Heef

Join Date 07/2001

Windowblinds make black menus and controls and slows system to a crawl after using Remote Desktop

Remote Desktop issue

Ever since I upgraded to WB5.0 I have had problems when accessing my PC from work using Remote Desktop. Soon after connecting the window painting will slow right down and eventually just show lots of block areas, especially in the system tray. Disconnecting and reconnecting doesn't help, all I can do is unload WB. I never had a problem when running 4.x

Are there any settings related to Remote Desktop. If a solution isn't found soon I'm going to have to uninstall 5.0 and go back a version. Is there anywhere to get updates to 5.0. I've never seen one announced so I'm guessing there have been no improvements or bug fixes since the original 5.0 release. I'm running a 2.4GHz PC with 1Gb Ram, Geforce 4 MX440 graphics card

Heef

windowblinds

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updates?

do you have SDC installed? Link
with show pre-release checked?

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No I don't have SDC installed. I'll install it now and see what updates are available.

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Ok, there are updates so i'll see if they improve matters, though the release list makes no mention of a Remote Desktop issue so I'm not too optimistic.

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if nobody from Stardock stops by, you might want to submit a ticket from here: Link

you might see if the suggestion here: Link helps

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Updating hasn't helped

I'm still getting black areas a while after connecting with RD. Also just before the black areas appear, the Start menu stops appearing when pressing the start button. I've seen that mentioned elsewhere but don't know if there was ever a solution.

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I also updated my laptop at the same time which had been running with no problems and I'm now getting corruption on there too. Black titlebars and the application icon repeated all the way across the titlebar. If I get a chance i'll try to upload a screenshot.

This is starting to get very annoying now. Considering the number of posts about
black titlebars Stardock needs to get this issue fixed ASAP and stop blaming it on a warez copy. There is a real bug here that needs addressing urgently. My system details are below

WindowBlinds 5.0 System Information Report:

STATUS : WB+ SRV+ HLP+ UI+ TRAY+

WindowBlinds is installed correctly on this PC.

WindowBlinds appears to be activated on this PC

Your machine supports per pixel borders on WindowBlinds skins.

You have one monitor in total.

(Default Monitor) 1 is attached to Mobile Intel(R) 915GM/GMS,910GML Express Chipset Family

Wblind.dll 2006/01/19 11:37:36
Wbsrv.dll 2005/12/20 22:57:44
Wbconfig.exe 2005/12/05 18:42:52
Wbload.exe 2006/01/19 11:37:42
Wbhelp.dll 2004/09/18 16:37:00
Wbui.dll 2005/12/06 21:29:06
Tray.dll 2005/11/02 13:28:26

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Neil Banfield

Join Date 04/2001

+1104

Please do upload a screenshot.

It sounds like something has damaged the WB bitmaps. Does this only happen after using remote desktop and if so, is it while you are controlling the PC via remote desktop, or when you start to control it locally again? If you open a new app (say notepad) after this happens, does it skin correctly?

Now you have updated to the latest beta build, do you still get extreme slowness when it goes black, or is it just black?

Almost all posts about blackness are about the warez copy. Your issue is different & I believe its the only report of anything like this.

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I seem to have 2 similar but slightly different problems. My laptop which is never used with RD was fine on the 5.0 release until I updated it yesterday, now I'm getting corrupt title bars on it.

My home machine has always had problems since I installed 5.0. It will run fine all weekend but once I get to work and RD into it is when the problems start. The first symptom seems to be the start button stops working, then parts of the skin, especially the arrows on combo boxes start going black. When it occurred today the cpu didn't seem to go up like it has in the past. I'll say again that the problems don't happen immediately I start RD, it may be fine for several hours before going wrong.Also reconnecting RD or logging in locally wont fix the problem, I have to unload WB.

Both machines have the Dogma X4 skin. It has also happened with the non-alpha dogmax3 skin.

When running in RD the system info changes to say alpha blending isn't supported.

I hope you can shed some light on what's going on here, it's very frustrating having to keep unloading WB. I'll upload the screenshot from the laptop in a bit but will have to try and get a RD screenshot tomorrow.

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The screenshot for the laptop is here

http://www.aowz36.dsl.pipex.com/ss.jpg

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Neil Banfield

Join Date 04/2001

+1104

Would I be right in saying the laptop issue only occurs on maximized windows with that particular skin?

It looks like the skin is missing an image and thats why its painting incorrectly.

Next time it happens on the main PC, try reapplying the skin without unloading WB. Does this also fix it?

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Ok on the laptop, re-applying the skin does fix the problem. I also noticed today that the corruption seems to occur after the screen-saver has kicked in (doesn't happen very often so I hadn't associated the two things). My screensaver is currently the electric sheep screensaver. I also have to enter a password to return from the screensaver which may be relevant.

So far today the RD session hasn't gone wrong. The remote desktop session is windowed on the local PC, not full screen since the local machine has a much higher resolution than the remote machine I am connecting to.

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The RD session just went bad. Start menu stopped appearing followed by black combo box arrows and black menu entries. Unfortunately I couldn't get a screenshot, however reapplying the skin without unloading WB seems to have fixed everything for now, event the start menu is working again.

My one gripe with re-applying the skin or even reloading WB is that it insists on returning my double height start-bar to a single height bar so I have to unlock it, resize it and lock it again. I don't know if that's on the bug list but it is quite annoying to keep having to resize it.

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