More flavors of DesktopX Pro Added!

This was an excellent choice. When I read that DX was going to be able to support exporting stand alone .Exe files I was really looking forward to it. However $499 was just too much to be able to send my friends a cool RSS feed object or send my mother a custom e-mail notification icon. I think $499 is a tremendous deal for a development platform like DX for a company. To be able to create an animated and functional object in only a few minutes is worth every penny for a company, but too much for the personal user. What I think Stardock has done correctly this time and so many times in the past is you went out and talked to your customers and asked them what they wanted, and within a few days provided it. That’s just good business. I think $129 for a personal DX Pro copy is a bit steep, but fair for all the hard work you have put into developing it. And I sincerely appreciate you offering a discount to your OD subscribers. $99 puts it within my decision making threshold.

This is where I think Microsoft went off course in not making it easy to create non .Net Framework dependant .Exe files. I code a lot in C# using the framework, but I hesitate creating anything to send to my family and friends because I know they haven’t installed the .Net Framework yet, and asking a 28K dial-up user to DL over 20MB just to let them use a small app I wrote is just too much. But, if they made it easy to create a fully encapsulated .Net stand alone .exe file, I’d be making apps left and right.

I’m really, really looking forward to .Net (C#) support for DX scripting. Combined with DX Pro you’ve got one heck of a great development platform. The upcoming 2.1 DX widget sounds like a great compromise. Just please, please, please do not make the DX widget recipients have to DL and load DX in a convoluted or OS intertwined way. For example, the default DX widget support install should NOT auto start with windows, so no start-up tasks, no MCP, do not add 463 start-up folders and 589 desktop icons and 54 different and hard to remove start-up hooks, do not turn on IconX by default, etc… If I send my friend a DX widget of a fish swimming around the screen, they should be able to automatically DL and install DX so that it is unobtrusive and only starts DX when the fish is running and then exists DX when the fish is no longer running. (Maybe entertain a minimalist widget runtime???)

DX2 is a great product and I’m looking forward to its future enhancements!

Okay, how do I purchase the 99$ version with an OD account ?

c242: https://www.stardock.com/products/desktopx/dx2proupgrade.asp

I'm glad Stardock listened to their customers and created a much less expensive non-commercial version.

Unfortunately, $99 on top of the price already paid for ObjectDesktop with DesktopX is just too much. $50 as an upgrade price for existing OD users would have been more appropriate and attractive. Tripling our cost just to add the "save as EXE" feature doesn't make sense.

man, i watched the heated debate yesterday and i must say i'm really pleased\impressed\happy\etc. that brad and the other folks at stardock listened. if i had a hat on, i tip it...

woah....i downloaded a couple of the example .exe files. pretty cool! the desktop pet was taking up over 5 MB of RAM and the betanews headline ticker was taking up nearly 12. i'm not sure if that's good or bad!?!?!

Nakor : Thanks !

Works like a charm, even with weather objects.

5 megs of RAM is nothing. Notepad uses over 4 megs here.

I'm of the same mind as Will Rose, SD has listened and worked with it's users/subscribers, but I won't pay $99 on top of ODNT, but that's my choice, and everyone carries on happy.

I'm looking forward to seeing stuff made with Pro... and who knows, it might just change my mind one day!

Cheers!

One more suggestion, add a WinCustomize section for the stand alone DX exe progs. That way it would be easy to figure out if the object needs DX or not.

Thanks!

I would suggest against a section for exe files. It would be a security issue to allow just anyone to upload executables. Would be a lot less reason for people to buy DXPro, as well.

Seeing as all uploads are approved prior to inclusion for downlod by visitors, they would be spotted for virus's etc... surely?

Seeing as the whole point is to make standalone exe's it would seem a little odd to try and stop people actually sharing them.... though I don't especially mind downloading traditional dx objects if people were really that bothered about downloading exe's.

Cheers

"Seeing as all uploads are approved prior to inclusion for download by visitors, they would be spotted for virus's etc... surely?"

No, I doubt they are all looked over. That is kind of the point of having non-executable files. Even if they are scanned for virii, that only works if your definitions are up-to-date and the virus has been discovered. Recent outbreaks lend toward pessimism.

"Seeing as the whole point is to make standalone exe's it would seem a little odd to try and stop people actually sharing them...."

Only if they are sharing them with friends and family. I am fairly certain that sharing them wholesale online would require you to use the $499 license, since that is no longer really 'private' use. It would be pretty counter productive for Stardock to let a few people spend all their time converting objects and uploading them, and even PAY for the transfer themselves, .

Actually nearly every section here has files that coudl in theory have viruses tucked into them. Anyone who wants to be that malicious can do nasty things.

I mean heck, on ThemeXP.org people are downloading REPLACEMENT XP kernels!

Does the free version expire in 30 days or so and does it require payment to use after a period of 30 days?

At least Babya System is free

Bakerstreet, it is was the commercial license users I was thinking of when I made the comment, but yes, for the $129 private license, the fact it was said for non-ditribution would suggest no uploading in that sense. But people write free plugins etc for programs, so I assume people with the full 499 license would still be quite likely to make free objects as well as sale objects. I dunno, at the end of the day I don't actually care that much, I use DX solely for the IconX side, and any objects always end up deleted from the desktop after a few minutes!

Cheers!