Do decent Style XP users exist?

from WinCustomize Forums

It's funny because I debate all kinds of issues on the net. Political issues. Military history. Game industry issues and of course skinning issues.

But as a group, none of them compare to Style XP "advocates". I don't know why but we are quite regularly subjected to flames by their users on our news groups, forums, and even Download.com.

Let me give you a few examples:

Usenet thread

This is just one guy recently - but it's typical. If you look at his stuff, look at how LONG it is. And what is his alleged source of why he needs to attack us? Because I had the audacity to point out that Style XP just patches uxtheme.dll. He won't accept that. But if you read through it, you notice a pattern, his claims are the exact same claptrap Style XP advocates have gone with for years. It's as if there's a bunch of talking points.

But we'll see this kind of thing on forums ranging from Neowin to deviantART to people coming onto our own news server. It's not enough for them to bash WindowBlinds, they act like Style XP is some sort of great program that they're on a mission from above to sell to everyone.

They can't just use it, no they have to go out and trash our software. Nevermind that if it weren't for our software, uxtheme wouldn't likely exist in the first place.

I honestly can say that I advocate people try whatever they want and make their own choice. I say that because I feel pretty confident at this point that WindowBlinds is such a superior choice that the only reason not to use WindowBlinds for skinning would be price at which point free uxtheme patchers become preferable.

Which is what makes me suspect that many of these people who are so militant, so aggressive about making sure the world knows that "WindowBlinds sux" and "Style XP rulez" are people who are in denial. They paid $20 for something that patches parts of their OS and don't want to admit they made a poor purchasing choice. They don't want to admit that they could have gotten the same functionality (or virtually all of it) for free.

What gets me is when someone tries to accuse *us* of "bad mouthing" Style XP. There's nothing we've posted that is even remotely equivalent to TGT Soft's Style XP marketing document. Maybe these people can't accept that a company would so boldly write false statements like this (according to their document - updated for Style XP 2 so recent - no one else skins the Explorer task panels as one example).

It's incredibly frustrating as you can imagine.


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14,672 views 55 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Do decent Style XP users exist?

Yeah... The ones that came to their senses and, now use WB


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Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Brad, I just read all those pages on google and I about threw up. That guy makes me sick.

I would rather PAY for WB than use a hack.
Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Brad, the link you posted for TGT Soft's Style XP Marketing Document is broken. The correct link cannot be posted because the WC coding bug Deletes the part of the URL...

trying something... h ttp://www.tgtsoft.com/prod_sXP_benefits.php

Remove the space and change Uppercase Letters to lower case in order to make the URL work

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Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
some people have too much time on their hands and are too stubborn for their own good. I personally would just let them spew their guts out on whatever they want. Eventually, and probably very quickly people will begin to see how arrogant and ignorant these individuals are.

whatever happened with that suit that tgtsoft brought against you?
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Ok, Bob Ladbury obviously does not have all his dogs barking at the same tree... He is clearly biased, highly motivated, and not averse to employing any of the tactics of which he accuses you. Perhaps he is projecting... At any rate, in my opinion he is clearly misguided, but not an idiot. He actually must be fairly intelligent, for he definitely has some skill at dissembly, misdirectrion, obfuscation, non sequiters, and circular logic. Were he not quite so perverse, one might even admire him.

Speaking of dissembly et al, that little table at the bottom of the TGT Soft>Products>Style XP>Benefits page is certainly a masterpiece. If one were to be completely ignorant of the subject, or worse, having only enough knowledge to be dangerous, one might actually believe and be convinced by the half-truths, total fabrications, and completely irrelevant points cited in the table.

As for your original question, Brad, I do believe that decent people who use Style XP do exist. The problem, from your perspective, is that most of those who are decent people are embarassed by zealots such as Mr. Ladbury, and simply withdraw from the fray. Many of the others simply don't know any better.

I speak from experience. I was a Style XP user. Before I discovered and tried WB.



Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top
No intention of hijacking here or offending any Dodge truck owners but I have had 2 Dodge pickup trucks. Supplied by my Co and not my choice. I found both to be terrible. Whenever I asked another Dodge owner what they thought they all would say I love it, Its the best, etc. While being an owner I knew these people were full of it. The amazing thing is when I asked the same people the same question AFTER they got a new truck (no one buys ever another dodge) they ALL say the same thing. It was crap. They all Love the new truck they are driving.

They paid $20 for something that patches parts of their OS and don't want to admit they made a poor purchasing choice. They don't want to admit that they could have gotten the same functionality (or virtually all of it) for free.

Most accurate statement ever!

I am done babbling.
Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Hmm I think dodge trucks are awful trucks also.
Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Another thing is that you can go into virtually ANY Msstyle/StyleXP section on a forum and you will very likely never see any WB skinners in there stirring the shit up. No 'StyleXP sucks', or 'use WB style xp is X thing' yadda yadda.
I think it's mostly the younger people who were introduced to skinning through XP and StyleXP and have appointed themselves self-taught 'experts' on what is what.

In saying that, when someone from that scene does start some crap, the WB fans do tend to sink to that level sometimes too and then the flame wars start.
It's a shame people can't just co-exist happily without they're stupid little attempts to use any excuse to try and flag their egos by pretending to be knowledgable on subjects, when they only have half-assed, 2nd hand facts to rely on.

Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Well it just goes to show TGTsoft has brainwashed almost the entire skinning community, ZOMBIES!!!! was saying this few weeks back on IRC on how bad it has gotten. It show's people have no respect anymore or to few, cannot even post anything on Neowin or other places except get rattled and burned by users if you post something related to skinning. You'll get accused for ripping colours shapes its so ridiculous these days anything users will do to give you or a company a bad name.
Reply #11 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Hippy that's because we, for the most part, are a slightly more mature bunch of people, and we are so confident in our product that we don't feel the need to strike down another, figuring , eventually they will come to their senses or perish.
to my mind, the people who are trashing stardock products , mostly are doing so because stardock holds the largest share of paying customers among the skinning products available, and they (the trash talkers) in their small minds figure if they can convince someone this product isn't as valuable as theirs is, they might actually get the sale first.
Reply #12 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Hey, I use StyleXP - for my alltime favourite skin, XPerience. Also, I consider myself to be quite decent most of the time

Reply #13 from WinCustomize Forums Top
but andreasv, you don't trash stardock...
Reply #14 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Well as far as I'm concerned, I was keen on ZLauncher for Palm Os before I turned to customizing my desktop OS (let's say at least 1 week and a half ) and -I don't know why- I chose Style XP (Maybe it was the first one in sight).
It's alright for me for the moment but since i browse this site (let's say at least, 1 week lol²) i saw good comments about WindowBlind(s?) so for me the choice is clear: get both of 'em since I think 20€ is affordable.

This StyleXP vs WB opposition is pretty like Nintendo vs Sega (RIP), Nintendo vs Sony, Sony vs Micros... oups no, Windows vs MacOS, Renault vs Peugeot and so on. For both you'll always find lovers and haters.
This guy on the StyleXP side was totally stupid but i guess this type of guy also exist among the WB users so... Take it easy, and remember this chinese proverb: "why the f@*k should I have to choose for this girl or that one if I'm the pimp?" (not sure it was really chinese afterwards)

So enjoy and don't notice haters.
Reply #15 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Wonder what the style XP guys will do when SP2 comes out and renders StyleXP unuseable. hmmmm....
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Reply #16 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Let me give this from a different perspective which might make it even clearer.

Stardock makes Galactic Civilizations. Which generates more revenue than WindowBlinds. It also has an "arch" competitor called Master of Orion. It has another competitor called Space Empires IV. People often feel very passionate on their games. It's very competitive.

YET... We almost never get trashed by its users. Our users don't go on their forums and attack them. Heck, I exchange friendly emails back and forth with the developer of Space Empires IV regularly (including today). The project manager of Master of Orion III at Atari is a great guy. I've been to his house even.

AND.. Samurize and Litestep compete with DesktopX. Yet not only do we host themes for both products (and we host Samurize.com ourselves free of charge), we have a very good relationship with developers of both.

You don't see Samurize or Litestep users coming on and trashing DesktopX. And let's be candid, early builds of DesktopX were a LOT more problematic than WindowBlinds ever was.

But despite these things, it's specifically Style XP "advocates" who feel the need to go onto forums to not just recommend Style XP but to actually harshly attack and spread misinformation about WindowBlinds.  It's really discouraging because they probably fool some % of people. The whole "WindowBlinds is slow" BS is just one example.  The 0 foot print nonsense is another one since it's so easy to prove false.

It's hard to understand, based on our experiences with all these kinds of programs why the users of ONE specific product would be so consistently militant.  At various times on Download.com WindowBlinds, which used to enjoy a 90% approval rating there, will suddenly dip into the low 50%'s approval with a bunch of "WindowBlinds is garbage, get Style XP, it's better..."  We've never had that happen with any of our other products.

Reply #17 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Kona, I'm sure they'll get Style XP to work with Sp2. Of course, it's just an example of the hackiness they have to release a new version every time MS updates the OS.
Reply #18 from WinCustomize Forums Top
kona0197: probably just updating the program so it works. patching uxtheme.dll by hand still works with Service Pack 2, so there is no reason why a program should not be able to do so.

Maybe these people can't accept that a company would so boldly write false statements like this (according to their document - updated for Style XP 2 so recent - no one else skins the Explorer task panels as one example).

reminds me of how long you said that Y´z Dock could not use ICOs, which also was a false statement for months. i believe you though that you just did not know better.
but yeah that task panel (shellstyles) thing is not only wrong, but also stupid to say, especially as those are independent from the theme service and can be hacked/replaced even without patching uxtheme.dll. the only thing they get from the current theme are the scrollbars.

most true statement comes from Hippy. personally i would go even further and say that there is no difference at all. there are extremely brainwashed individuals on both sides of the fence. not recognizing that and seeing it only on the other side is quite natural for this, so don´t worry

Windows classic (free of bugs and visual glitches, extremely ergonomic as well) user here.
Reply #19 from WinCustomize Forums Top

moshi - Y'z dock didn't support icons. If it became true it was, as you say, only because I was not aware of tht change. But WindowBlinds supporting shellstyles is so obvious given any screenshot for the past couple of yeras shows them.

I agre though there are brain washed peple. But the difference is that most people realize it's just software. It's not a religion. Which begs the question - why is it Style XP users are so much more militant than users of other products? Even uxtheme.dll patch users aren't nearly as aggressive and they actually have more reason (it's free and they can justify that they're trying to save people money).

Reply #20 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Y´z Dock has support for ICO since version 0.7.0 http://www.designtechnika.com/board/index.php?showtopic=3414&hl=

maybe one thing is that you recognize it more often. remember when you were announcing new skins at Neowin almost daily and always put a [vs] in front of the post? that of course did attract non-WB users when they saw those threads on the front page. of course they felt a little fooled after that. please don´t start on naming conventions now. you and i know how many people really use the term visual styles for WindowBlinds skins
i am pretty sure you would see the same thing at WC if somebody would try to advertise his msstyle on the message board here. you wouldn´t get a single constructive critic on the skin, but plenty of posts how great WindowBlinds is and how much StylesXP sucks (although no application is required to use msstyles). please note that it does not really matter if that is factually true or not.

btw: i am surprised to hear you have good relationships with the current LiteStep developers. i thought you did not even know their name. but don´t be scared, i will not ask. just let´s say that Mulvane does not count as he is defending your freedom in Iraq since a while.

Reply #21 from WinCustomize Forums Top
but andreasv, you don't trash stardock...
Not that you know of
Reply #22 from WinCustomize Forums Top
This is going to an interesting thread when I have a chance to read it all.
Reply #23 from WinCustomize Forums Top
lol andreasv, I prefer to believe you don't.(ostritch syndrom I suppose)
Reply #24 from WinCustomize Forums Top

moshi: Visual styles have been used as the term for WindowBlinds skins for years now.  It is the term we use for them internally. It is the term other people use. It is a real sore point with me when people think that the term "visual style" should be exclusive to a particular skin format. What makes a .msstyles a visual styles but .UIS not a visual style? There is no logic to it.  Similarly, there are probably people out there who think that only Konfabulator can call their widgets "Widgets" but object to Samurize or DesktopX using the term widget.

You also give away a bit of bias there. You are equating the reaction on Neowin, a site I am very involved with, as a TGT Soft oriented site and WinCustomize, which is actually owned by Stardock, as a WB site.  The latter is true but the former is not.

If I went onto ThemeXP.org or TGT Soft's site, there might be more credence to that.  Besides, one thing you'll note on Neowin WindowBlinds users don't go and attack msstyles or Style XP posts (or if they do, it's very rare).

I think you have to concede that there is a fundamental difference in behavior between WindowBlinds advocates and Style XP advocates. The question is, why?

Reply #25 from WinCustomize Forums Top
#12 by AndreasV - 3/24/2004 10:05:56 AM
Hey, I use StyleXP - for my alltime favourite skin, XPerience. Also, I consider myself to be quite decent most of the time

OK, so it's settled, there is at least one decent StyleXP user...