used some WB4 skins when I was still using 3.5 and they worked fine.

camaro_69

on Apr 09, 2003

all my skins are now gone after the last update.....what happened

RA5C

on Apr 09, 2003

How do I get the WB icon out of my tray? Can't find a toggle anywhere.

Surj

on Apr 09, 2003

theyre prob still there, check your install folder. Some of mine didnt show either. i deleted the *.cat files and it worked out alright.

thanks to werewold on the wb newsgroup for discovering that one

Surj

on Apr 09, 2003

to clarify that, I deleted the *.cat files in the main wb install folder. Upon opening up the display prop window my skins were once again properly showing.

TheGuest

on Apr 10, 2003

"How do I get the WB icon out of my tray? Can't find a toggle anywhere."

Open the WB config, then select 'User Overrides' on the left. Then un-check the 'Show icon in system tray' box. Hope that helps.

Big Doug

on Apr 10, 2003

As far as the version for 9x/ME/2k, I see what they have to try to accomplish. I'll break it down as I understand it.

Lets say you build a program. You make the program the very BEST that you are able to make it. But in doing so, you end up making that program incompatible with the older operating systems. So, you need to make a version FROM SCRATCH that will run on these older OS's, but that will in the end do the same thing just VERY differently than the original.

Realise also that while Win2k still has life...honestly....9x systems are pushed to their limits with what a full Object Desktop installation makes it do. You ever try running DesktopX, ObjectBar, WindowBlinds, WinFX 1.21, Icon Packager AND Desktop Architect at the same time on Windows 98 and ME ?!? Yeah. It won't happen. Something WILL crash, or it'll run like crap. Believe me --- especially when it comes to the attempt of making 9x-based systems do new tricks, you have too many limitations. Kernal32.dll wasn't made to handle the kinds of things (especially graphics intensive stuff in a static environment like Active Desktop) that StarDock software does. Better Video, Memory, and Processor really dosen't make much of a difference on those systems. SO, give Frog and the guys a little space, and let them get the thing made.

snarph

on Apr 10, 2003

SO, give Frog and the guys a little space, and let them get the thing made.

Ok so maybe I rant and rave a bit about exclusions. I just think a company with as much savvy and expertise would do a little more to not alienate and segregate their customers I rember WB on win95 systems wile other people had 2000 their wasnt as much hype and more effort was put in to seeing that a release coverd all platforms.
I,m all for giving Stardock its due they make an awsome product and also have the best support and responce to customor needs that I have seen in any industry, I would just like to see things arive in a final package thats all .

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