I assume you tried this and it didn't work. (you didn't say)

I would suggest you uninstall>reboot>run ccleaner and clear out any left over crap>install Impulse>reboot>install windowblinds>reboot>run windowblinds......

if it works then reinstall all your other apps as well...personally I reboot after EVERY installation. Good luck

Yeah really, try ccleaner and check the startup section in the Tools tab, you'll see everything that's actually present in your Startup...and remove anything that wasn't there before...be careful not to remove anything you don't understand....

Oh my God! I've never had such trouble installing software and all I did was uninstalled a glitchy update and reinstalled!  

- Okay, so I uninstalled anything and everything Stardock using SDC. Restarted.

- Then I uninstalled SDC using Windows. Restarted.

- Then I went hunting for anything and everything Stardock on my drive and deleted everything I could find. (Damn SD leaves a hell of a mess!)

- Then I ran Ccleaner and deleted anything I could find SD.

- Then I ran msconfig and once again stripped my system down to the bare necessities turning almost everything off. Nothing references sig.bin. Restarted.

- Then I installed Impulse using Windows. Restarted.

- Then I attempted to install WB6 using Impulse which I signed into. It got as far as 'activating' before Impulse locked up. I eventually had to shut down Impulse using Task Manager. Restarted.

- Then I started Impulse and it showed WindowBlinds as installed. There is no option to reinstall but it verified the installation as ok so I started WB6 and an activation window popped up. I entered the info and WB6 started. All my previously installed skins were still there so I oviously missed something during clean up. I hate Vista. I changed a few skins and everything seemed ok but the same glitchy problems that got me to reinstall were still there. I turned my startup stuff back on. Restarted.

- I changed a few more skins but the glitches made me uninstall and reinstall. Through Impulse this time. Guess what, IT DOESN'T WORK AGAIN! The activation window pops up, I enter the info, click activate and a window pops up saying that SD Product Activation has stopped working. I click close, WB6 starts I try to apply a skin but get the Win classic look.

This is from System Info in WB6:

---
Your computer has a Windows Experience Index base score of 5.3
Your Windows Graphics Experience score is 5.9

WindowBlinds version : WindowBlinds 6.1 (build 97 x86 - Vista Edition)

WindowBlinds is installed correctly on this PC
WindowBlinds has not been activated correctly on this PC. Please activate it from SDC.
(Dell SE198WFP(Digital)) 1 is attached to NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT

Wblind.dll 2008/05/06 15:25:25
Wbsrv.dll 2008/04/28 11:35:58
Wbconfig.exe 2008/04/29 21:02:32
Wbload.exe 2008/04/28 11:35:14
Wbhelp.dll 2008/04/28 11:35:07
Tray.dll 2008/04/28 11:35:21
Wbload.dll 2008/04/28 11:34:28
Screen.exe 2008/04/28 11:35:18
---

I’m stripping everything SD off my system again and will go from there.
I would really appreciate suggestions. Thanks.   

make sure your not using nview. it conflicts with windowblinds.

It may be that your antivirus is preventing a good install
Deactivate it and reinstall.

Well, I seem to have everything working again. Unfortunately I don't know the exact cause of the issue or what I did to repair it. I’m split between a registry key and a leftover file that got missed during one or any of the many uninstalls.

After several failed attempts of trying to fix it with SDC (StarDock Central) installed I uninstalled anything and everything Stardock through/using SDC and then SDC itself and restarted.

Then there were several failed attempts after installing Impulse, which I never really planned on using but I’m kinda glad now. It’s not a bad program and has great potential.

I guess I never made myself clear in my initial post but when I said “I stripped my system down to the necessities” I meant just that.
I ran MSConfig and stopped all nonessential items from starting and then restarted.
After restarting I ran Task Manager and ended the last few remaining nonessential items.
Then I tried installing/uninstalling WindowBlinds, etc.
After a couple comments from Lantec and Pixeleo I also used CCleaner which deletes temp files, caches, registry keys, etc.

Regardless of what I did the results eventually produced this:

Unable to open

WindowBlinds is unable to start.

The most likely reason for this is your PC has a .CMD file running
at startup which has locked WBs activation file. Run msconfig &
remove this from startup and then reboot. WindowBlinds should
then work fine.

After being unable to fix the problem to this point, it seemed fairly clear that what ever was starting this “ghost” .CMD file or whatever it was, was well hidden or at the very least it was deeper than CCleaner was willing to go so I opened up regedit and started deleting anything and everything Stardock related.

What I do know for sure is that Stardock's software leaves one hell of a mess after being uninstalled. I’m not sure if it’s because of shared running software, the setup, or just bad programming but it left folders, files and registry entries everywhere.

After I was finished deleting “Stardock” files, folders and registry entries from my system I restarted to make sure I still could. Always make sure you make a back up of your registry before making changes, if you go that way. Not for everybody.

Then I turned everything back to normal and restarted.

Then I installed Impulse and restarted. Worked fine!   

Then I installed WindowBlinds and ran it. It was fine!   I restarted. It was still fine!   

I have since installed other blinds and Stardock programs as well as restarted my system several times with no issues.   

I wish I could have pinpoint the exact problem and if I hadn’t already spent so much time trying to fix it I might have been more careful about keeping track of what I was doing but I just wanted the freaking thing fixed!

If I had to do this over I would have just contacted Stardock and waited for them to fix it. That said, I hope this helps someone just the same.


The Impulse setup file needs to access the internet to download its install file and then once Impulse is installed it needs to access the internet to download all of Stardocks software. I absolutely do not recommend shutting down your virus software to install any software let alone one that needs to access the internet but rest assured that during my excursion to fix WindowBlinds I shut everything down during all installs! (except at the very end, after deleting everthing, I installed all software on a fully running system!

plugsie: