Windowblinds gives the designer/skinner far more scope to be creative and original with even simple things such as radical button placement.
That, and the knowledge that as a legitimate proggy and not simply a 'modified' module enabler which may be 'broken' with subsequent XP Service packs, makes WB the 'goer'...

who rules?
i do.
i rule a small latin american country named parador.

Mukul Varma, this site is created and maintained by Stardock, the creators of WindowBlinds.
If you wish more impartial opinion, go to another forum.
I don't wish to opine about windowsblinds/tgtsoft, becuase i don't use a lot this kind of skinning programs (the booth programs makes to crash the creation softwares i use). And i don't like to activate/deactivate anytime this skinning features, when i wish to use Internet or to create graphics.
If you request the opinion: 'Wich is better, Desktopx or .....?' I have no dudes to recommend Desktopx.

WindowBlinds have TWO big advantages (surelly there's others, i'm not a expert):
-a extense community of great creators, just browse their downloads section
-you can purchase Object Desktop that contains WindowBlinds and lots of other programs, such the BEST Desktopx and the amazing WIndowFX2. This is not free propaganda, these programs are very incredible!

ThemeXP skins are quicker and less resource hungrey. And look more proffesionally done.

Isn't ThemeXP just a hack? As such, doesn't Microsoft frown on it, while supporting and promoting WindowBlinds?

I'd rather use software that doesn't involve hacking my system.

I've always noticed that when someone claims msstyles skins look "better" or more "professional" they never actually name one.

This has come up countless times on Neowin and I've always asked "Could you give an example?" and I never get a response. Most msstyles I've seen wouldn't make it past moderation. We quite regularly reject the "It's Luna but now it's darker hued!" which makes up the majority of msstyles I've seen.

when people are talking about professional looking msstyles they are usually talking about ported Duality themes for OSX. original, good looking skins are very rare, but of course they also exist: anything by Arhra and Chaninja or Ivorance are examples. didn´t you port a skin/style called Metallized or so yourself? that is a good one also.

but when we speak about "professional" looking skins, in my opinion nothing comes close to Essorant´s latest creations.

Fisher Price - heh! I've also heard it referred to as the "Winnie the Pooh" theme, which I must say isn't at all deserved. Winnie the Pooh is far above that.

moshi: That's precisely my point - the handful of original good msstyles I've seen have been ported. Metallized, for instance, looks the same on WB but also gains colorizing (i.e. 16.8 million color versions of it).

Usually what gets compared is WindowBlinds shareware to msstyles and since the shareware version of WB lacks a lot of features it doesn't look as nice.

In my view, the only "Advantage" of an msstyle is that it's "free" if you're willing to patch out your digital signing security on Windows XP (that is what the uxtheme.dll patch does - patches cryptverifysignature() ).

People on Windows 95 could patch their video drivers and change the title bar stuff too (I remember trying it on Windows 3.0 in fact). It just seems to me, if you actually care about how the GUI looks and feels, $20 for WB just doesn't seem like a big deal. Pizza delivery costs $20.

Hmmm.....pizza.

I gotta admit, risk7, those visual styles are the sweetest things i've ever seen, but, they're just normal old boxes. Windowblinds allows you to do much more, no saying that tthe 'more' is used in every skin. Some skins for windowblinds are just slapped together (go into the winstyles section on this page.. i hate half those skins) but still, i prefer it for all the nice things it CAN do and that good skin makers frequently DO do. Then again, what am I saying?

(I don't liek desktop x, it's not as easy to use as explorer and crashes )

Incidentally, one of the issues many people, myself included, have with TGTsoft is their borderline dishonest marketing.

Some people have complained about how "aggressive" Stardock is at marketing but at least we are truthful or at the very least our claims follow the spirit of the law as well as the letter and not just the letter.

For instance, consider TGTsoft's claims about Style XP vs "non Microsoft skinning software" (i.e. WindowBlinds):

Claim: “Zero Footprint Operation”

TGTsoft claims that zero foot print means that because it uses XP’s bundled skinning system that it uses no resources. If that is the case, then WindowBlinds uses less than zero resources. XP’s bundled engine requires memory and system resources to load, draw and maintain visual styles. So does WindowBlinds. However, WindowBlinds uses less memory and resources than the bundled XP skinning system.

Claim: Explorer Views are Skinnable.

This has nothing to do with Style XP. If the skin author includes a shellstyle.dll with their theme, Windows XP will use it. This is the same as WindowBlinds (WB skin authors don't make it a habit to pass around shellstyle.dll's since WB skins install automatically and hence this would require the user to mess around with replacing shellstyle.dll). However, WindowBlinds 4 will offer an integrated, seamless way for users to skin the explorer views. No need to include a copyrighted shellstyle.dll with ones visual style.

Claim: 100% Application compatibility.
This is just plain false. Windows XP visual styles do not work on the majority of existing software fully. Delphi apps, many visual basic apps and many MFC written programs either have to be excluded or only have their title bars and borders modified. The rest look like plain Windows 95. WindowBlinds, by contrast, has much greater compatibility due to the greater amount of time it’s been in testing. Bottom line, if you want your programs to look consistent, WindowBlinds is the only option.

Claim: Integrated into theme files.
TGTsoft means by this that .msstyles files are supported by Microsoft’s .theme format. That is true. However, .msstyles files are not supported by .suite or .xptheme files which are a superset of .theme in functionality. Formats are only as useful as their level of distribution. Consider how silly this claim really is: What is a .theme file really? It's a skin, a wallpaper, maybe some icons, maybe some cursors and maybe some sound. What can a WindowBlinds skin do on its own? A WindowBlinds visual style can contain a wallpaper, an icon package, cursors, sound effects. TGTsoft tries to make a weakness sound like a strength (.msstyles are just the visual style where as a WindowBlinds visual style can do what's in a .theme already).

Claim: Multiple language support.
This is an odd claim as virtually any program can make this claim (such as WindowBlinds which is very popular in Japan).

Claim: No hooking of SetWindowsHookEx
This is a misleading claim that is borderline fraudulent. The Windows XP visual style engine hooks the system similarly to WindowBlinds (despite TGTsoft’s claims to the contrary). Every process gets uxtheme.dll attached to it as a result. This claim gives the impression that TGTsoft is not familiar with how the Windows XP style engine functions.

Claim: Multiple DPI sizes
WindowBlinds also supports multiple DPI sizes.

Claim: Integrated into themeing APIs
WindowBlinds 4 is scheduled to fully support these themeing APIs. Incidentally, the number of programs that directly call these new APIs can be counted on one hand. For a program that utilizes a skinning engine that fails to skin 90% of existing programs fully, this claim seems pretty dubious.