Hello, I come here today hoping someone can help me out. Firstly, I love Stardock to death for all the crazy shell programs they put out. My personal favorite, however, is WindowBlinds. It's cheap, loads of fun to use and generally isn't a bother once you get a skin working. I used to have some old version for XP, but at the time I moved to Windows 7 they didn't have a version compatible for it so I just kinda forgot about it. I remembered it one day and Googled it to see if they had finally got it working and behold they did.

Anyways, I was in the middle of the trial version (about 13 days left) when I updated Windows 7 to Service Pack 1. Everything was fine for a bit, it went through the normal routine associated with a SP update and after a restart or two I was back to my skinned desktop. However, the problem started the next time I rebooted my computer. At the usual "Starting Windows" screen, those words were replaced with file directories, presumably updating. I'm not sure why, I figured the service pack was finished installing the last time but anyways, it did that, then went through the "Configuring Update" routine again before going to the desktop, except this time the desktop...well, the best was I could describe it was that the GUI imploded. Nothing was skinned, it was all a flat pale blue, the start button was missing as was the bar at the top of windows (the same one that houses the minimize and close buttons) the taskbar tray was inaccessible...heck I was barely able to make it to the control panel to uninstall WindowBlinds. After uninstalling and a restart, Windows returned to its normal Aero theme with no problems. I figured maybe something just got thrown out of whack so I reinstalled it. Everything was fine until I went to apply a skin, when it told me "WindowBlinds is not installed properly, would you like to fix this problem now?"

It does this every time. If I click Yes, I get the imploded GUI. If I click No it somehow reverts to the Windows Classic theme.

One more thing to note, I run Windows 7 in Test mode (so it allows unsigned drivers, I use DS3 tool to use a PS3 controller with my PC) and everything was fine while it said Build 7600 in the corner, the problem only started after it flipped over to Build 7601. I assume that's the SP1 build but I can't be sure if that's what caused it to flip.

Now I may sound helpless, but I'm actually pretty good with computers. I have tried every logical trick I can think of trying to get it to install properly. I even hunted down the program's registry entries and deleted them hoping they would be replaced during a reinstall and it would solve my problem. Sadly, no dice.

I was perfectly ready to buy this program again after my trial ran out, but now that it refuses to work with my system...well, obviously I'm not going to buy a product I know doesn't work right?

I know people ask for others with problems to copy their "About WindowBlinds" screen here, so here's that

I am running Windows 7 Ultimate x64 SP1

Your computer has a Windows Experience Index base score of 5.5
Your Windows Graphics Experience score is 7.4

WindowBlinds version : WindowBlinds 7.2 (build 297 - Windows 7 Edition) - Shareware - 64 bit OS

WindowBlinds is not installed correctly on this PC.  If you did not reboot after installing WindowBlinds 7 for the first time, then please reboot and try this again.(Generic PnP Monitor) 1 is attached to ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series       

Wblind.dll         2010/11/30 17:49:ll
Wblind64.dll         2010/11/30 17:49:42
Wbsrv.dll         2010/11/23 14:38:43
SevenConfig.exe         2010/11/23 16:10:18
Wbload.exe         2010/10/20 15:08:35
Wbhelp.dll         2010/10/20 15:08:34
Tray.dll              2009/10/23 19:12:19
Wbload.dll              2010/06/07 14:59:25
Screen.exe         2010/06/07 14:59:42