WindowBlinds 10.5 update seems to make some games crash

from Stardock Forums

After updating, I could no longer start "Street Fighter V", which is an Unreal Engine 4-based game. If I restart the computer and disable WindowBlinds with pressing CTRL during login, the game starts without issues, but as soon as WindowBlinds is running, even if it's still using the system skin, the problem appears. I added the executable to the exclusion list and the briefly appearing game window confirms that it is indeed excluded from skinning, but this does not change the outcome. I will check whether I can find/download other UE4 games to see if they work.

I also have the crash log, but it seems to be completely uninformative. Let me know if there is any way I can help in narrowing this issue down. The last version I used which worked perfectly for me was 10.0.7.

OS: Windows 10 64 bit with Anniversary Update

EDIT: Unreal Tournament Pre-Alpha seems to work, so it's apparently not game engine-related.

windowblinds
9,583 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top

The thing is I believe WB does consume some resources game may require to run smoothly which I could simply turn it off if it's not the case. 

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

I am not sure what resources are you referring to, but I did try reseting my skin to the system one, which means WindowBlinds should be barely doing anything, and yet the game still crashes upon startup.

EDIT: Some more details I found:

I tried running the game after using the "Unload Windowblinds" option from the system tray icon. The game still did not start; it needs to be said though that this option did not restore my desktop to the same state it has when skipping WindowBlinds altogether upon login with holding CTRL, as my taskbar was colored with the accent color, while when skipping WindowBlinds on login, it would be simply black.

I also tried to be evil and start WindowBlinds by applying a sking while the game was running in a window - the moment the skin loading indicator disappeared, the game closed. :(

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Please contact support so we can assist you better (and collect system information)

https://esupport.stardock.com/index.php?/default_import/Tickets/Submit 

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

If you hold down ctrl when the game launches does it still crash?

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

Thank you for the responses. I raised a ticket as requested (#VJI-673-49983).

If I hold down CTRL while launching the game (but WindowBlinds is otherwise active), it still crashes. I am getting the impression though that this application was always excluded from the skinning process to begin with; I removed the explicit exclusion of the EXE file from the WindowsBlinds config (to check the difference between the CTRL and CTRL-less launch), and the title bar remains the normal Windows 10 bar in both cases for that second or two before it crashes. This probably has something to do with the game using Direct3D, which if I understand correctly won't be skinned unless I explicitly tell WindowBlinds to do so (I do not).