Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2419

WindowBlinds in a Windows 7 world

It seems like Windows Vista just came out yesterday. And now Windows 7 is coming. What does this mean for WindowBlinds users? The answer is: A lot.

First off, the reports are true, Windows 7 is better than Windows Vista. It is also true that Windows Vista has gotten treated unfairly. Vista was just released too early. I bet Microsoft rues the day they didn’t address what was in this post (and yes, I talked to Jim Allchin at the time about it).

But as good as Windows 7 is, it’s pretty hard coded. If you love glass (Aero) and that Windows 7 super bar, then you’re all set and can stop reading.

Let’s take a visual tour here.

In all, Windows 7 is going to be an awesome upgrade. I think one of the directions we’re going to see WindowBlinds evolve is to provide more personalization options for users, enhance functionality and usability of programs and the OS.

The WindowBlinds 7 betas will likely start to show up on Object Desktop in the next couple months. At that point, you’ll have a better idea of the direction we’re going to take.

We’d like to hear from you. Let us know what features you’d like to see in Object Desktop in general and WindowBlinds in particular.

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Nice post Froggy, and I'm still on XP ..there's that 'format' word haunting me again.. but I guess to reap the benefits of a newer improved Object Desktop.. I'm gonna have to scrape some cash together for an upgrade ...it may take me a decade, but I'll get there

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vStyler

Join Date 11/2004

+919

Looking forward opening the hood and tearing into what makes it tick..

.. Interfacially speaking

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Philly0381

Join Date 11/2004

+844

This will come up at some time so might as well ask now. XP still has a user base, not really sure how big it is now or if it will remain as such. What can the community expect from Stardock with compatibility with XP, Vista and Windows 7 as available OSs (yes I know some folks are still using older versions of Windows) with WindowBlinds 7? Will I just have to finally upgrade, and in my case that means a new computer, to the new OS in order to be able to utilize Object Desktop and it's many programs?

Not complaining or whinning just trying to figure when my next upgrade should take place. Not too eager to buy a new computer now and then upgrade the OS later. Looking for some of that good old advice that we always find here in the forums. By the way I have a computer because I can, it's not used for anything but fun and entertainment, not a bit of serious work is done with it.

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Vista was just released too early.

Something I have preached since day one!

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Xiandi

Join Date 07/2007

+840

So, does this mean that SKS will support XP, Vista and Windows7 all at once? If so, it seems like skinning a blind completely is going to take alot longer....

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Vampothika

Join Date 07/2006

+590

so...now we have to skin 3 os's? or will vista still apply for 7....im pretty confused actually. i know this might be a big ask, but id like to have more options when it comes to system colours. with vista, it seems we dont have many options.....especially when it came to system font colours ect...

also, ive only just discovered that that diamond skin (template) was corrupted, and yet i had to skin and STRUGGLE with many problems and didnt even know until last month. So at least can we have a template that is not corrupted and make our lives alot easier please?

I would also like to see a number for frames limitations (in other words, how many frames it can handle before sk says no) on animations for userpane, startbutton ect.....i seriously cannot count how many times ive done over 100 frames to find out later after hours and days of work that sk would only accept a 'certain' amount of frames.

i personally would like to see a proper and up to date tutorial on the new windows 7, what is skinnable, what isnt, ect, substyles, the works........written by a master skinner for skinners who can understand the new windows 7 instead of walking into it blind like we basically had to do with vista (i know i did)

I also think a completley fully skinned template from a master skinner would be awsome....when i started skinning vista, i basically used molten as my guide.......yet many things werent skinned....hence problems arose.

thanks for listening.

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Island Dog

Join Date 06/2003

+1048

Windows 7 is still in early beta, so writing something now is pointless as everything is subject to being changed.

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Zoomba

Join Date 11/2002

+114

I'm betting that Windows 7 won't have the software compatibility problems transitioning from Vista that we saw from XP to Vista. Vista and 7 are the same core OS, 7 just has a lot of improvements. I'm actually debating making the upgrade from Vista to 7 at home shortly after 7 comes out (I only went to vista on my home PC within the last 6 months).

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vStyler

Join Date 11/2004

+919

I can imagine, regardless, there will be differences between what can and cant be done on XP\Vista\7 so I'm assuming until everyone is on 7, skinning 3 OS might (prob. will) be neccesary if you want to provide maximum compatibilty.

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The best advice I can give is to do the upgrade as soon as the new OS comes out...

Then build your own computer... it's far easier than you may realize and much cheaper too. You can pick and choose exactly what you want in your computer, not what some company thinks you need. The toughest thing about it is to decide the parts you want to put in it. The build itself is really a piece of cake if you consider yourself even moderately smart. Even then, there are forums and such to explain everything in layman's terms to make it easy on you.

Since you are part of this community, obviously you love customization. Why not customize the hardware too. It's every bit worth your time.

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also, ive only just discovered that that diamond skin (template) was corrupted, and yet i had to skin and STRUGGLE with many problems and didnt even know until last month. So at least can we have a template that is not corrupted and make our lives alot easier please?

I would also like to see a number for frames limitations (in other words, how many frames it can handle before sk says no) on animations for userpane, startbutton ect.....i seriously cannot count how many times ive done over 100 frames to find out later after hours and days of work that sk would only accept a 'certain' amount of frames.

i personally would like to see a proper and up to date tutorial on the new windows 7, what is skinnable, what isnt, ect, substyles, the works........written by a master skinner for skinners who can understand the new windows 7 instead of walking into it blind like we basically had to do with vista (i know i did)

I also think a completley fully skinned template from a master skinner would be awsome....when i started skinning vista, i basically used molten as my guide.......yet many things werent skinned....hence problems arose.

i think the diamond skin should've been a complete work also, with every aspect skinned for the newbs to use as templates...i almost gave up at one time...its taken me 3 years to come back and try it again...sks6 made it alot easier for me though i will say...i have my true first skin going and its coming along nicely but would probably go a little faster with a really good tutorial

thank you, Joe

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Vampothika

Join Date 07/2006

+590

well....i currently have dual boot for vista and xp.....i dont mind haveing a tripple boot...if thats allowed to do all 3......

i dont mind getting my hands dirty to learn how to skin a new os........ just as long as i have the proper tools from day one..it will be okay.

ill be quite happy to skin 3 os's.......

ps. if i cant have tripple boot, i could probably save up for a laptop and have that as windows 7........(dunno......*shrugs)

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CarGuy1

Join Date 03/2007

+548

well....i currently have dual boot for vista and xp.....i dont mind haveing a tripple boot...if thats allowed to do all 3......

I triple boot now, my bios has a boot menu that I access by hitting the escape key thus allowing me to pick which drive to boot. I'm running XP, Vista, and the Windows 7 beta, all 64bit editions.

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I have been running vista since its release, well the day afterward, anyway, never had a problem on my old pentium 4 machine with it, and no problems at all with my new one i just built 2 months ago, actually only problem i had was the slow file copy that SP1 fixed, but it found all my hardware on both machines and runs really well, in fact i posted a question on a triple boot here last week, but changed my mind, formatted XP out of the picture, now doing Windows 7 and Vista, funny, it seems the people that hate vista have never used it, they go by what they hear not by what they see and use

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vStyler

Join Date 11/2004

+919

it seems the people that hate vista have never used it

Ive used it, skinned it from one side to the other... I hate it.

... 7 may be a diff story.

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Wow... can't reply here using chrome... oh well I'm on IE now. I too have used Vista(among other OS) at work and it is clunky, I am sure some people like it but people shouldn't make assumptions. Vista is near to Me unpopularity, some of that is an image problem some of that isn't. The larger memory footprint, and higher requirements hardly seem justified considering what the OS does over previous versions, yes it looks sexier but Stardock has shown us that you can make an OS look sexy without huge requirements. Good news is they say that 7 runs lighter and has a smaller footprint. Honestly speaking though I wonder if Stardock sees 7 as an opportunity or an obsticle. 7(and Vista as well) looks sexy from the get go, while XP was butt ugly. I think this was a huge opportunity for Stardock to get customers who aren't necessarily interested in customization, but simply wan't something that isn't so damn ugly. Those customers later on potentially become "good" customers who have developed in interest in customization. 7's good looks on the other hand probably satisfies more peoples desire for a sexy PC. I look forward to testing 7 either way(at work), and I hope it is good enough to warrent an upgrade. The key for Microsoft will be offering upgrades to people on XP(what the vast majority are still running), which they currently don't plan on doing. In hard times people are not going to be looking to replace a PC just to have the latest and greatest OS. Also hopefully requirements will be low enough to provide decent performance for these would be upgraders as well. If not, whether 7 is good or not, the uptake may not be what Microsoft is hoping for. *edited for formatting*

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I think i just have a lucky streak going when it comes to OS'es mainly vista, like i said in my previous post, no problems at all, and i am the originator of murphys law, so i am really liking this lucky streak, guess that is why i am so pro vista, it has been very good for me, but not so for a lot of other people., i think back to when i first put in XP, very little problems with that as well, i guess i really should play the lottery now.

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There are many theories about why the perception of Vista is so negative. I've been using it from the day it was released and have never had significant problems. I believe one reason for the negative PR is XP does not have any major shortcomings that Vista fixes. Previous versions of Windows were quite limited and people really looked forward to the next version that would overcome the current limitations. For instance, the benefits of Windows 95 were so great compared with Windows 3.1 that people were willing to accept the cost and pain of upgrading. Although I find Vista to be much improved over XP there is nothing obvious and compelling about it that makes people really want it, so they dwell instead on the negatives.

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That's a very insightful observation, Vicscan. I do remember problems with XP at the beginning though.

Will WB make that taskbar thinner? It's really quite high.

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I'm more of the "been there, done that" Vista user. Tested it.. used it, found flaws, bugs, driver problems, install and compatibility issues.. you name it. Not all third party app issues here.. this was straight OOBE. (out of box experience) I found issues with the OS people thought I was either nuts, or a true hater for asking about.. til the day MS release fixes that described the very issue I was facing. It has it's positive features. Well built start menu, all in one networking center, easy to access sidebar. Aero, it's transparent interface is better than Luna. Though I'm lucky to survive putting those two names in the same sentence. Luna is downright horrid...those that came out of Win 95 or 98, more than likely used the 'classic' interface not so much for familiarity, but out of sheer will not to be taunted by Luna's disappointing color schemes. Vista's Win-Tab flip feature is cute.. never had a use for it. Windows 7 is what Vista should have been. I'm not an MS fanboy.. those that know me, now that too well.. but I give Win 7 a round of applause because that should have been released back in 06.. not Vista. In my opinion.. those that use Vista should see fit to leave that OS behind and go for Win 7. It is Vista.. but the UI and functionality of the OS leave it's predecessor behind in shame. It's not perfect.. not by any means, in fact I ran into some of the very same issues with it as I did Vista after the first installation. Primarily a simple USB flash drive. I plugged it in, got the same error with Win 7.. "drivers are installing.." then "there was a problem installing the drivers".. unplugged it, plugged it back in "your device is ready to use". Needless to say I was not impressed. But I was, and am with the rest of the experience and testing that I've done with it.

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I'm a Desktop Environment Architect for one of the 5 largest banks in the US. And because of that I install any Beta of an MS o/s on my personal machine as soon as it comes out. Not on my dev machine or my primary work machine mind you. But on the system I used whenever I'm not at my desk. However over the last couple of betas I find I wait untl I know I can at least use WB before I install. I find that's the best way for me to learn the changes in the architecture of the O/S, how the components work together. But I still like to have my eye candy so I can turn it on when I'm using the new O/S as opposed to investigating it. So I am ready to go, and have installed once and then rolled back. I'm chomping at the bit (be it a 1 or a 0) to get working with Win 7 and all the Stardock updates for it as they come out. The only question remains can I live without my most important eye candy WB until it is updated. Or do I say a brief farewell for a few weeks or months until such time as Frog and Company feel they have it stable enough to throw at us? Life is full of such difficult decisions, isn't it? And by the way, this is now my 10th year of doing this with Stardock's software.

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Honestly, Im not to overly impressed. Its a smoother upgrade from Vista. I have it running through virtual PC and it does run reasonably well. IE8 is a pig and a nightmare, not very compliate with html or maybe the render engine is still being worked out... dont know. But as to Windows 7 Im not sure what all the fuss is about. SMoother, yes. Faster, sort of. Glitzy, not much more than Vista. I have to also be honest to say that if there is an easy to migrate from Vista to W7 then I will do so. If nothing more than to be rid of some of the UAC problems. I still have yet to load Visual Studio 2008 on it and re-compile and run some of my projocts but Im sure I will be doing that soon. hopefully no worries there. The biggest issue will still be drivers. Will 3rd parties still be able to produce good drivers (*cough* NVidia)? I still like Vista and really havent had much issues with it in the last year that I have been using it. So to me W7 is Vista 2.0... oh and the taskbar? give me a break, Im still not impressed. How friggin hard is it that they still cannot windowshade(rollup/rolldown) a dialog box(window)? If only Enlightenment could be ported over.... hmmmm.........

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Well, I really like win7, it's faster, you can switch from a theme to an other in 2 second, and the new taskbar improve productivity. The control panel/the start menu has been refined. Also it support SSD , unlike Vista. Anyway, what I'm expecting from Windowblinds ? Pretty simple: not to be worse than the built in theme manager of windows. I'm fed up with the rendering of fonts in themes, especially concerning cleartype that doesn't always seems to work (or not properly). Also I hope you'll manage to keep (more or less) compatibility with all non-win7 windowblinds theme.

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To me it is Vista sp2

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To me it is Vista sp2

Totally WRONG, been using 7 Beta's through 6801, 6956 and now the official M/S BETA 7000, its far removed from VISTA, Its leaving Vista behind, and XP is nowhere. M/S done good.

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